Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Bob Taylor’s Magazine.

$1.00 a Year. Monthly. 10 Cents a Copy.

Contents for May, 1905.

Copyright 1905 by The Taylor Publishing Co. All rights reserved

The Taylor Publishing Company, Publishers,

Vanderbilt Law Building, Nashville, Tenn.

BOB TAYLOR’S MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENTS.

THE WONDERFUL ELECTRIC CANDY MACHINE

WHICH TOOK THE PRIZE FOR “NOVELTY OF INVENTION”

AT THE WORLD’S FAIR. ST. LOUIS, MO., 1904

THE CANDY MADE BY THIS MACHINE IS ABSOLUTELY PURE.

Granulated sugar is poured into the spinner and is instantly changed into flossy filaments of PURE candy without the touch of a contaminating finger.

Our machines are NEVER SOLD but leased for a period of ten years, giving Lessee EXCLUSIVE control of the territory leased.

At Los Angeles, Cal., our Lessee made and sold 850 ten cent packages of FAIRY FLOSS candy in one day from one machine.

Four FAIRY FLOSS candy machines which were operated at the Mechanics’ Pavilion, Boston, Mass., for twenty days in October, 1904, earned in that time $1,750.00.

Our Lessee in Minneapolis, Minn., sold in seven days from one stand running one machine, $205.00 worth of FAIRY FLOSS candy.

Our Lessee in Nashville, Tenn., sold $60.00 worth of FAIRY FLOSS candy from one machine in one day.

A pound of sugar will make sixteen packages of FAIRY FLOSS candy, such as was sold at the World’s Fair for ten cents each.

Our machines are fully protected by patents, dated January 31, 1899, and January 6, 1903, and other patents pending.

Like money and other good things, our machines are being imitated.

The Public is Warned that machines not having this name plate are infringements and users are liable to prosecution:

THE PROPERTY OF

The Electric Candy Machine Company,

Nashville, Tennessee, U. S. A.

Candy machine patented Jan. 31, ’99; Jan. 6, ’08.

Motor patented Oct. 14, ’90; Nov. 10, ’91.

General Electric Company, U. S. A.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ADDRESS

ELECTRIC CANDY MACHINE COMPANY,

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE.

In writing to advertisers please mention Bob Taylor’s Magazine.

EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF ROBERT E. LEE AT RICHMOND.

BOB TAYLOR’S MAGAZINE

ADDRESS TO OLD CONFEDERATES.

By Robert L. Taylor.

Delivered at the Confederate Reunion at Brownsville, Tenn., in August, 1902.

Time in its tireless flight has brought us again to the full leaf and flower of another summer. The grass grows green about the dust of heroes; the roses twine once more about their tomb, and the morning-glories point their purple bugles toward the sky as if to sound a reveille to our immortal dead. Another year with its sunshine and its shadows, its laughter and its tears, its sowing and its reaping, its cradle songs and funeral hymns, now lies between us and that dark day at Appomattox when the star of Southern hope went down and the flag of Southern chivalry was furled forever. Another year has added whiter locks to the temples of those old veterans who wore the gray, and deeper furrows to their brows, and they now stand among us like solitary oaks in the middle of a fallen forest, hoary with age, covered with scars, and glorious as the living monuments of Southern manhood and Southern courage.

SAM DAVIS.

But we are not yet far enough away from that awful struggle to forget the bloody hills of Shiloh, where Albert Sidney Johnston died, and the fatal field of Chancellorsville, where Stonewall Jackson fell. We are not yet far enough away to forget the frowning heights of Gettysburg, where Pickett’s charging lines rushed to glory and the grave. We are not yet far enough away to forget Murfreesboro, Missionary Ridge and Chickamauga, and the hundred other fields of death and courage, where the flower of the South, the bravest of the brave and the truest of the true, fought for the cause they thought was right, and died for the land they loved. We are not yet far enough away to forget the agony and the tears of a nation that was crushed when the shattered armies of Lee and Johnston, weary, half-starved, bare-footed and in rags, stacked their arms in the gloom of defeat, and left the field of valor overwhelmed and overpowered, yet undaunted and unconquered. When time has measured off a thousand years, the world will not forget the sufferings and the sacrifices of the brave men who so freely gave their fortunes and shed their blood to preserve the most brilliant civilization that ever flourished in any land or in any age, for literature loves a lost cause.

ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON.

Historians will some day sit down on our battlefield and write true history—history that will surpass the wildest dreams of fancy that were ever woven into fiction; and poets will linger among our graves and sing sweeter songs than were ever sung before. For each monument is within itself a volume of wild and thrilling adventure, and every tombstone tells a story touching as the soldier’s last tear on the white bosom of his manhood’s bride, tender as his last farewell.

I would not utter a word of bitterness against the men who wore the blue. They fought and died under the old flag to perpetuate the Union, and they were men worthy of Southern prowess and Southern valor. I would not, if I could, rob Grant, the great and noble chieftain, of his fame and glory. Every Southern soldier ought to stand with uncovered head when his name is spoken. For when all was lost, in the darkest and saddest moment of Southern history, he was magnanimous to Lee, and kind to his famished and shattered army. Along the blue lines of the triumphant foe, when the unhappy Confederates marched between them and laid down their guns, there was no shout of victory nor flourish of trumpets, but only silence and tears.

When the conflict had ended the Confederate soldier proudly stood among the blackened walls of his ruined country, magnificent in the gloom of defeat, and still a hero. His sword was broken, his home was in ashes, the earth was red beneath him, the sky was black above him; he had placed all in the scales of war and had lost all save honor. But he did not sit down in despair to weep away the passing years.

His slaves were gone but he was still a master. Too proud to pine, too strong to yield to adversity, he threw down his musket and laid his willing but unskilled hands upon the waiting plow. He put away the knapsack of war and turned his face toward the morning of peace. He abandoned the rebel yell to enter the forum and the court room and the hustings. He gave up the sword to enter the battles of industry and commerce, and now, in little more than a third of a century, the land of desolation and death, the land of monuments and memories, has reached the springtime of a grander destiny, and the sun shines bright on the domes and towers of new cities built upon the ashes of the old, and the cotton fields wave their white banners of peace and the fields of wheat wave back their banners of gold.

