The Debatable Land by Arthur Willis Colton

It was chilly at that height. Gard rode all night down the mountain-side, and saw at last the lights of moon and sunrise mingling over the meadows and cornfields of a plantation close below him. The forest grew thinner and broke into clearing and pastures. He left the highway by an old cart-road whose ruts were grass-grown, though its centre was trodden hard by many human feet, and passed an empty building of rough boards -- a school-house or a negro church. The big chestnuts hung over it, and underbrush grew up to its windows. The path went to the door, swerved aside through the thicket, and at last ran into a little, lonely, hollow pasture, with the sunlight pouring over its edge as into a cup. He picketed his horse to a thin sapling that would bend and let the horse eat, and lay down near a bowlder where the sunlight seemed to be the yellowest, smiling to feel the warmth steal through him. "There's too much luxury in my bones for an evangelist." Presently he was asleep. The sun mounted, swung around by the south, and the shadow of the bowlder went over the sleeper. An old negro, with bowed head and cane in hand, stumped vigorously along the path towards the building under the chestnuts. He passed the bowlder on the other side, and saw neither the sleeper nor the horse picketed among the saplings and feeding quietly. He wore a suit of fine broadcloth, the coat lined with silk and stained and threadbare, a white vest, a blue, dotted cravat, and a soft, gray hat. After that the clearing was silent except for passing crows and drowsy insects.

Suddenly the woods became choral, a burst of singing from the chestnut grove. Gard started, sat up, and listened.