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Studies in Computational Intelligence 821

Rafał Scherer

Computer
Vision Methods
for Fast Image
Classification
and Retrieval
Studies in Computational Intelligence

Volume 821

Series editor
Janusz Kacprzyk, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
e-mail: kacprzyk@[Link]
The series “Studies in Computational Intelligence” (SCI) publishes new develop-
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Rafał Scherer

Computer Vision Methods

for Fast Image Classification
and Retrieval

123
Rafał Scherer
Institute of Computational Intelligence
Częstochowa University of Technology
Częstochowa, Poland

ISSN 1860-949X ISSN 1860-9503 (electronic)

Studies in Computational Intelligence
ISBN 978-3-030-12194-5 (hardcover) ISBN 978-3-030-12195-2 (eBook)
ISBN 978-3-030-12197-6 (softcover)
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Preface

Computer vision and image retrieval and classification are a vital set of methods
used in various engineering, scientific and business applications. In order to
describe an image, visual features must be detected and described. Usually, the
description is in the form of vectors. The book presents methods for accelerating
image retrieval and classification in large datasets. Some of the methods (Chap. 5)
are designed to work directly in relational database management systems.
The book is the result of collaboration with colleagues from the Institute of
Computational Intelligence at the Częstochowa University of Technology. I would
like to thank my former Ph.D. students Dr. Rafał Grycuk and Dr. Patryk Najgebauer
for their cooperation.
I would like to express my sincere thanks to my friend Prof. Marcin
Korytkowski for his invaluable help in research and to Prof. Leszek Rutkowski,
who introduced me to scientific work and supported me in a friendly manner. I am
also grateful to the Institute of Computational Intelligence at the Częstochowa
University of Technology for providing a scholarly environment for both teaching
and research.
Finally, I am truly grateful to my wife Magda, my children Karolina and
Katarzyna for their love and patience and to my mother for raising me in the way
that she did.

Częstochowa, Poland Rafał Scherer

November 2018

v
Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2 Feature Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1 Local Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.1 Scale-Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.2 Speed-Up Robust Features (SURF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2 Edge Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2.1 Canny Edge Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3 Blob Detection and Blob Extraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.4 Clustering Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.4.1 K-means Clustering Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.4.2 Mean Shift Clustering Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.5 Segmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.6 Global Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.6.1 Colour and Edge Directivity CEDD Descriptor . . . . . . . . . 27
2.7 Summary and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3 Image Indexing Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.1 Image Classification by Fuzzy Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.1.1 Boosting-Generated Simple Fuzzy Classifiers . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.1.2 Classification of a Query Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.1.3 Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.1.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.2 Salient Object Detector and Descriptor by Edge Crawler . . . . . . . 44
3.2.1 System for Content-Based Image Retrieval . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.2.2 Experimental Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.2.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

vii
viii Contents

3.3 Fast Two-Level Image Indexing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

3.3.1 Hash Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.3.2 Structure of the Proposed Descriptor Index . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.3.3 Index Search Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.3.4 Experimental Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.3.5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.4 Image Colour Descriptor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.4.1 Method Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.4.2 Color Descriptor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.4.3 Colour Relationship Sub-descriptor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.4.4 Descriptor Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.4.5 Experimental Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.4.6 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.5 Fast Dictionary Matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.5.1 Description of the Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.5.2 Method Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.5.3 Comparison Between Descriptors and Dictionary . . . . . . . . 73
3.5.4 Matching Sets of Keypoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.5.5 Experimental Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.5.6 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3.6 Summary and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4 Novel Methods for Image Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.1 Algorithm for Discontinuous Edge Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.1.1 Proposed Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
4.1.2 Experimental Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
4.1.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.2 Interest Point Localization Based on the Gestalt Laws . . . . . . . . . 95
4.2.1 Problem Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
4.2.2 Method Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.2.3 Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
4.2.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
4.3 Summary and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
5 Image Retrieval and Classification in Relational Databases . . . . . . . 107
5.1 Bag of Features Image Classification in Relational Databases . . . . 108
5.1.1 System Architecture and Relational Database Structure . . . 109
5.1.2 Numerical Simulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
5.1.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Contents ix

5.2 Bag of Features Image Retrieval in Relational Databases . . . . . . . 114

5.2.1 Description of the Proposed System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
5.2.2 Numerical Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
5.2.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
5.3 Database Indexing System Based on Boosting and Fuzzy
Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
5.3.1 Building Visual Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
5.3.2 Proposed Database Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
5.3.3 Numerical Simulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
5.3.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
5.4 Database Retrieval System Based on the CEDD Descriptor . . . . . . 126
5.4.1 Simulation Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
5.4.2 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
5.5 Summary and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
6 Concluding Remarks and Perspectives in Computer Vision . . . . . . . 137
Chapter 1
Introduction

In recent times, one can observe the increasing development of multimedia tech-
nologies and their rising dominance in life and business. Society is becoming more
eager to use new solutions as they facilitate life, primarily by simplifying contact
and accelerating the exchange of experience with others, what was not encountered
on such a large scale many years ago.
Computer vision solutions are being developed increasingly to oversee produc-
tion processes in order to ensure their correct operation. Until now, most of them
could only be properly supervised by humans. Control requires focusing and con-
sists in constantly performing identical activities. Work monotony lowers human
concentration, which is more likely to make a mistake or overlook important facts.
Healthcare, and in particular medical diagnostics, is one of the areas that provide
a relatively broad spectrum of possible applications for computer vision solutions. In
the past, most methods focused on processing and delivery of results in the most read-
able form to the doctor’s diagnosis for analysis. These include medical imaging, such
as computed tomography, magnetic resonance and ultrasonography, which transform
signals from the device into a diagnostic readable image. Now, the diagnosis can be
automatised thanks to image classification.
The most popular way to search vast collections of images and video which are
generated every day in a tremendous amount is realized by keywords and meta
tags or just by browsing them. Emergence of content-based image retrieval (CBIR)
in the 1990s enabled automatic retrieval of images to a certain extent. Various
CBIR tasks include searching for images similar to the query image or retrieving
images of a certain class [11, 20, 21, 28, 29, 31, 41, 50, 51, 53] and classification
[2, 6, 10, 18, 19, 22, 30, 44, 52] of the query image. Such content-based image
matching remains a challenging problem of computer science. Image matching con-
sists of two relatively difficult tasks: identifying objects in images and fast searching
through large collections of identified objects. Identifying objects on images is still

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 1

R. Scherer, Computer Vision Methods for Fast Image Classification
and Retrieval, Studies in Computational Intelligence 821,
[Link]
2 1 Introduction

