Was slipped upon her finger, a fair child.

He called this daughter Coralline. To him

She was a spray of whitest coral, found

Upon the coast where death's impatient sea

Hems in the narrow continent of life.

II.

Each day brought health and strength to Karagwe.

Each day he worked upon the cotton-field,

And every boll he picked had thought in it.

He labored, but his mind was otherwhere;

Strange fancies, faced with ignorance and doubt,

Came peering in, each jostling each aside,

Like men, who in a crowded market-place,

Push 'gainst the mob, to see some pageant pass.

All things were new and wonderful to him.

What were the papers that his owner read?

[Pg 30]

The marks and characters, what could they mean?

If speech, what then the use of oral speech?

At last by digging round the spreading roots

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