Who can portray the possibilities of a country that has produced the Lees and Jacksons and the brilliant Gordon and the dashing Joe Wheeler, who is as gallant in the blue as he was glorious in the gray, and the impetuous and immortal Bedford Forrest, the Marshal Ney of the Confederacy? Who can portray the possibilities of a country which has produced the stalwart and sinewy men of the rank and file, who followed the stars and bars through the smoke and flame of every desperate battle and stepped proudly into history as the greatest fighters the world has ever known?—a country so richly blessed not only with brave men and beautiful women, but whose blossoming hills and fertile valleys are so generous and kind, and whose mountains are burdened with coal and iron and copper and zinc and lead enough to supply the world for a thousand years; whose virgin forests yet stand awaiting and sighing for the woodsman’s ax, and whose winding rivers flow clear and cool and make music as they go. It is the beautiful land of love and liberty, of sunshine and sentiment, of fruits and flowers, where the grape-vine staggers from tree to tree as if drunk with the wine of its own purple clusters; where peach and plum and blood-red cherries and every kind of berry bend bough and bush and glow like showered drops of rubies and pearls. It is the land of the magnolia and the melon, the paradise of the cotton and the cane.

They tell us now that it is the new South, but the same old blood runs in the veins of these old veterans and the same old spirit heaves their bosoms and flashes in their eyes; the same old soldiers who wielded the musket long ago are nursing their grandchildren on their knees and teaching them the same old lessons of honor and truth, and the same old love of liberty. The mocking-bird sings the same old songs in the same old tree, and the brooks laugh and leap down the same old hollows. It is the same old South and we are the same old Southern people:

There may be skies as blue, but none bluer;

There may be hearts as true, but none truer.

STONEWALL JACKSON.

It is the same old land of the free and the same old home of the brave. It is the same old South resurrected from the dead, with the prints of the nails still in its hands and the scars of the spear still in its side.

“I’m glad I am in Dixie,

Look away! Look away!

And live and die for Dixie,

Look away! Look away!

Look away down South in Dixie.”

Within the borders of this fair land of Dixie the finest opportunities for investment and the richest fields for enterprise ever known in the Western Hemisphere are now open to all who wish to come and help us to make it blossom like the rose. A new development has already begun. Thirty years ago there was not a factory in South Carolina. To-day she is spinning and weaving more cotton than she raises and is second only to Massachusetts in the manufacture of cotton goods; and North Carolina and Georgia have made equal progress with South Carolina in this new idea of making the South not only the leader in agriculture, but also in converting our raw material into finished articles of commerce and trade, and thus saving to our section countless millions of wealth. In the mountains of south-western Virginia, south-eastern Kentucky, East Tennessee, North Alabama, where the sunshine plays hide and seek with the shadows, and where many rivers are born, there is a beautiful valley six hundred miles in length and from one to thirty miles wide. Until a quarter of a century ago the principal product of that country was children. The people did not realize that the north rim of the valley was almost an unbroken vein of coal and that the South was an exhaustless bed of iron, and they placed but little value on the vast parks of timber where the ax had never gleamed, but now the dynamite has just begun to jar the silent hills and the forests have just begun to fall. Birmingham is making the sky of night red with the glare of her furnaces, and all the way up the valley to the new city of Roanoke new furnaces are being lighted and new industries are developing, and Huntsville, Decatur, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Johnson City and Bristol on the line, will soon be great manufacturing centers, where the pig iron and the logs of hardwood that are now being shipped away to be converted into finished articles will pass through our own mills and we will cease to be the fools we have been in the past, buying furniture made in foreign cities out of our own timber and all the implements of agriculture made out of our own iron.

GENERAL GORDON.

Until twenty years ago the sons of Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas were contented to sit on their verandas and watch the “nigger” and his lazy mule in the cotton field and listen to the melodies of the old plantation. But now the mills of Mississippi are beginning to mingle their music with these melodies, and the marshes of Louisiana are being converted into rice fields and she is making enough sugar to-day to sweeten the tooth of the world. Arkansas is building factories and opening her mines and mineral wealth, and sawing down her great forests of pine. At the close of the Civil War Texas was a wilderness, but now the howl of the wolf has given place to the whistle of the engine, and the whoop of the Indian has been hushed by the music of machinery. From Texarkana to El Paso prosperous cities and towns have sprung up like prairie flowers where the wild horse once galloped and the buffalo grazed, and great geysers of coal oil have solved the fuel problem.

In the full development of this new idea of transforming our raw material into finished goods lies our hope of regaining our prestige and power in the management of national affairs, and of winning back billions of wealth which were wiped out by the destroying angel of war. God grant that our beloved old South may be as happy in reaping the golden harvest of prosperity in the years to come as she has been brave and true through the suffering and woes of adversity in the sorrowful years of the past.

And now, my grizzled old friends who once wore the gray, in the name of the young men I congratulate you upon having lived to see the dawn of a brighter day for your battle-scarred and war-swept country. You must soon answer to the roll call of eternity and join your comrades on the other side. I give you the pledge of your sons that they will ever defend the record you have made and themselves live up to the traditions of their fathers. In the name of our women, both young and old, I implore the blessing of the Lord upon you, and pray that as the dews of life’s evening are condensing on your brow and the shadows of the long, long night are gathering about you, you may linger long in the twilight, with loving hands to lead you and loving hearts to bless.

HARRISON’S GIFT AT CAMP CHASE.

IN THE DARK.

By Grace MacGowan Cooke

Virginia sat late at her work. Or rather, she sat before the desk which contained her work and fought the battle which is as old as our conception of a woman’s duty. She had that day listened to words of love from a man whom her heart rose up to answer—she, betrothed to Parke Winchester. Hasn’t a woman a right to change her mind? Ah, but Parke—his salvation as well as his happiness was in her hands! Had he not told her so a hundred times? Was he not drinking hard, and going straight to the dogs when she was coaxed into this secret pact with him? If she let him go, if she pushed him away from her, would he not fall lower? Could she ever forgive herself?

Then, she was uneasy about Fair; her young brother was evidently finding companions who did him no good. Twice he had come home of late so much under the influence of drink that she was put to the utmost of her powers to keep the matter from her father. She had no mother, she and Fair were the only children. In her desperation she had gone to Winchester; he would know, he would understand. She remembered the feverish eagerness with which he had answered her.

“You know, of course, Virginia, that I haven’t touched a drop since you promised to marry me. I can’t bear the thought of the stuff now. But I’ll hang around some of the places where it’s sold and catch up with Fair. I can help him. I can save him for you, Virginia, honey, because I’ve been there myself.”