a challenge as the same objects and scenes can be viewed under different imaging
conditions. There are many previous works dedicated to the problem formulated in
this way. Some of them are based on color representation [15, 25, 39], textures [9, 12,
17, 46], shape [16, 23, 49] or edge detectors [37, 38, 56]. Local invariant features
have gained a wide popularity [32–34, 36, 45]. The most popular local keypoint
detectors and descriptors are SURF [4], SIFT [32] or ORB [42].
In content-based image retrieval and classification, we can distinguish two
approaches. The first one gradually generalises information from an image. To this
group, we can include methods based on machine learning such as convolutional
neural networks, e.g. [8, 26] or older methods based on histograms [40, 48]. These
methods try to reduce the amount of visual feature data to describe the entire image at
the highest possible level. Neural networks can be trained to recognise and classify
particular elements of an image, but they lose some information that is crucial to
determine if the content between images is identical.
To check similarity between images we can use methods from the second popular
group that is based on local interest points (keypoints), or other features that describe
the local content of an image. Such methods do not generalise the content of an image
and do not try to classify it. They usually generate significant amount of data, but
they can find similar fragments of content between images. Thanks to this, this
group of methods found multiple applications in video tracking and processing, for
example, to correct content transition between frames during the camera move [14,
55]. Another popular application is a three-dimensional object reconstruction from
a set of images. Some popular methods include SIFT, SURF, HOG, ORB, BRIEF,
FREAK, with many modifications [3, 5, 24, 27, 43, 47, 54].
In the case of the first group of methods, work with a larger set of images is
easier, because the result features are simple and in most cases can be easily stored
and searched. But in the case of the second group, the main problem is a large and
variable amount of data per image. To speed up the search process, we can use
methods that can learn keypoint structure or descriptors [7, 13].
Developing content-based image comparison methods that simulate human visual
perception is a very hard and complicated process. Image recognition is natural
and very simple for humans but when we try to mimic the process we face many
problems as it is very complicated, uses multiple hidden techniques developed during
the evolution and we only have a rough sense of how the brain works. Most of them,
e.g. human imagination, are currently unavailable for computer systems. Also huge
knowledge, which humans acquire through the entire life is hard to store for machine
learning systems and we excel in visual identification. Thus, image comparison
algorithms try to extract and simplify this large amount of data from images to form
a structurized description that is easy to compare for computers, such as human text
writing [1, 35]. But image description is extracted only from the image pixel spatial
distribution and is not supported by human imagination or knowledge. That caused
that image description in most cases is not fully satisfactory for human users.
The book presents some methods for accelerating image retrieval and classifica-
tion in large collections of images using so-called hand-crafted features.
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Chapter 2
Feature Detection

Computer vision relies on image features describing points, edges, objects or colour.
The book concerns solely so-called hand-made features contrary to learned features
which exist in deep learning methods. Image features can be generally divided into
global and local methods.
Global methods extract features from the entire image without dividing into more
and less significant areas. To this group, we can include histogram-based algorithms
such as histogram of oriented gradients (HOG) or colour coherence vector (CCV)
[12, 47]. In most cases, they generate a constant amount of description data which is
easier to compare and store, on the other hand, image comparison by histogram-based
algorithms gives only a vague similarity for a user.
Local feature-based methods try at first to find significant characteristic areas of
an image based on Laplacian of Gaussian (LoG) or Difference of Gaussian (DoG)
algorithms [25, 64]. And then they generate a description of their neighbourhood.
These methods are more accurate, on the other hand, can generate a lot of description
data and that amount varies per image. Local feature methods based on keypoints
are efficient in similarity detection between images but less in content recognition.
Commonly used methods of this kind are SIFT, SURF, ORB, BRIEF, FAST [4, 6,
46, 48, 49].

2.1 Local Features

2.1.1 Scale-Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT)

SIFT (Scale-Invariant Feature Transform) is an algorithm used to detect and describe

local features of an image. It was presented for the first time in [37] and is now

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 7

R. Scherer, Computer Vision Methods for Fast Image Classification
and Retrieval, Studies in Computational Intelligence 821,
[Link]
8 2 Feature Detection

patented by the University of British Columbia. For each keypoint, which describes
the local image feature, we generate a feature vector, that can be used for further
processing. The algorithm is immune to changing scale, rotation and light change.
SIFT consists of the four main steps [36]
1. Scale-space extreme detection—Extraction of potential keypoints by scanning
the entire image,
Constructing scale-space,
Laplacian approximation by Gaussian blur,
2. Keypoint localization—Selection of stable keypoints (resistant to change of scale
and rotation),
Removing not important keypoints (noise).
3. Orientation assignment—Finding keypoint orientation resistant to the image
transformation,
4. Keypoint descriptor—Generating vectors describing keypoints.
During the process of creating scale-space, the image is rescaled (creating octaves) in
order to detect the most important and resistant features. After this step, a scale-space
pyramid is obtained. This pyramid consists of octaves, sorted from the largest to the
smallest octave.
In the next stage, Gaussian blur is applied. This step is performed by the following
Gaussian operator [37]

L(x, y, σ) = G(x, y, σ) ∗ I (x, y), (2.1)

where L is the output image, G represents the Gaussian operator, I is the input image.
In the next step, the Laplacian is calculated, in order to detect edges. It should be
done by calculation of the second derivative, but this operation is computationally
expensive. In order to overcome this nuisance, the Difference of Gaussians (DOG)
is performed. The next stage of the SIFT algorithm is the localisation of keypoints.
This step consists of two important steps
• localisation of local extrema on DoG images,
• setting the extrema position.
The localisation of local extrema is based on comparing the pixels with their neigh-
bours. On a discrete image, the brightest pixel not always has the same position as
local extrema. Thus, this issue was solved by using Taylor’s theorem

∂ DT 1 ∂2 D
D(x) = D + x + xT x. (2.2)
∂x 2 ∂x 2
Each keypoint contains two features: strength and orientation in which keypoint is
directed. It is calculated by gradients of its neighbours. Each resultant SIFT keypoint
descriptor consists of two vectors. The first one contains the point position (x, y),
2.1 Local Features 9

scale (detected scale), response (response of the detected feature, strength), orienta-
tion (orientation measured anti-clockwise from +ve x-axis), the Laplacian (sign of
the Laplacian for fast matching purposes). The second one contains the descriptor
of 128 length.

2.1.2 Speed-Up Robust Features (SURF)

SURF (Speeded-Up Robust Features) is a method which allows to detect and describe
local features of an image. SURF is an improved version of SIFT in terms of speed
(see Sect. 2.1.1) [37]. It was presented for the first time in [4], nowadays is widely
used in various systems e.g. image recognition, object description [24], segmentation
[23], image analysis [24] and image retrieval [22, 57], object tracking [21], and many
others. SURF is similar algorithm to SIFT. The Integral Images are used instead of
DOG (Difference of Gaussian), which allows it to work much faster than SIFT. An
important advantage of SURF is that it generates less data than SIFT (SURF has a
shorter descriptor of 64 length), which speeds up further processing. The algorithm
has also a parallel version [53, 56] thus, it generates the results much faster. SURF
generates image keypoints (interesting points) which allows to extract and match
local features, e.g. in pairs of images. For each keypoint, which indicates a local
image feature, a feature vector is generated. It describes the keypoint surrounding
and allows to determine its orientation. These vectors are often used for further
processing in many computer vision methods. SURF consists of four main steps:
• Computing Integral Images,
• Fast Hessian Detector,
– The Hessian,
– Constructing the Scale-Space,
– Accurate Interest Point Localization,
• Interest Point Descriptor,
– Orientation Assignment,
– Descriptor Components,
• Generating vectors describing the keypoint.
In the first step, the integral images are calculated. It allows to increase the efficiency.
This method is very simple and it is used for calculation of pixels sum in the given
rectangle area. This process can be described by the following formula [15]


i<x 
j<y
I (x, y) = I (x, y), (2.3)
i=0 j=0
10 2 Feature Detection

Fig. 2.1 Calculating area

using integral images

where I is a processed image and I (x, y) is a sum of pixels in given area. The
usage of integral images in order to calculating area is reduced to four operation. Let
us consider a rectangle described by vertices A, B, C, D. The example is presented
in Fig. 2.1. The sum of pixel intensities is calculated by formula [15]

= A + D − (C + B). (2.4)

In the next step, the Hessian matrix determinant is calculated. The Hessian matrix is
presented below [15]  
∂2 f ∂2 f
∂x 2 ∂x∂ y
H ( f (x, y)) = ∂2 f ∂2 f . (2.5)
∂x∂ y ∂ y 2

The determinant of this matrix can be calculated by [15]

 
∂2 f ∂2 f ∂2 f
det (H ) = − . (2.6)
∂x 2 ∂ y 2 ∂x∂ y

The calculation of the local maximum by the Hessian matrix determinant depends
from the sign of this determinant. If its value is greater or equal 0, this area is
determined as the local maximum. In the next step, the scale-space is constructed.
This step is used in order to make the keypoint immune to changing scale and
rotation. In the interest point localization stage the min H essian parameter is needed.
To determine the threshold value. The localization is calculated by comparing the
Hessian determinant with its neighbours.
The process of creating the keypoint descriptors is performed by using Haar
wavelets (see Fig. 2.2) which describe the keypoints gradients. In order to compute
the descriptor orientation, the algorithm searches the largest Haar wavelets sum in
π/3 (60) window and step +−15 (see Fig. 2.3).
2.1 Local Features 11

Fig. 2.2 Haar wavelets. These filters calculate responses for x (left) and y (right) directions

Fig. 2.3 Descriptor orientation assignment. The window of π/3 size moves around the origin and
determines the sum of largest wavelets sum, which allows obtaining the longest vector [15]

Fig. 2.4 Visual

representation of the SURF
descriptor. The descriptor
contains 16 subregions and
each of them consists of
5 × 5 calculated Haar
wavelets [15]

The descriptor consists of 4 × 4 wavelet group matrix. Each of them is composed of

the calculated Haar wavelets and is divided into 5 × 5 elements (Fig. 2.4).
The output SURF keypoint consists of two vectors. The first one contains: point
position (x, y), scale (detected scale), response (response of the detected feature,
strength), orientation (orientation measured anti-clockwise from +ve x-axis), the
Laplacian (the sign of the Laplacian for fast matching purposes). The second one
describes the intensity distribution of the pixels within the neighbourhood of the
interest point (64 values). In order to generate keypoints, SURF requires one input
parameter—min H essian. During the experiments, this variable was usually set to
12 2 Feature Detection

Fig. 2.5 The SURF algorithm example with keypoint detection and matching

Fig. 2.6 Another example of keypoint matching by the SURF algorithm

400. This value was obtained empirically, and it was suitable in many experiments.
The method is immune to change of scale and rotation, which allows for matching
corresponding keypoints in similar images [27, 43]. Figure 2.5 shows an example of
the SURF method with two images with similar objects. The lines between these two
images represent the corresponding keypoints found on both images. The rectangle
on the observed image pinpoints the object location (Fig. 2.6).

2.2 Edge Detection

Edge detection [7] is one of the most commonly used stages in image processing [30].
This step is extremely relevant in the image description process. It allows detecting
the object shape, which is crucial in further steps of image classification or retrieval.
Usually, edges are detected between two different regions in the image (gradient
change). They occur when the image intensity or its first derivative changes. The
visual representation of derivatives is presented in Fig. 2.7.
2.2 Edge Detection 13

Fig. 2.7 Examples of image derivatives

There are four types of edges (see Fig. 2.8) [30]

• Ramp—edge values increase gradually. This edge profile is commonly used in
photos. It can be also found after image blur process,
• Step—intensity value changes abruptly, from one side to another. This is the most
desirable edge profile. They are often observed in computer images,
• Line—this edge profile is composed of two closely positioned edges. They are
detected by the first derivative filters and they are immune to most blur techniques,
• Roof—this profile is frequently observed in lines on the photographic images.
Essentially, the edge detection process is based on detecting significant local changes
in the image. Let us take for consideration one dimension, the step edge is related to
a local peak of the first derivative. In such case, the gradient is defined as the measure
of change of a function. It can also be considered as an array of continuous function
14 2 Feature Detection

Fig. 2.8 One-dimensional edge profiles

samples of image intensity. Thus, the gradient is equivalent of the first derivative and
it is described by [30]
⎡ ⎤ ⎡∂ f ⎤
Gx ∂x
G[ f (x, y)] = ⎣ ⎦=⎣ ⎦, (2.7)
∂f
Gy ∂y

where G x and G y is expressed by filters. In order to approximate the gradient in both

directions (x, y) the following filters can be used [2, 52]
• the Sobel operator ⎡ ⎤
−1 0 1
Gx = ⎣−2 0 2⎦ , (2.8)
−1 0 1
2.2 Edge Detection 15
⎡ ⎤
1 2 1
Gy = ⎣ 0 0 0 ⎦ , (2.9)
−1 −2 −1

• the Prewit filter ⎡ ⎤

−1 0 1
Gx = ⎣−1 0 1⎦ , (2.10)
−1 0 1
⎡ ⎤
1 1 1
Gy = ⎣ 0 0 0 ⎦ , (2.11)
−1 −1 −1

• the Robert’s Cross operator

0 1
Gx = , (2.12)
−1 0

1 0
Gy = , (2.13)
0 −1

• the Scharr’s operator ⎡ ⎤

−3 0 3
Gx = ⎣−10 0 10⎦ , (2.14)
−3 0 3
⎡ ⎤
3 10 3
Gy = ⎣ 0 0 0 ⎦ . (2.15)
−3 −10 −3

In order to determine the edge strengths (the gradient magnitude), we can use the
Euclidean (2.16) distance measure [38]

|G| = G 2x + G 2y . (2.16)

It is common practice to approximate this magnitude by the absolute values

 
|G| ≈ |G x | + G y  , (2.17)

or  
|G| ≈ max(|G x | , G y ), (2.18)

where G x is horizontal direction gradient and G y is vertical direction gradient. The

edge direction (angle) is determined by the following formula [7, 38]
16 2 Feature Detection

Fig. 2.9 The edge detection by the Sobel filters. Figure 2.9a—input image, Fig. 2.9b—edge detec-
tion (input image taken from the PASCAL VOC dataset [16])

 
Gx
Θ = arctan , (2.19)
Gy

where Θ is measured with respect to the x axis. It should be noted, that the gradient
magnitude is independent of the direction of the edge. An example of edge detection
by the Sobel filters is presented in Fig. 2.9.

2.2.1 Canny Edge Detection

Canny edge detection is one of the most commonly used image processing methods
for detecting edges [3, 59], proposed by John F. Canny in 1986. It takes as input a
gray scale image, and produces an image showing the positions of tracked intensity
discontinuities. The algorithm is composed of 5 separate steps:
1. Noise reduction. The image input is smoothed by applying an appropriate Gaus-
sian filter.
2. Finding the intensity gradient of the image. During this step, the edges are marked
where gradients of the image have large magnitudes.
3. Non-maxima suppression. If the gradient magnitude at a pixel is larger than
those at its two neighbours in the gradient direction, mark the pixel as an edge.
Otherwise, mark the pixel as the background.
4. Edge tracking by hysteresis. The final edges are determined by suppressing all
edges that are not connected to the genuine edges.
The result of the Canny operator is determined by the following parameters:
• Width—of the Gaussian filter used in the first stage directly affects the results of
the Canny algorithm,
• Threshold (step)—used during edge tracking by hysteresis. It is difficult to provide
a generic threshold that works well on all images.
The Canny detector finds edges where the pixel intensity changes (image gradient).
Before edge detection, not important edges need to be removed. Thus, the Gaus-
2.2 Edge Detection 17

Fig. 2.10 Figure 2.10a shows an input image and Fig. 2.10b represents the edge detected image.
As shown, the edges were detected correctly, because the image gradient is low (Fig. 2.10a was
taken from the Corel image dataset [55])

Fig. 2.11 Another example of edge detection on an image taken from the Corel dataset [55]

sian smoothing is applied. This process is performed by the Gaussian function for
calculating transformation for each image pixel [38]

1 x 2 +y 2
G(x, y) = √ e− 2σ2 , (2.20)
2πσ 2

where x is the distance from pixel position in the horizontal axis, y is the distance from
pixel position in the vertical axis, σ is the standard deviation of Gaussian distribution
(Fig. 2.11).
In some cases, simple edge detection does not provide satisfying results. The
edges are not always complete, and they do not describe the entire object. In order
18 2 Feature Detection

Fig. 2.12 The edge linking process. Figure 2.12a—input image, Fig. 2.12b—edge detection, Fig.
2.12c—edge linking

to eliminate this nuisance, edge linking method is used. This algorithm simply con-
nects the edges in close proximity. This process is performed by repeating the edge
detection, with a lower step value parameter. The entire process is presented in
Fig. 2.12.