Now, if she broke her word to Winchester she was losing more than her lover, for he had added fiercely, “But if you cast me off, if you break with me, I’ll go straight to the devil. You’ve got that on your conscience, little woman. I’ll go, and I’ll take Fair with me if I can. You’ve got the souls of two men in your keeping, for if you were my wife—as long as you have promised to be my wife—I’d as soon think of stealing a Bible from a church as taking a drink of whisky.”

Then came the thought of the other man, whom she could really love—the man who would save his own soul and not ask the sacrifice of a woman’s happiness for his salvation. Yet, she reasoned, it was a marvelous thing that her influence should have kept her betrothed from even the desire for drink. She half wished for a moment that influence were not so great. Then she reproved herself, sighed and pushed the heavy, dark hair from off her forehead. A vagrant, scuffling sound from the hallway outside kept intruding upon her consciousness. Finally the little intermittent noise secured her attention, and then she thought a dog or a cat must have been left inside when the house was closed for the night. She stepped to the door, to be met by a shambling, bowing old figure, and Uncle Vete’s deprecating, apologetic face.

“I hates ter ’sturb you, li’l Mis,” he protested. “I hates might’ly ter ’sturb you; but dey’s trouble out to my house—I spect you knows ’bout it, honey.”

Virginia drew back, took up her lamp and motioned the old man to follow her downstairs to the dining room. “Don’t wake father, if it’s about Fairfax,” she cautioned. “It would only hurt his feelings, and make a bad matter worse.”

“Yas, baby chile, dat des’ what Vete was fearin’.” They stole softly to the dining room, and stood there confronted in the lamplight, the tall girl in her white dress, and the wizened little old negro in his comically ill-fitting broadcloth, hat in hand.

“You see ’t ’uz dishyer way: Marse Fair, he come out ter my place dis mawnin’—you know, Mis’, he train wid a feller what allers come out dar when he git ter spreein’. I uzzen’ dar. ’Ouldn’t ’a’ been no trouble ef I’d a’ been dar. Unk’ Vete can manage de bofe of ’em, tell dey git too bad.”

“Who was with my brother?” inquired the girl sharply.

The little old black man stole a side-long look at his interlocutrice. He was a slave, born on the Sevier plantation, body servant to her father, General Sevier, in whose discarded wear he now stood; and loyalty to the name warred in him with that freemasonry which keeps the male silent about the shortcomings of another male, when speaking to the woman who most needs to be warned of them.

“Dey dest one feller lef’ wid Marse Fair,” he mumbled. “Dey wuz a whole passel o’ boys dis mawnin’. But dem yutheh boys tuk an’ went home, whiles dey could walk. An’ I cain’t git Marse Fair to move.”

“Well, Uncle Vete, I’ll put on my things and go with you,” said Virginia, with sudden resolution. “I can manage Fair.” Returning, hat in hand, she had the curiosity to inquire, “How did you get in, Uncle Vete?”

“W’y, yo’ cook lady hyer, she a sisteh in de ‘Ban’ o’ High and Glor’ous Wardens,’ an’ I b’longs to de same division; an’ she lef’ me in, honey; she lef’ me in.”

“Did you drive?”

“I come ’long er’ ol’ Belzybug an’ de cyart.”

“And Beelzebub has made two trips to-day,” added Virginia. “He must be tired. Put him in the barn, Uncle Vete, and we’ll get a street hack as we go down past Summer Avenue.”

“An’ have ol’ Marse askin’ quisti’ns ’bout dat mule in de mawnin’? No, ma’am. No, li’l lady. I got a frien’, down de road hyer a piece, what keep a wagon yawd. I gwine leave dat mule dah, Miss Ginnie.”

The streets were quite deserted; it was near twelve o’clock. Virginia was glad that she met no one, though the little old black man bobbing after her was as efficient an escort and protector as she could have had. The street hack of the small Southern city is most commonly a vehicle of the family carriage style; probably many of them have descended from the estate of domestic privacy. One found, its sleeping driver wakened, his gaunt horse prodded into action, Virginia leaned forward, and began to ask Uncle Vete further questions in a carefully lowered tone, as he sat beside the driver.

“Is he worse than before?”

“’Bout de same, honey, des ’bout de same. I is saw ’um mo’ ’rageous; an’ ergin, I is saw ’um less ’rageous. ’Bout so an’ so, honey. Des ’bout so an’ so, Miss Ginnie, chile.”

“You say there’s some one with him; are they inside the house?”

Uncle Vete grinned, and twisted in his seat. “Yas, honey,” he admitted, finally. “Dey bofe inside de house, an’ de fambly, dey on de outside. Dat whut mek me come fer you dis time er night.”

“Do you mean that they turned you out?”

“Yas, honey. I foun’ Cindy an’ de chillen all turn’t out an’ blockaded, an’ young Marse a shootin’ th’oo de do’ ef anybody speak ter ’im.”

Virginia leaned back in silence. The crazy old vehicle creaked and rattled over the rough road. Its one sorry horse made slow progress.

Fairfax Sevier, less than two years older than his sister, Virginia, was a handsome, brilliant, lovable young fellow, endeared to her by the same qualities and the same odd unexpected little lapses and weak spots which endlessly charmed and perplexed her in her father.

The general was a peculiarly high-minded, honorable man, with all in his character that makes for good citizenship. He had brought through a youth which was not without its little scattered patches of wild oats, and a famously dare-devil military career during the Civil War, an unpollutable vein of childlike innocency. It was not that he failed to see evil, or to know it and understand it. But he saw and knew these things as a child does, intelligent, but unsoiled.

His most marked characteristic was a determined disposition to meddle with the affairs of no human creature, to refuse authority, because it implied responsibility; to let—as he felicitously phrased it—every fellow go to the devil his own gait.

This trait made him, among his children, always more a brother than a parent, and was most amusingly displayed during their infancy and childhood. He would stand aloof from a small offender who was weltering defiantly in infantile crime. Bending his handsome head, he would look from his very considerable height down to the little sinner before him, and addressing it in the most confidential tone of perfect equality, remark:

“You’re making a pretty mess of things there; now, aren’t you? Think you want to bust that, do you? Do you know, you’re going to be mighty sorry when you get done this business? And like enough your mother’ll spank you, too.”

When, as had occurred twice of late, Fair was led to participate in wild sprees, this was scarcely the father to whom an appeal for assistance or the exercise of salutary authority would be addressed. Virginia could hear him saying, with a flash of those big dark eyes, “Well, well, Ginnie, I can’t keep him in a glass case, just because he happens to be my son. Let him see the folly of it. Let him find out whether he wants to be a drunkard or not. Every man must do that for himself. Your conclusion—or mine—that he doesn’t want to do this sort of thing, isn’t valid. It could not be incorporated into his character. He must be free to make some selection of his own.”