2.3 Blob Detection and Blob Extraction

Blob detection is one of the commonly used methods in image processing. It allows to
detect and extract a list of blobs (objects) in the image. In most cases, the blob distin-
guishes from the background and the other object. The filters used in edge detection
cannot be used due to the large size of the objects. The most common approach used
as preprocessing in blob detection is applying the Gaussian blur. Thus, the obtained
image is simplified, and not important details are removed. The blob detection is
widely used in various areas such as medicine [44], military, forensics [63] and
many others. Unfortunately, obtaining homogeneous objects from an image as a list
of pixels is extremely complicated. Especially when we deal with a heterogeneous
background, i.e. the objects containing multicoloured background. There are many
methods for extracting objects (blobs) from images [13, 22, 24]. These algorithms
are described by Andrew Kirillov [34]. The author distinguished four types of the
filters: Convex full, Left/Right Edges, Top/Bottom Edges, Quadrilateral. Figure 2.13
presents these blob detection methods. Figure 2.13a illustrates Convex full filter. As
can be seen, round edges of the objects are not detected correctly. Much better results
are obtained by the Top/Bottom Edges filter (Fig. 2.13C). Object edges are detected
mostly correctly, with individual exceptions. The Left/Right Edges method behaves
similarly (Fig. 2.13b). The last method has a problem with the detection of vertices
inside figures, e.g. star-shaped objects (Fig. 2.13d).
Blob extraction can be described by the following steps (Quadrilateral):
1. Locate each separate object in the input image,
2. Find object edge pixels (methods: Top/Bottom, Left/Right),
3. Detect four corners of the quadrilateral,
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
essential feature of the situation with the others. To secure even the
merest semblance of variety, those whose instincts were cross-
grained had to go out of their way to pick up trifling points of
difference, and the arguments over these had to be spun out with
the greatest possible care, to be kept going at all. I should fancy,
however, that this apparent concord only served to keep before their
minds, with added persistency, the fact that there was an opposition,
nursing its heretical wrath in solitude up on the Beech farm. At all
events, I seemed never to go into the grocery of a night without
hearing bitter remarks, or even curses, levelled at our household.
It was from these casual visits—standing about on the outskirts of
the gathering, beyond the feeble ring of light thrown out by the
kerosene lamp on the counter—that I learned how deeply the
Corners were opposed to peace. It appeared from the talk here that
there was something very like treason at the front. The victory at
Antietam—so dearly bought with the blood of our own people—had
been, they said, of worse than no use at all. The defeated Rebels
had been allowed to take their own time in crossing the Potomac
comfortably. They had not been pursued or molested since, and the
Corners could only account for this on the theory of treachery at
Union headquarters. Some only hinted guardedly at this. Others
declared openly that the North was being sold out by its own
generals. As for old “Jee” Hagadorn, who came in almost every
night, and monopolized the talking all the while he was present, he
made no bones of denouncing McClellan and Porter as traitors who
must be hanged.
Quivering with excitement, the red stubbly hair standing up all
round his drawn and livid face, his knuckles rapping out one fierce
point after another on the candle-box, as he filled the little hot room
with angry declamation. “Go it, Jee!”
“Give ’em Hell!”
“Hangin’s too good for ’em!” his auditors used to exclaim in
encouragement, whenever he paused for breath, and then he would
start off again still more furiously, till he had to gasp after every
word, and screamed “Lincoln-ah!” “Lee-ah!” “Antietam-ah!” and so
on, into our perturbed ears. Then I would go home, recalling how he
had formerly shouted about “Adam-ah!” and “Eve-ah!” in church,
and marvelling that he had never worked himself into a fit, or broken
a bloodvessel.
So between what Abner and Hurley said on the farm, and what
was proclaimed at the Corners, it was pretty hard to figure out
whether the war was going to stop, or go on much worse than ever.
Things were still in this doubtful state, when election Tuesday
came round. I had not known or thought about it, until at the
breakfast-table Abner said that he guessed he and Hurley would go
down and vote before dinner. He had some days before.
He comes before me as I write—this thin form secured a package
of ballots from the organization of his party at Octavius, and these
he now took from one of the bookcase drawers, and divided
between himself and Hurley.
“They won’t be much use, I dessay, peddlin’ ’em at the polls,” he
said, with a grim momentary smile, “but, by the Eternal, we’ll vote
’em!”
“As many of ’em as they’ll be allowin’ us,” added Hurley, in
chuckling qualification.
They were very pretty tickets in those days, with marbled and
plaided backs in brilliant colors, and spreading eagles in front, over
the printed captions. In other years I had shared with the urchins of
the neighborhood the excitement of scrambling for a share of these
ballots, after they had been counted, and tossed out of the boxes.
The conditions did not seem to be favorable for a repetition of that
this year, and apparently this occurred to Abner, for of his own
accord he handed me over some dozen of the little packets, each
tied with a thread, and labelled, “State,” “Congressional,” “Judiciary,”
and the like. He, moreover, consented—the morning chores being
out of the way—that I should accompany them to the Corners. The
ground had frozen stiff overnight, and the road lay in hard
uncompromising ridges between the tracks of yesterday’s wheels.
The two men swung along down the hill ahead of me, with resolute
strides and their heads proudly thrown back, as if they had been
going into battle. I shuffled, on behind in my new boots, also much
excited. The day was cold and raw.
The polls were fixed up in a little building next to the post-office—
a one-story frame structure where Lee Watkins kept his bob-sleigh
and oil barrels, as a rule. These had been cleared out into the yard,
and a table and some chairs put in in their place. A pane of glass
had been taken out of the window. Through this aperture the voters,
each in his turn, passed their ballots, to be placed by the inspectors
in the several boxes ranged along the window-sill inside. A dozen or
more men, mainly in army overcoats, stood about on the sidewalk or
in the road outside, stamping their feet for warmth, and slapping
their shoulders with their hands, between the fingers of which they
held little packets of tickets like mine—that is to say, they were like
mine in form and brilliancy of color, but I knew well enough that
there the resemblance ended abruptly. A yard or so from the window
two posts had been driven into the ground, with a board nailed
across to prevent undue crowding.
Abner and Hurley marched up to the polls without a word to any
one, or any sign of recognition from the bystanders. Their
appearance, however, visibly awakened the interest of the Corners,
and several young fellows who were standing on the grocery steps
sauntered over in their wake to see what was going on. These, with
the ticket-peddlers, crowded up close to the window now, behind
our two men.
“Abner Beech!” called the farmer through the open pane, in a
defiant voice. Standing on tiptoe, I could just see the heads of some
men inside, apparently looking through the election books. No
questions were asked, and in a minute or so Abner had voted and
stood aside a little, to make room for his companion.
 “Timothy Joseph Hurley!” shouted our hired man, standing on his
toes to make himself taller, and squaring his weazened shoulders.
“Got your naturalization papers?” came out a sharp, gruff inquiry
through the window-sash.
“That I have!” said the Irishman, wagging his head in satisfaction
at having foreseen this trick, and winking blandly into the wall of
stolid, hostile faces encircling him. “That I have!”
He drew forth an old and crumpled envelope, from his breast-
pocket, and extracted some papers from its ragged folds, which he
passed through to the inspector. The latter just cast his eye over the
documents and handed them back.
“Them ain’t no good!” he said, curtly.
“What’s that you’re saying?” cried the Irishman. “Sure I’ve voted
on thim same papers every year since 1856, an’ niver a man
gainsaid me. No good, is it? Huh!”
“Why ain’t they no good?” boomed in Abner Beech’s deep, angry
voice. He had moved back to the window.
“Because they ain’t, that’s enough!” returned the inspector. “Don’t
block up the window, there! Others want to vote!”
“I’ll have the law on yez!” shouted Hurley. “I’ll swear me vote in!
I’ll—I’ll—”
“Aw, shut up, you Mick!” some one called out close by, and then
there rose another voice farther back in the group: “Don’t let him
vote! One Copperhead’s enough in Agrippa!”
“I’ll have the law—” I heard Hurley begin again, at the top of his
voice, and Abner roared out something I could not catch. Then as in
a flash the whole cluster of men became one confused whirling
tangle of arms and legs, sprawling and wrestling on the ground, and
from it rising the repellent sound of blows upon flesh, and a
discordant chorus of grunts and curses. Big chunks of icy mud flew
through the air, kicked up by the boots of the men as they struggled.
I saw the two posts with the board weave under the strain, then
give way, some of the embattled group tumbling over them as they
fell. It was wholly impossible to guess who was who in this writhing
and tossing mass of fighters. I danced up and down in a frenzy of
excitement, watching this wild spectacle, and, so I was told years
afterward, screaming with all my might and main.
Then all at once there was a mighty upheaval, and a big man half-
scrambled, half-hurled himself to his feet. It was Abner, who had
wrenched one of the posts bodily from under the others, and swung
it now high in air. Some one clutched it, and for the moment stayed
its descent, yelling, meanwhile, “Look out! Look out!” as though life
itself depended on the volume of his voice.
The ground cleared itself as if by magic. On the instant there was
only Abner standing there with the post in his hands, and little
Hurley beside him, the lower part of his face covered with blood, and
his coat torn half from his back. The others had drawn off, and
formed a semicircle just out of reach of the stake, like farm-dogs
round a wounded bear at bay. Two or three of them had blood about
their heads and necks.
There were cries of “Kill him!” and it was said afterward that
Roselle Upman drew a pistol, but if he did others dissuaded him
from using it. Abner stood with his back to the building, breathing
hard, and a good deal covered with mud, but eyeing the crowd with
a masterful ferocity, and from time to time shifting his hands to get a
new grip on that tremendous weapon of his. He said not a word.
The Irishman, after a moment’s hesitation, wiped some of the
blood from his mouth and jaw, and turned to the window again.
“Timothy Joseph Hurley!” he shouted in, defiantly.
This time another inspector came to the front—the owner of the
tanyard over on the Dutch road, and a man of importance in the
district. Evidently there had been a discussion inside.
“We will take your vote if you want to swear it in,” he said, in a
pacific tone, and though there were some dissenting cries from the
crowd without, he read the oath, and Hurley mumbled it after him.
Then, with some difficulty, he sorted out from his pocket some
torn and mud-stained packets of tickets, picked the cleanest out
from each, and voted them—all with a fine air of unconcern.
Abner Beech marched out behind him now with a resolute clutch
on the stake. The crowd made reluctant way for them, not without a
good many truculent remarks, but with no offer of actual violence.
Some of the more boisterous ones, led by Roselle Upman, were for
following them, and renewing the encounter beyond the Corners.
But this, too, came to nothing, and when I at last ventured to cross
the road and join Abner and Hurley, even the cries of “Copperhead”
had died away.
The sun had come out, and the frosty ruts had softened to
stickiness. The men’s heavy boots picked up whole sections of
plastic earth as they walked in the middle of the road up the hill.
“What’s the matter with your mouth?” asked Abner at last, casting
a sidelong glance at his companion. “It’s be’n a-bleedin’.”
Hurley passed an investigating hand carefully over the lower part
of his face, looked at his reddened fingers, and laughed aloud. “I’d a
fine grand bite at the ear of one of them,” he said, in explanation.
“‘Tis no blood o’ mine.” Abner knitted his brows. “That ain’t the way
we fight in this country,” he said, in tones of displeasure. “Bitin’
men’s ears ain’t no civilized way of behavin’.”
“’Twas not much of a day for civilization,” remarked Hurley, lightly;
and there was no further conversation on our homeward tramp.
 CHAPTER VIII—THE ELECTION
BONFIRE