Arrived at the cabin, a belated, waning moon showed them the little hut, dark and silent. “I boun’ y’ Marse Fair done break dat lamp. Hit ’uz burnin’, time I lef’,” muttered the old man.

The sound of their wheels brought a dusky, straggling group to the gate. The nucleus of this group was Uncle Vete’s last wife, a round-faced young mulatto woman, with a baby in her arms. About her churned and bobbed a tribe of various sizes, part of them clinging to her skirts and whimpering sleepily.

Cindy was a cheerful soul, with a giggle ready to burst forth upon the slightest provocation, or no provocation at all. Virginia glanced in distress at the baby. “Oh, Cindy,” she cried, “poor little thing! Why, it’s too bad for you to be out here in the night air with that young child.”

“He ain’t des’ so overly turrible young, Miss Fa’ginny,” returned Cindy with her comfortable chuckle. “De big chillen mo’ skeerter dan whut he is.”

Virginia, full of indignation, sprang from the carriage. “Tek keer, honey!” cautioned Uncle Vete, as she hurried through the yard. “Dey’s th’ee o’ my youngest sleepin’ dah un’neath dat ’simmon tree.”

Avoiding the slumberers beneath the persimmon, Virginia made directly for the door.

“Hol’ on! Hol’ on! My precious chile! Yo’ gwine get yo’se’f shot!” urged Vete. Cindy screamed, and all the children who were awake began to wail in concert.

Like a sensible girl, Virginia stood aside from the panels, back where the heavy logs protected her. (“An’ one dem shots might sail th’oo de chinkin’ des’ easy ez not!” Cindy whimpered.) She struck on the door and cried, “Fair—Fairfax! Open this door!”

The answer came in the form of a bullet.

“Buddy,” she said, huskily, “Buddy, dear, I brought a hack out for you.”

At the report, Cindy uttered a yell so efficient and comprehensive that Virginia supposed her no less than mortally wounded. The children, even those lying so soundly asleep on the ground that they had not been wakened when Virginia stepped almost upon them, rose up and fled to their mother’s wide-spread, sheltering arms, like a brood of alarmed chickens fleeing from a hawk.

“Eph’um! Bandoline! Baxter! Pearline! Commodory? Whey is you-all—whey is you-all? Oh, Lawdy! Lawdy! I is got mo’ child’en dan dis! I knows I’s got mo’ child’en dan whut dis is! Young Marse done kill some on ’em!” rose Cindy’s excited shriek.

There came a second shot, before Virginia rapped again, crying angrily, “It is I, Virginia. Put up your pistol and open the door!”

After a very long silence within the hut. “I ’spects dey done napped off,” mildly suggested Uncle Vete. Virginia was preparing to knock again, when a little gust of wind arising, the door swung silently open, showing that it had been unbarred for some time.

Virginia stepped into the room, carrying one of the carriage lamps and unheeding Uncle Vete’s caution to “Go easy, honey, an’ holler ’fo’ you git inside, so dey know who comin’.”

Fair’s companion lay sprawled upon the gay patchwork quilt of Cindy’s best bed. He was, or pretended to be, sleeping heavily. The hack driver would have to be called if he was to be roused and gotten into the vehicle.

At the table, his head among half-filled and empty glasses, and the wreck of a poker game, sat Fairfax Sevier. Virginia went with averted eyes past the bed to her brother, and shook him by the shoulder.

“Buddy,” she said huskily, “Buddy, dear, I brought a hack out for you. Can you walk to it?”

“Who’s goin’—take care—Parke? Parke’s been drinkin’,” explained poor Fair, with something like a whimper.

Virginia turned to the bed; and contempt fell cool upon her suffering. A face in drunken slumber is not calculated to command respect, even to win much sympathy.

The girl took the shock like the daughter of warriors that she was. “Does Parke Winchester drink now?” she inquired, finally, of the negro.

Again Vete stole that quick, side-long glance at her. “I ain’t never knowed de time Marse Parke quit,” he returned finally. “He might fool de white folks ’bout hit, but he ain’t take dat trouble wid de niggers. Him an’ Marse Fair been at my house mo’ dan onct lately.”

Parke, then, had not only never given up his drinking; he had been actually initiating Fairfax Sevier into the great and inglorious guild of topers, while he deceived the sister with promises that he would find who it was Fair drank with and look after the boy.

She was free; but not yet could her heart rise to the knowledge. The bowed, boyish figure before her, the degradation of that sleeper upon the negro’s poor bed—these left her very pitiful. “He’ll be quiet and behave himself now, Uncle Vete.” she said; “I’ll take Fair with me—we can’t move him,” indicating Winchester. “Let him sleep.”

“O, yassum, yassum. He be all right in de mawnin’. He been all right ternight, ef I could jest er got hol’ ’er ’im. Dishyer negoshulatin’ wid ’er man th’oo er do’, an’ him er doin’ his talkin’ wid er gun, hit’s unsartin kin’ er wuyck.”

Still in a daze Virginia picked up a pistol from the floor, turned the cylinder to see that it was unloaded, and dropped it into the pocket of Parke’s light overcoat.

At the action, Fair showed his first consciousness of her presence “You’ll get yourself shot one—these days, Virginia,” he muttered, half irritably, half penitently. “—’dvise you—let such things ’lone.” And one could not have said whether he meant, by this, her present handling of the firearm itself, her former reckless demand that he open the door, or her presence on such a scene.

Uncle Vete assured Virginia that he would look after Parke for the night, and would see that he reached home in the morning. She gently declined the old man’s offer to return to town with her, and promised to send Beelzebub out by Sam, Cindy’s eldest, who was acting as house-boy at the Sevier home. The drive in the night air, and Virginia’s presence somewhat sobered her brother. “Does dad know?” he asked, as they neared home.

“I didn’t wake him,” responded Virginia.

Fair turned, as he lay with his head against her shoulder. He was beginning to be deathly sick—the end of all Fair’s essays at drinking. “You’re a good girl, Virginia. Mighty good girl. I reckon you’ll get your reward in heaven.”

But, driving home under the stars, freed from a self-imposed bond, warned that she might in future protect this well-beloved sinner whose head lay on her breast, ready now to accept the love of the man she loved, with no shadow on her conscience—Virginia felt that she had her reward here, now and in this world.

THE SPINNER.