T
he election had been on Tuesday, November 4th. Our paper,
containing the news of the result, was to be expected at the
Corners on Friday morning. But long before that date we had
learned—I think it was Hurley who found it out—that the
Abolitionists had actually been beaten in our Congressional district.
It was so amazing a thing that Abner could scarcely credit it, but it
was apparently beyond dispute. For that matter, one hardly needed
further evidence than the dejected way in which Philo Andrews and
Myron Pierce and other followers of “Jee” Hagadorn hung their
heads as they drove past our place.
Of course it had all been done by the vote in the big town of
Tecumseh, way at the other end of the district, and by those towns
surrounding it where the Mohawk Dutch were still very numerous.
But this did not at all lessen the exhilaration with which the
discovery that the Radicals of our own Dearborn County had been
snowed under, filled our breasts. Was it not wonderful to think of,
that these heroes of remote Adams and Jay Counties should have
been at work redeeming the district on the very day when the two
votes of our farm marked the almost despairing low-water mark of
the cause in Agrippa?
Abner could hardly keep his feet down on the ground or floor
when he walked, so powerfully did the tidings of this achievement
thrill his veins. He said the springs of his knees kept jerking upward,
so that he wanted to kick and dance all the while. Janey Wilcox,
who, though a meek and silent girl, was a wildly bitter partisan, was
all eagerness to light a bonfire out on the knoll in front of the house
Thursday night, so that every mother’s son of them down at the
Corners might see it, but Abner thought it would be better to wait
until we had the printed facts before us.
I could hardly wait to finish breakfast Friday morning, so great
was my zeal to be off to the postoffice. It was indeed not altogether
daylight when I started at quick step down the hill. Yet, early as I
was, there were some twenty people inside Lee Watkins’s store
when I arrived, all standing clustered about the high square row of
glass-faced pigeonholes reared on the farther end of the counter,
behind which could be seen Lee and his sour-faced wife sorting over
the mail by lamp-light. “Jee” Hagadorn was in this group and Squire
Avery, and most of the other prominent citizens of the
neighborhood. All were deeply restless.
Every minute or two some one of them would shout: “Come, Lee,
give us out one of the papers, anyway!” But for some reason Mrs.
Watkins was inexorable. Her pursed-up lips and resolute expression
told us plainly that none would be served till all were sorted. So the
impatient waiters bided their time under protest, exchanging
splenetic remarks under their breath. We must have stood there
three-quarters of an hour.
At last Mrs. Watkins wiped her hands on the apron over her
bloomers. Everybody knew the signal, and on the instant a dozen
arms were stretched vehemently toward Lee, struggling for
precedence. In another moment wrappers had been ripped off and
sheets flung open. Then the store was alive with excited voices.
“Yes, sir! It’s true! The Copperheads have won!”
“Tribune concedes Seymour’s election!”
“We’re beaten in the district by less’n a hundred!”
“Good-by, human liberty!” “Now we know how Lazarus felt when
he was licked by the dogs!” and so on—a stormy warfare of wrathful
ejaculations.
 In my turn I crowded up, and held out my hand for the paper I
saw in the box. Lee Watkins recognized me, and took the paper out
to deliver to me. But at the same moment his wife, who had been
hastily scanning the columns of some other journal, looked up and
also saw who I was. With a lightning gesture she threw out her
hand, snatched our World from her husband’s grasp, and threw it
spitefully under the counter.
“There ain’t nothing for you!” she snapped at me. “Pesky
Copperhead rag!” she muttered to herself.
Although I had plainly seen the familiar wrapper, and understood
her action well enough, it never occurred to me to argue the
question with Mrs.
Watkins. Her bustling, determined demeanor, perhaps also her
bloomers, had always filled me with awe. I hung about for a time,
avoiding her range of vision, until she went out into her kitchen.
Then I spoke with resolution to Lee:
“If you don’t give me that paper,” I said, “I’ll tell Abner, an’ he’ll
make you sweat for it!”
The postmaster stole a cautious glance kitchen-ward. Then he
made a swift, diving movement under the counter, and furtively
thrust the paper out at me.
“Scoot!” he said, briefly, and I obeyed him.
Abner was simply wild with bewildered delight over what this
paper had to tell him. Even my narrative about Mrs. Watkins, which
ordinarily would have thrown him into transports of rage, provoked
only a passing sniff. “They’ve only got two more years to hold that
post-office,” was his only remark upon it.
Hurley and Janey Wilcox and even the Underwood girl came in,
and listened to Abner reading out the news. He shirked nothing, but
waded manfully through long tables of figures and meaningless
catalogues of counties in other States, the names of which he
scarcely knew how to pronounce: “‘Five hundred and thirty-one
townships in Wisconsin give Brown 21,409, Smith 16,329, Ferguson
802, a Republican loss of 26.’ Do you see that, Hurley? It’s
everywhere the same.”
“‘Kalapoosas County elects Republican Sheriff for first time in
history of party.’ That isn’t so good, but it’s only one out of ten
thousand.”
“‘Four hundred and six townships in New Hampshire show a net
Democratic loss of—’ pshaw! there ain’t nothing in that! Wait till the
other towns are heard from!”
So Abner read on and on, slapping his thigh with his free hand
whenever anything specially good turned up. And there was a great
deal that we felt to be good. The State had been carried. Besides
our Congressman, many others had been elected in unlooked-for
places—so much so that the paper held out the hope that Congress
itself might be ours. Of course Abner at once talked as if it were
already ours. Resting between paragraphs, he told Hurley and the
others that this settled it. The war must now surely be abandoned,
and the seceding States invited to return to the Union on terms
honorable to both sides.
Hurley had assented with acquiescent nods to everything else. He
seemed to have a reservation on this last point. “An’ what if they
won’t come?” he asked.
“Let ’em stay out, then,” replied Abner, dogmatically. “This war—
this wicked war between brothers—must stop. That’s the meaning of
Tuesday’s votes. What did you and I go down to the Corners and
cast our ballots for?—why, for peace!”
“Well, somebody else got my share of it, then,” remarked Hurley,
with a rueful chuckle.
Abner was too intent upon his theme to notice. “Yes, peace!” he
repeated, in the deep vibrating tones of his class-meeting manner.
“Why, just think what’s been a-goin’ on! Great armies raised,
hundreds of thousands of honest men taken from their-work an’ set
to murderin’ each other, whole deestricks of country torn up by the
roots, homes desolated, the land filled with widows an’ orphans, an’
every house a house of mournin’.”
Mrs. Beech had been sitting, with her mending-basket on her
knee, listening to her husband like the rest of us. She shot to her
feet now as these last words of his quivered in the air, paying no
heed to the basket or its scattered contents on the floor, but putting
her apron to her eyes, and making her way thus past us, half-blindly,
into her bedroom. I thought I heard the sound of a sob as she
closed the door.
That the stately, proud, self-contained mistress of our household
should act like this before us all was even more surprising than
Seymour’s election. We stared at one another in silent astonishment.
“M’rye ain’t feelin’ over’n’ above well,” Abner said at last,
apologetically. “You girls ought to spare her all you kin.”
One could see, however, that he was as puzzled as the rest of us.
He rose to his feet, walked over to the stove, rubbed his boot
meditatively against the hearth for a minute or two, then came back
again to the table. It was with a visible effort that he finally shook
off this mood, and forced a smile to his lips.
“Well, Janey,” he said, with an effort at briskness, “ye kin go ahead
with your bonfire, now. I guess I’ve got some old bar’ls for ye over’n
the cow-barn.”
But having said this, he turned abruptly and followed his wife into
the little chamber off the living-room.
 CHAPTER IX—ESTHER’S VISIT