BY ELOISE PICKETT.

Wearied to death of my thoughts!

Is there none, in this epoch of wondrous wares,

Will sell me a fair, sweet dream?

I summoned my spirit, this morn, to be chid

For her endless weaving of gloom;

But she lifted me retrospective eyes,

Burning and dry (for the tears, dammed back,

Have found them a pool in my heart);

Her face was wan, and her mouth was set

In the hard, thin line of resolve.

And I left unsaid my stern rebuke,

But her answer cried loud in her mien:

“I weave; but the warp and the woof are thine;

Thou madest them yesterday.”

And so I watch, with sickening hope,

As her busy fingers ply

’Mongst threads from the throbbing Other Days,

And wisps from the ominous Days to Come,

And skeins from the stagnant Now.

Wearied to death of my thoughts!

Is there none, in this epoch of cunning skill,

Can weave me thought-fabrics fair?

MEN OF AFFAIRS

Joseph W. Bailey.

One of the most youthful members of the government’s gravest and most august legislative body is Senator Joseph W. Bailey, a typical representative of the biggest, the breeziest and the most untrammeled, if not the most patriotic and progressive commonwealth in the Union. A natural leader, an orator of plausibility and power and a politician of resource and acumen, he is besides admittedly one of the ablest constitutional lawyers in public life.

Though a native of Mississippi and a legal product of Cumberland University, Tennessee, Senator Bailey is a Texan seemingly to the manner born. He looks, speaks, thinks and feels Texas, and having won his spurs so creditably in the congressional jousts his people have gratefully recognized his talents by entrusting him with the higher responsibilities of senator.

While Senator Bailey is a virile product of the present and coming generation in the South he has not been inclined to relinquish the habits, dress and thought of the passing regime and his picturesque personality is doubtless as readily recognized by resident of and visitor to Washington as any other public character of the times. In no particular do his old-school propensities more emphatically display themselves than in his native love for rural life and natural objects. His chief hobby comprises the maintenance of an expansive estate whereon he rears the sportive thoroughbred, so dear to the heart of the rural Southerner, and whereon he spends in the open very much of his leisure time.

Senator Bailey is a close student of men, politics and affairs, and is of the South, social, though he has no taste for the conventional society of the city.

James D. Porter.

For nearly half a century has the Honorable James D. Porter figured eminently but modestly as a public servant politically, civilly and commercially. A native of Tennessee, in which State he has spent nearly all of his eventful life, he was born at Paris, in 1828, and was admitted to the bar in 1859. With a disposition toward the public service, from a State legislator he became a circuit judge, and from the bench he ascended to the gubernatorial chair, which he was twice called upon to occupy. His large and worthy talents coming to the notice of President Cleveland, he was invited during his first term to serve as Assistant Secretary of State, which he did with such satisfaction as to receive during the President’s second term his credentials as the government’s official representative to Chili, in which capacity he attracted attention by his tactful reestablishment of friendly relations between the two countries.

In the active commercial affairs of life he has been likewise prominent, being sometime president of the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railroad Company, and as a soldier of the gray he gallantly participated in many of the fiercest conflicts of the war as Adjutant General under General Frank Cheatham.

HON. JOSEPH W. BAILEY.

In 1901 he was selected by virtue of his wide experience in affairs, executive ability, character and attainments, as the most suitable head of the great Peabody benefaction to the cause of Southern education, and he is successfully rounding his period of long and devoted public service to the administration of this popular munificence as President of the Peabody Normal College and University of Nashville. With every assurance of early success he is now engaged in raising from the State of Tennessee, the City of Nashville, and by popular subscription, $250,000 which, when attained, will carry with it a permanent endowment of a million dollars from the Peabody estate. President Porter is a man of distinguished bearing and impressive address.

JAMES D. PORTER.

Joseph W. Folk.

Missouri’s young governor has received probably more free and favorable publicity than any other citizen of the Republic, and the public is so well informed as to his life and record that anything said of him here would be merely cumulative and by way of favorable repetition. It is gratifying to command the approval of friends and partisans, but it is a delicate and trying obligation to have to live up to the encomiums of non-partisans and erstwhile opponents. With nothing but good said of his ability and integrity, Governor Folk’s position in politics, which now has a decided national aspect, presents a most interesting field of speculation to the student of politics and affairs.

First coming into local prominence in St. Louis as an able and fearless criminal prosecutor whom a powerful and never-before-thwarted partisan political machine could not influence or intimidate, Governor Folk developed into national prominence through his relentless warfare upon the local boodling regime, his successes influencing municipal reforms throughout the country and rendering him so strong with the masses of statesmen regardless of political complexion, that they triumphantly elevated him to the gubernatorial station in the face of an otherwise astonishing landslide in the other direction.

JOSEPH W. FOLK.

Governor Folk is a native of Brownsville, Tenn., where he was born about thirty-seven years ago, and is a product of purely Southern environment, rearing and education. Graduating from the Vanderbilt University law school fifteen years ago, he started at about the lowest and roughest rung of the ladder, a struggling young country lawyer in his native town. In quest of opportunities more in keeping with his talents and ambitions, he soon joined the large Tennessee colony in St. Louis, not long thereafter attaining to some local notice as a political leader by being elected president of the representative Democratic organization.

WARREN A. CANDLER.

It is truly said that all great human successes are a combination of fortuitous circumstance, and the genius to take advantage thereof. Governor Folk’s mastery of a complicated local situation wherein he represented a supposed hopeless political movement, turned seeming defeat into a brilliant victory, and he was elected District Attorney, since which time his record is known to the country at large.

Warren A. Candler.

A virile and dominant figure in Southern religious life is Rev. Warren Akin Candler, youngest bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Of a family probably second to none in Georgia from the standpoint of the prominence of its sons in public life in that State to-day, Bishop Candler was born forty-eight years ago in Carroll County. Educated at Emory College, from which he graduated with first honors in 1875, he immediately entered the ministry, ascending rapidly the ladder of ecclesiastical promotion from the humblest rural circuit to the most influential urban charge. From presiding elder of the Dahlonega and Oxford districts he served for two years in the editorial field as assistant editor of the Christian Advocate in Nashville. In 1888 he was called to the very large activity of presiding over the destinies of Emory College, his alma mater, which institution enjoyed during the decade of his administration its highest period of strength and usefulness.

With a distinguished record in all vital departments of his church labors, Bishop Candler’s early elevation to the bishopric when barely past forty years of age was a merited and logical testimonial to his eminent capacity for religious leadership and organization. This exalted promotion came to him at the hands of the Baltimore Conference of 1898.