T
he next day, Saturday, was my birthday. I celebrated it by a
heavy cold, with a bursting headache, and chills chasing each
other down my back. I went out to the cow-barn with the two
men before daylight, as usual, but felt so bad that I had to come
back to the house before milking was half over. The moment M’rye
saw me, I was ordered on to the sick-list.
The Beech homestead was a good place to be sick in. Both M’rye
and Janey had a talent in the way of fixing up tasty little dishes for
invalids, and otherwise ministering to their comfort, which year after
year went a-begging, simply because all the men-folk kept so well.
Therefore, when the rare opportunity did arrive, they made the most
of it. I had my feet and legs put into a bucket of hot water, and
wrapped round with burdock leaves. Janey prepared for my
breakfast some soft toast—not the insipid and common milk-toast—
but each golden-brown slice treated separately on a plate, first
moistened with scalding water, then peppered, salted, and buttered,
with a little cold milk on top of all. I ate this sumptuous breakfast at
my leisure, ensconced in M’rye’s big cushioned rocking-chair, with my
feet and legs, well tucked up in a blanket-shawl, stretched out on
another chair, comfortably near the stove.
It was taken for granted that I had caught my cold out around the
bonfire the previous evening—and this conviction threw a sort of
patriotic glamour about my illness, at least in my own mind.
The bonfire had been a famous success. Though there was a trifle
of rain in the air, the barrels and mossy discarded old fence-rails
burned like pitch-pine, and when Hurley and I threw on armfuls of
brush, the sparks burst up with a roar into a flaming column which
we felt must be visible all over our side of Dearborn County. At all
events, there was no doubt about its being seen and understood
down at the Corners, for presently our enemies there started an
answering bonfire, which glowed from time to time with such a
peculiarly concentrated radiance that Abner said Lee Watkins must
have given them some of his kerosene-oil barrels. The thought of
such a sacrifice as this on the part of the postmaster rather
disturbed Abner’s mind, raising, as it did, the hideous suggestion
that possibly later returns might have altered the election results.
But when Hurley and I dragged forward and tipped over into the
blaze the whole side of an old abandoned corn-crib, and heaped dry
brush on top of that, till the very sky seemed afire above us, and the
stubblefields down the hill-side were all ruddy in the light, Abner
confessed himself reassured. Our enthusiasm was so great that it
was nearly ten o’clock before we went to bed, having first put the
fire pretty well out, lest a rising wind during the night should scatter
sparks and work mischief.
I had all these splendid things to think of next day, along with my
headache and the shivering spine, and they tipped the balance
toward satisfaction. Shortly after breakfast M’rye made a flaxseed
poultice and muffled it flabbily about my neck, and brought me also
some boneset-tea to drink. There was a debate in the air as
between castor-oil and senna, fragments of which were borne in to
me when the kitchen door was open. The Underwood girl alarmed
me by steadily insisting that her sister-in-law always broke up sick-
headaches with a mustard-plaster put raw on the back of the neck.
Every once in a while one of them would come in and address to me
the stereotyped formula: “Feel any better?” and I as invariably
answered, “No.” In reality, though, I was lazily comfortable all the
time, with Lossing’s “Field-Book of the War of 1812” lying open on
my lap, to look at when I felt inclined. This book was not nearly so
interesting as the one about the Revolution, but a grandfather of
mine had marched as a soldier up to Sackett’s Harbor in the later
war, though he did not seem to have had any fighting to do after he
got there, and in my serious moods I always felt it my duty to read
about his war instead of the other.
 So the day passed along, and dusk began to gather in the living-
room. The men were off outdoors somewhere, and the girls were
churning in the butter-room. M’rye had come in with her mending,
and sat on the opposite side of the stove, at intervals casting
glances over its flat top to satisfy herself that my poultice had not
sagged down from its proper place, and that I was in other respects
doing as well as could be expected.
Conversation between us was hardly to be thought of, even if I
had not been so drowsily indolent. M’rye was not a talker, and
preferred always to sit in silence, listening to others, or, better still,
going on at her work with no sounds at all to disturb her thoughts.
These long periods of meditation, and the sedate gaze of her black,
penetrating eyes, gave me the feeling that she must be much wiser
than other women, who could not keep still at all, but gabbled
everything the moment it came into their heads.
We had sat thus for a long, long time, until I began to wonder
how she could sew in the waning light, when all at once, without
lifting her eyes from her work, she spoke to me.
“D’ you know where Ni Hagadorn’s gone to?” she asked me, in a
measured, impressive voice.
“He—he—told me he was a-goin’ away,” I made answer, with weak
evasiveness.
“But where? Down South?” She looked up, as I hesitated, and
flashed that darkling glance of hers at me. “Out with it!” she
commanded. “Tell me the truth!”
Thus adjured, I promptly admitted that Ni had said he was going
South, and could work his way somehow. “He’s gone, you know,” I
added, after a pause, “to try and find—that is, to hunt around after
—”
“Yes, I know,” said M’rye, sententiously, and another long silence
ensued.
 She rose after a time, and went out into the kitchen, returning
with the lighted lamp. She set this on the table, putting the shade
down on one side so that the light should not hurt my eyes, and
resumed her mending. The yellow glow thus falling upon her gave to
her dark, severe, high-featured face a duskier effect than ever. It
occurred to me that Molly Brant, that mysteriously fascinating and
bloody Mohawk queen who left such an awful reddened mark upon
the history of her native Valley, must have been like our M’rye. My
mind began sleepily to clothe the farmer’s wife in blankets and
chains of wampum, with eagles’ feathers in her raven hair, and then
to drift vaguely off over the threshold of Indian dreamland, when
suddenly, with a start, I became conscious that some unexpected
person had entered the room by the veranda-door behind me.
The rush of cold air from without had awakened me and told me
of the entrance. A glance at M’rye’s face revealed the rest. She was
staring at the newcomer with a dumfounded expression of
countenance, her mouth half-open with sheer surprise. Still staring,
she rose and tilted the lampshade in yet another direction, so that
the light was thrown upon the stranger. At this I turned in my chair
to look.
It was Esther Hagadorn who had come in!
There was a moment’s awkward silence, and then the school-
teacher began hurriedly to speak. “I saw you were alone from the
veranda—I was so nervous it never occurred to me to rap—the
curtains being up—I—I walked straight in.”
As if in comment upon this statement, M’rye marched across the
room, and pulled down both curtains over the veranda windows.
With her hand still upon the cord of the second shade, she turned
and again dumbly surveyed her visitor.
Esther flushed visibly at this reception, and had to choke down the
first words that came to her lips. Then she went on better: “I hope
you’ll excuse my rudeness. I really did forget to rap. I came upon
very special business. Is Ab—Mr. Beech at home?”
“Won’t you sit down?” said M’rye, with a glum effort at civility. “I
expect him in presently.”
The school-ma’am, displaying some diffidence, seated herself in
the nearest chair, and gazed at the wall-paper with intentness. She
had never seemed to notice me at all—indeed had spoken of seeing
M’rye alone through the window—and now I coughed, and stirred to
readjust my poultice, but she did not look my way. M’rye had gone
back to her chair by the stove, and taken up her mending again.
“You’d better lay off your things. You won’t feel ’em when you go
out,” she remarked, after an embarrassing period of silence,
investing the formal phrases with chilling intention.
Esther made a fumbling motion at the loop of her big mink cape,
but did not unfasten it.
“I—I don’t know what you think of me,” she began, at last, and
then nervously halted.
“Mebbe it’s just as well you don’t,” said M’rye, significantly, darning
away with long sweeps of her arm, and bending attentively over her
stocking and ball.
“I can understand your feeling hard,” Esther went on, still eyeing
the sprawling blue figures on the wall, and plucking with her fingers
at the furry tails on her cape. “And—I am to blame, some, I can see
now—but it didn’t seem so, then, to either of us.”
“It ain’t no affair of mine,” remarked M’rye, when the pause came,
“but if that’s your business with Abner, you won’t make much by
waitin’. Of course it’s nothing to me, one way or t’other.”
Not another word was exchanged for a long time. From where I
sat I could see the girl’s lips tremble, as she looked steadfastly into
the wall. I felt certain that M’rye was darning the same place over
and over again, so furiously did she keep her needle flying.
All at once she looked up angrily. “Well,” she said, in loud, bitter
tones: “Why not out with what you’ve come to say, ’n’ be done with
it? You’ve heard something, I know!”
Esther shook her head. “No, Mrs. Beech,” she said, with a piteous
quaver in her voice, “I—I haven’t heard anything!”
The sound of her own broken utterances seemed to affect her
deeply. Her eyes filled with tears, and she hastily got out a
handkerchief from her muff, and began drying them. She could not
keep from sobbing aloud a little.
M’rye deliberately took another stocking from the heap in the
basket, fitted it over the ball, and began a fresh task—all without a