Besides being a pulpit orator of vigor and lucidity, Bishop Candler is a luminous expositor of secular themes and has rounded out a very busy career by producing several well-known religious and general publications, including a “History of Sunday Schools,” “Georgia’s Educational Work,” “Christus Auctor,” “High Living and High Lives,” and “Great Revivals and the Great Republic.”

Bishop Candler’s official residence is Atlanta.

RICHMOND PEARSON HOBSON.

Richmond Pearson Hobson, who contributes the following thoughtful paper to the Magazine, is so well known to our readers that it is hardly necessary to say anything here by way of comment upon his eventful history. Since his retirement from the navy, Captain Hobson has devoted much attention to political affairs, and it is safe to predict that his services to the public will be marked by the earnestness and devotion to duty which brought him his well-merited fame as an officer in the United States navy.—Ed.

COTTON AND WAR.

[Part of an address delivered by Mr. Hobson before the Cotton Growers’ Association last January.]

By Richmond Pearson Hobson.

The price of cotton, like other prices, is settled by the relation of supply and demand. In face of the sudden depression, due to the increased volume of supply in the large crop, we are liable to overlook and underestimate the importance of the factors influencing the demand. Sojourning about the world has convinced me that the factors of demand are more pliable and more accessible than those of supply. In truth, a single factor reducing demand, the war in the Orient, is responsible for depression amounting to from 7 to 8 cents a pound, while the total depression due to the big crop is scarcely more than 3 cents a pound.

Furthermore, the question of adjusting the supply for the next year, cannot be intelligently settled until after investigation of the probable demand.

Therefore, I invite your attention for a few minutes to the question of demand, and especially to the factor of war, since we are now in the presence of the great struggle in the Orient.

The old sources of demand, Europe and America, have gone on slowly increasing with the increase of population, and the rise of the standard of comfort, though a check was sustained by the outbreak of the Boer War, which saw a falling off of over one million bales in the consumption of the united commodities. This slow increase in demand has been more than balanced by the steady increase in supply, coming chiefly from the larger acreage and larger increase of commercial fertilizers in the South. Consequently, for several decades the price of cotton has had a steady trend downward. It was only when new demands came from new markets that the price started upward. The chief of the new markets are those of the Orient. Japan has made great strides in the cotton mill industry, until at the outbreak of the present war, she was consuming over $50,000,000 worth of cotton annually.

But more important even than Japan, has been the new market of China, which, when the present war came, amounted to $90,000,000 annually, chiefly coarse cotton goods, of which a large part has been furnished by Southern mills.

These two markets have come to consume more cotton than is produced by Alabama and Mississippi combined. It is not surprising, therefore, that in spite of the steadily increasing production, the price has steadily risen. The rise has been especially marked since the Boxer disturbances that were followed by a new impulsion in the opening up of China.

As great as this new market has become, it is only in its infancy.

If China were opened up, free to the commerce of all nations, its four hundred and thirty millions of industrial people, would rise from a five cent wage basis to a 20 cent, 30 cent, or even 40 or 50 cent basis, and the average man, instead of having his present outfit of about a half suit of cotton clothes, would have four or five whole suits, which are pulled on in multiple numbers, according to the coldness of the day. This would so increase the world’s demand for cotton that even with a 20,000,000 bale crop, the price could be hardly kept down to 20 cents per pound.

The picture here disclosed is not visionary. Thousands of Chinese worked under my inspection for months reconstructing gun-boats at Hong Kong. The above estimates of their industrial capacity are conservative. Knowing both peoples, I do not hesitate to say that the industrial capacity of a Chinaman is far greater than that of a Japanese, while there are over ten times as many Chinese as Japanese. Moreover, the facilities for communication are advancing. The eyes of the world have been thrown upon China, and the point of the wedge has been entered. A few decades can see marvelous growth in this young giant of a market. I estimate that before this century is half turned, China, properly opened up, will add more than $5,000,000,000 annually to the world’s commerce, and one of the chief staples of this commerce will be cotton, first the goods, then the raw materials, creating a consumption as great as that of all Europe combined.

But this greatest of all coming cotton markets is the most sensitive and the most exposed. When war broke out in the Orient last year, it was clear that Japan and Russia, under the exhaustion, would decline in buying power, and that the thriving cotton trade of Manchuria would be cut off entirely, while the fate of China might become involved and endanger the whole Chinese market. Consequently, the day after war was declared, cotton slumped 5 cents a pound, and started on its downward path, going off nearly 8 cents a pound before indications came in of the large crop, which brought about a further decline of about 3 cents a pound.

The grievous depression we are passing through must be attributed to the war in the Orient. Without war cotton would now be from 12 to 15 cents per pound, even with the big crop. Think what prosperity this would have meant. Can anyone contend that the United States should be indifferent to this war? It may be pointed out that our diplomatic moves were masterful, both in getting the powers to commit themselves to limiting the war zone, and to preserving the integrity of China, and also in negotiating, by cable, treaties with China, not Russia, opening up Mukden, Dalny and Antung, in Manchuria, thus recognizing Chinese sovereignty, and placing the United States in the same attitude as Japan, in standing for the evacuation of Manchuria. Unfortunately, our diplomatic moves had but little deterrent effect, not being backed by an adequate navy. Had we possessed an adequate navy, I am bold to say that Manchuria would have been evacuated and the war would not have come to disturb the earth and bring the present depression over the Southern people.

It is hardly necessary to point out that our losses already incurred would have covered many fields over the cost of such a navy.

But as great as are these losses they cannot compare with the greater losses that may lie ahead, if the present drift of events should go unchecked and lead to a general war over the division of China.

Naturally, the Continental powers of Europe do not wish to have to compete with our industrial nation on the basis of an equal footing in this great market. They have, therefore, combined to seize China by force, and partition it among themselves, leaving the industrial nations out.

The first step taken in this direction came at the conclusion of the war between China and Japan, when the Continental powers intervened to despoil Japan of the fruits of victory, preventing the consummation of the treaty of Shimonosoki, that would have ceded to Japan part of Manchuria, including the Liaotung Peninsula with Port Arthur. Soon Russia came to occupy the same territory wrested from Japan, Germany seized Kiaochao, and part of the Shantung Peninsula, Italy attempted to seize a Chinese port, and France became active on the frontier of Indo-China.

The next step in the seizure of China is planned for the present war. Indeed, the seizure of China is the very purpose of the war, and to this end Russia is conducting her war operations.