glance at the weeping girl.
Thus the two women still sat, when Janey came in to lay the table
for supper. She lifted the lamp off to spread the cloth, and put it on
again; she brought in plates and knives and spoons, and arranged
them in their accustomed places—all the while furtively regarding
Miss Hagadorn with an incredulous surprise. When she had quite
finished she went over to her mistress and, bending low, whispered
so that we could all hear quite distinctly: “Is she goin’ to stay to
supper?”
M’rye hesitated, but Esther lifted her head and put down the
handkerchief instantly. “Oh, no!” she said, eagerly: “don’t think of it!
I must hurry home as soon as I’ve seen Mr. Beech.” Janey went out
with an obvious air of relief.
Presently there was a sound of heavy boots out in the kitchen
being thrown on to the floor, and then Abner came in. He halted in
the doorway, his massive form seeming to completely fill it, and
devoted a moment or so taking in the novel spectacle of a neighbor
under his roof. Then he advanced, walking obliquely till he could see
distinctly the face of the visitor. It stands to reason that he must
have been surprised, but he gave no sign of it.
“How d’ do, Miss,” he said, with grave politeness, coming up and
offering her his big hand.
Esther rose abruptly, peony-red with pleasurable confusion, and
took the hand stretched out to her. “How d’ do, Mr. Beech,” she
responded with eagerness, “I—I came up to see you—a—about
something that’s very pressing.”
“It’s blowing up quite a gale outside,” the farmer remarked,
evidently to gain time the while he scanned her face in a solemn,
thoughtful way, noting, I doubt not, the swollen eyelids and stains of
tears, and trying to guess her errand. “Shouldn’t wonder if we had a
foot o’ snow before morning.”
The school-teacher seemed in doubt how best to begin what she
had to say, so that Abner had time, after he lifted his inquiring gaze
from her, to run a master’s eye over the table.
“Have Janey lay another place!” he said, with authoritative brevity.
As M’rye rose to obey, Esther broke forth: “Oh, no, please don’t!
Thank you so much, Mr. Beech—but really I can’t stop—truly, I
mustn’t think of it.”
The farmer merely nodded a confirmation of his order to M’rye,
who hastened out to the kitchen.
“It’ll be there for ye, anyway,” he said. “Now set down again,
please.”
It was all as if he was the one who had the news to tell, so
naturally did he take command of the situation. The girl seated
herself, and the farmer drew up his arm-chair and planted himself
before her, keeping his stockinged feet under the rungs for
politeness’ sake.
 “Now, Miss,” he began, just making it civilly plain that he preferred
not to utter her hated paternal name, “I don’t know no more’n a
babe unborn what’s brought you here. I’m sure, from what I know
of ye, that you wouldn’t come to this house jest for the sake of
comin’, or to argy things that can’t be, an’ mustn’t be, argied. In one
sense, we ain’t friends of yours here, and there’s a heap o’ things
that you an’ me don’t want to talk about, because they’d only lead
to bad feelin’, an’ so we’ll leave ’em all severely alone. But in another
way, I’ve always had a liking for you. You’re a smart girl, an’ a
scholar into the bargain, an’ there ain’t so many o’ that sort knockin’
around in these parts that a man like myself, who’s fond o’ books an’
learnin’, wants to be unfriendly to them there is. So now you can
figure out pretty well where the chalk line lays, and we’ll walk on it.”
Esther nodded her head. “Yes, I understand,” she remarked, and
seemed not to dislike what Abner had said.
“That being so, what is it?” the farmer asked, with his hands on
his knees.
“Well, Mr. Beech,” the school-teacher began, noting with a swift
side-glance that M’rye had returned, and was herself rearranging the
table. “I don’t think you can have heard it, but some important news
has come in during the day. There seems to be different stories, but
the gist of them is that a number of the leading Union generals have
been discovered to be traitors, and McClellan has been dismissed
from his place at the head of the army, and ordered to return to his
home in New Jersey under arrest, and they say others are to be
treated in the same way, and Fath—some people think it will be a
hanging matter, and—”
Abner waved all this aside with a motion of his hand. “It don’t
amount to a hill o’ beans,” he said, placidly. “It’s jest spite, because
we licked ’em at the elections. Don’t you worry your head about
that!”
 Esther was not reassured. “That isn’t all,” she went on, nervously.
“They say there’s been discovered a big conspiracy, with secret
sympathizers all over the North.”
“Pooh!” commented Abner. “We’ve heer’n tell o’ that before!”
“All over the North,” she continued, “with the intention of bringing
across infected clothes from Canada, and spreading the small-pox
among us, and—”
The farmer laughed outright; a laugh embittered by contempt.
“What cock-’n’-bull story’ll be hatched next!” he said. “You don’t
mean to say you—a girl with a head on her shoulders like you—give
ear to such tomfoolery as that! Come, now, honest Injin, do you
mean to tell me you believe all this?”
“It don’t so much matter, Mr. Beech,” the girl replied, raising her
face to his, and speaking more confidently—“it don’t matter at all
what I believe. I’m talking of what they believe down at the
Corners.”
“The Corners be jiggered!” exclaimed Abner, politely, but with
emphasis.
Esther rose from the chair. “Mr. Beech,” she declared, impressively;
“they’re coming up here to-night! That bonfire of yours made ’em
mad. It’s no matter how I learned it—it wasn’t from father—I don’t
know that he knows anything about it, but they’re coming here! and
—and Heaven only knows what they’re going to do when they get
here!”
The farmer rose also, his huge figure towering above that of the
girl, as he looked down at her over his beard. He no longer
dissembled his stockinged feet. After a moment’s pause he said: “So
that’s what you came to tell me, eh?”
The school-ma’am nodded her head. “I couldn’t bear not to,” she
explained, simply.
 “Well, I’m obleeged to ye!” Abner remarked, with gravity.
“Whatever comes of it, I’m obleeged to ye!”
He turned at this, and walked slowly out into the kitchen, leaving
the door open behind him. “Pull on your boots again!” we heard him
say, presumably to Hurley. In a minute or two he returned, with his
own boots on, and bearing over his arm the old double-barrelled
shot-gun which always hung above the kitchen mantel-piece. In his
hands he had two shot-flasks, the little tobacco-bag full of buckshot,
and a powder-horn. He laid these on the open shelf of the bookcase,
and, after fitting fresh caps on the nipples, put the gun beside them.
“I’d be all the more sot on your stayin’ to supper,” he remarked,
looking again at Esther, “only if there should be any unpleasantness,
why, I’d hate like sin to have you mixed up in it. You see how I’m
placed.”
Esther did not hesitate a moment. She walked over to where M’rye
stood by the table replenishing the butter-plate. “I’d be very glad
indeed to stay, Mr. Beech,” she said, with winning frankness, “if I
may.”
“There’s the place laid for you,” commented M’rye, impassively.
Then, catching her husband’s eye, she added the perfunctory
assurance, “You’re entirely welcome.”
Hurley and the girls came in now, and all except me took their
seats about the table. Both Abner and the Irishman had their coats
on, out of compliment to company. M’rye brought over a thick slice
of fresh buttered bread with brown sugar on it, and a cup of weak
tea, and put them beside me on a chair. Then the evening meal
went forward, the farmer talking in a fragmentary way about the
crops and the weather. Save for an occasional response from our
visitor, the rest maintained silence. The Underwood girl could not
keep her fearful eyes from the gun lying on the bookcase, and
protested that she had no appetite, but Hurley ate vigorously, and
had a smile on his wrinkled and swarthy little face.
 The wind outside whistled shrilly at the windows, rattling the
shutters, and trying its force in explosive blasts which seemed to
rock the house on its stone foundations. Once or twice it shook the
veranda door with such violence that the folk at the table
instinctively lifted their heads, thinking some one was there.
Then, all at once, above the confusion of the storm’s noises, we
heard a voice rise, high and clear, crying:
“Smoke the damned Copperhead out!”
 CHAPTER X—THE FIRE
“That was Roselle Upman that hollered,” remarked Janey Wilcox,
breaking the agitated silence which had fallen upon the supper
table. “You can tell it’s him because he’s had all his front teeth pulled
out.”
“I wasn’t born in the woods to be skeert by an owl!” replied Abner,
with a great show of tranquillity, helping himself to another slice of
bread. “Miss, you ain’t half makin’ out a supper!”
But this bravado could not maintain itself. In another minute there
came a loud chorus of angry yells, heightened at its finish by two or
three pistol-shots. Then Abner pushed back his chair and rose slowly
to his feet, and the rest sprang up all around the table.
“Hurley,” said the farmer, speaking as deliberately as he knew
how, doubtless with the idea of reassuring the others, “you go out
into the kitchen with the women-folks, an’ bar the woodshed door,
an’ bring in the axe with you to stan’ guard over the kitchen door. I’ll
look out for this part o’ the house myself.”
“I want to stay in here with you, Abner,” said M’rye.
“No, you go out with the others!” commanded the master with
firmness, and so they all filed out with no hint whatever of me. The
shadow of the lamp-shade had cut me off altogether from their
thoughts.
Perhaps it is not surprising that my recollections | of what now
ensued should lack definiteness and sequence. The truth is, that my
terror at my own predicament, sitting there with no covering for my
feet and calves but the burdock leaves and that absurd shawl,
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