The chief aim of this year’s campaign has been to change the public opinion of Europe. Thus it is that Russia has conducted a pre-arranged system of retreats, and that the inspired press of Europe has raised the hue and cry of “Yellow Peril,” with such success that the peoples now stand with their governments on the side of Russia. The combination is ready to move, and we can expect renewed reports of Chinese violation, of neutrality, of Chinese disturbances and Japanese intrigues in China, Russia reporting upon the affairs in Mongolia, France upon the affairs in Kwangsi, and Germany in Shantung and Chili. The agents of these powers will probably facilitate and exaggerate the Chinese disturbances, and then upon the pretext of preventing massacre and a general Chinese uprising, the armies by pre-arranged program will enter and occupy the Provinces of China, never again to leave.

Opposition on the part of Great Britain is evidently anticipated, and the inexplicable seizure of British ships, followed later by the inexplicable firing upon British fishing vessels, appears as part of a plan to excite British indignation, so that at the opportune moment, the British may be the more easily provoked to commit an act of war which would at once put into operation the Russian treaty of alliance with France, and this would be the signal for Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy to join Russia and France.

Thus the present war is producing a grouping that imperils the balance of power, placing a heavy preponderance on the side of the military as against the industrial nations or on the side of war as against the peace forces. No thoughtful observer can fail to see here all the elements for a world war; nor can we look except with alarm upon the declination by the military powers of the interstate to the proposed second convention of The Hague, and the Russian note complaining of alleged violation of neutrality by China. It is idle to imagine that the United States, the foremost industrial power, with more at stake in the Orient than any nation, could look on with indifference.

We should awaken to the full significance of the events gathering in the Orient. The two antagonistic systems, militarism and industrialism, are gathering for a death struggle. The Orient is the battle ground—China is the objective.

If militarism succeeds in intrenching itself upon the yellow race, securing the myriads upon which to levy for men and for means, then it will perpetuate its harsh reign for centuries yet to come.

On the other hand, if thwarted in obtaining the spoils of war and left simply to a fair competition, militarism will be unable to hold its own, and will be driven to the wall, and be compelled to disarm by the great economic forces of commerce and industry, and we can then confidently expect the establishment of general and enduring peace long ere this century is gone.

What would be the effect upon cotton?

If peace is restored and maintained, cotton will start again upon its upward course and in a few years, with such a vast demand as China would create, I am conservative in saying that the price would pass the 20 cent mark, and remain above this mark, no matter how large the crop.

On the other hand, if events are allowed to drift on and a general war comes, cotton would become a drug on the market, even though reduced acreage, calamity and distress would spread over the South. Indeed, with militarism uppermost, wars and rumors of wars would continually disturb the world, nations would be exhausted and lose in their buying capacity, and the myriads of helpless peoples would pass under the military yoke and remain unable to buy clothing. The greatest source of Southern prosperity would be permanently blighted, and a serious blow would be struck at the general prosperity of America, and at the happiness of mankind.

Under these circumstances, when it is a question of 3½ cent cotton or 25 cent cotton, I do not hesitate to say that the solid influence of the South should be felt for having our country act promptly and vigorously, to use every proper means to restore the balance of the world on the side of peace, and to bring about the ending of the present war and the restoration of Manchuria to the commerce of the world.

It only remains for us to refer summarily to the factors of supply. It is practically certain that the South will continue to produce the bulk of the world’s cotton. During the Civil War, when cotton was over $1.00 a pound, persistent efforts were made all over the world to develop cotton growing, but in vain. The Gulf Stream on one side, and a vast continent on the other, produce climatic conditions for cotton culture not duplicated anywhere else in the world. We may expect some increase in the output of Egypt on account of developing irrigation, and possibly a temporary increase in the output of India, and other secondary sources due to the recent high price, but the present depression will tend to check this movement. Therefore, the South may be expected to continue to produce over 80 per cent of the world’s supply so that the question of supply lies in our own hands.

The two factors in determining the supply are the seasons and the acreage. While the general law of the average holds, history shows that the temperate zone is liable to wide fluctuations in seasons, which it is impossible to foresee. The recourse to offset the unhappy consequences of wide fluctuations is a reservoir or fly-wheel, into which the fat years can pour their supplies for making up the deficit of the lean years. The uncertainty of cotton demand, hinging upon war or peace, is now added to the uncertainty of the cotton season. Recourse to storage is therefore absolutely necessary, and a wide system of warehouse storage should be created. I will not endeavor to go into the details of such a system, but venture to suggest that it should be organized on bedrock principles, and operate on the securest lines, so that a warehouse certificate would be absolutely safe and universally negotiable. Lessons could probably be learned from the systems in use in pig iron storage, where the market is also subject to wide fluctuations. The American Pig Iron Storage Warehouse Co. would probably be the best pattern.

The factors of acreage should be carefully investigated before any radical action is taken.

I know it is best for a farmer to have a diversified crop as it is best for a city to have diversified industries, and it is wise for a farmer, like a nation, to produce the necessities required for home consumption. The present fearful depression will doubtless have a partial benefit in this direction, but I fear too much importance is now being given to this question. While I would urge the farmers to diversify their crops, I would hesitate to recommend a sweeping reduction in the world’s production. In fact, as an economic principle, there can be no such thing as over production at this stage of the world’s progress, particularly in the great world’s staples, like those of food and clothing. For generations to come mankind, on the whole, will go hungry and half naked. The true principle is not to try to reduce the product but to provide for a general increasing buying capacity and particularly for the case of the undeveloped peoples of the earth, by increasing their opportunities to work for the world’s market, and to make the wages necessary to purchase the products. If we could only be sure that peace is to prevail, so that the market of China would be restored, and could go on increasing, I would not hesitate to urge against any reduction in acreage. On the contrary, I would urge a steady increase, for no matter how great the increase, the supply would never keep up with the growth of demand. As conditions now stand, however, I believe conservative action is advisable—action that would lean rather toward the side of preparation to store up for future use the surplus, if war should come, than to materially reduce the acreage, and my advice to the individual farmer is to become independent and diversify his crop, and then plant his usual acreage in cotton.

It may be pointed out that one effective way to offset the losses from low-priced cotton is for the South to invest more and more in cotton mills, that benefit from these prices, and the logic of the situation would have cotton growers invest their available capital and saving in cotton manufacture. The true aim of the South should be not only to produce the cotton, but the clothing for the world. And every country in the South should have cotton mill industries organized with local capital and should develop and educate its labor for the high grades as well as coarse.

Summing up, the general conclusions and recommendations are as follows:

1. The cotton growers should have a wide, permanent organization with a general convention once a year.

2. A standing committee composed of, say, two members for each cotton growing state, should be appointed to investigate and report each year upon the existing and prospective conditions of supply of cotton.

3. A similar committee should be appointed to investigate and report each year upon the existing and prospective conditions of the demand for cotton.

4. There should be established a comprehensive and carefully organized storage warehouse system.

5. The great agents for increasing the price of cotton are peace, prosperity and civilization.

6. The arch-enemy of the cotton growers is war. The permanent cause of cotton must look to the peoples beyond the sea, especially China. The fate of China hangs upon peace or war—peace or war depends upon America—America’s influence depends upon her navy.

THE MASTER-HAND.

BY GARNET NOEL WILEY

Sometimes at half-mast, all my hours

A drooping banner seem to lie

In listless folds, along the calm,

Still blue of boundless stagnancy.

Grieving, I think, because somewhat

Within my soul is near to die.

Enow the master-hand of Love

Plucks at my banner’s guiding string,

Until it flutters in the breeze,

And pulses like a living thing.

Joyous, I think, because somewhat

Within my soul hath need to sing.

THE BOY IN GRAY.

By Will N. Harben, Author of “Abner Daniel.”

One day in midsummer I went to visit the old plantation of the Lansdale family. The moment I entered the cooling shade of the tall trees on the lawn something seemed to tell me that I was on a spot hallowed by human suffering and misfortune.

The house had two stories and an L. There was a long veranda in front, the roof of which was supported by large white columns. My interest in the place was due to the fact that prior to the Civil War it had been the rendezvous of the aristocracy for miles around it. The wide halls and spacious rooms had once rung with gay laughter, sweet music and the tripping of feet in merry dances.

Behind the uninhabited dwelling the shrubbery had grown into a riotous tangle. Choice rose bushes had been dwarfed and choked to barrenness by an army of interlopers—Jamestown weeds, hollyhocks and giant sunflowers. Only here and there might be seen a pale-leaved geranium or a dandelion in the edges of the gravel walks, now almost completely overgrown. Here, bent to the earth, lay a decayed lattice, pulled down by a fragrant jasmine; in another place stood the rotten remains of what had once been a graceful summerhouse.

As I wended my way further from the old mansion the silence and shade seemed to thicken and blend into the pervading melancholy. When about two hundred yards from the house, I suddenly came upon a log cabin almost hidden from view behind a close growth of gnarled and twisted apple trees. In the door sat an old negro man. His face was pinched and wrinkled and his eyes, peeping through their brown slits, looked like blue beads. With his old bell-shaped hat on his knee, he glanced up in surprise, and, rising quickly he hobbled towards me, bowing politely.

“Who dis heer?” he asked, as he shaded his eyes with his hand and peered up at me. “It seems like I don’t know you, but you may know who I is. Most white folks knows me, dough, thank de Lawd! I carn’t see you good, suh; my sight is failin’ me powerful fast.”

“I’m a stranger in this part of the South,” I told him. “I have heard so much about the Lansdale family that I wanted to see their old home; that’s all. I hope I’m not intruding.”

“Lawdamussy, bless you, no, suh!” he replied quickly. “You is welcome to roam ’round all you want. Ef ’twuz des in de ol’ time, suh, my young marster, er my ol’ marster, would done met you down de carriage drive an’ ’scort’ you in an’ took yo’ hat an’ pass roun’ de wine an’ cigars, but” (a long sigh escaped his lips, and he shook his head sadly), “but dat time done gone, suh—dat time done gone.”

“Tell me something about your master’s family,” I said, taking a chair near his own at the cabin door. “I have heard that Mr. Lansdale’s only son was killed during the war when he was hardly more than a child.”

“Dat so, suh,” the old man answered in a tender tone, as he sat down in his chair and leaned it back against the wall. “Dat was Marse Eddie. He wasn’t fifteen year old when he ’listed. It all come o’ him actually itchin’ ter be a soldier from his cradle up. Long ’fo’ de war was ever start up, when he wasn’t ten year old he had soldierin’ in his head, an’ nobody couldn’t stop ’im. His maw say he wouldn’t study his school books lessen dey tell ’bout wars an’ bloodshed. Away back den Marse Eddie’s soldierin’ was de chief talk ’mongst de slaves.

“He wasn’t fifteen year old when he ’listed.”

“He didn’t keer fur hosses, ur fishin’, ur huntin’ like other boys, but ef you des mention soldierin’ he would pick up his ears an’ open his eyes. He used to had his army, an’ what you reckon dat army was made out’n, suh? Nothin’, ’cept ten ur ’leven pickaninnies in deir shut-tails an’ bare laigs. But, suh, dey would march round dis plantation tell dey raidy to drap in deir tracks to please dat boy. An’ dey didn’t know no mo’ ’bout what a rail army was dan a blind kitten. But ’fore he got thoo wid um, Marse Eddie had um trained so dey will march straight in er breast-line, ur wheel round, double-quick step, an’ charge bayonets when he give de command des de same as reg’lar troups.

“Des as soon as he had his breakfust in de mawnin’ Marse Eddie ’ud tramp out’n de house wid his hat pinned up on one side an’ his pants stuck in his red-top boots an’ old Miss’ shawl flung acrost his shoulder to make ’im look like a general.

“He would al’ays find his army at de front do’ pushin’ an’ kickin’ one ’nother, all um tryin’ to be haid in de row. But when dey see ’im dey stand mighty quiet kase he done whacked deir laigs too often wid his stick sword. Den Marse Eddie ud stand on de veranda wid his maw ur Miss Grace long side o’ him while he call de roll. It uster sound mighty funny ’fo’ any of us know how it was gwine to end.

“James Lansdale! Heer! Thomas Lansdale! Heer! Abrum Lansdale! Heer! Tobe Lansdale! Heer! an’ so on dey all answered deir names. Old Marster listen to ’em one day while he was smokin’ on de veranda an’ low to ’im, he did—des jokin’: ’Son’, he say, smilin’ like he al’ays did, ’I do hope an’ pray you won’t have no diverses in battle, kase it would be too bad to had we-all’s kin-folks in Firginny read in de papers dat so many Lansdales is kilt in war. Seem like dey is a sight of um in yo’ army.’

“Young Marster didn’t say nothin’ but it sorter made ’im mad. He got raid in de face, an ordered de string o’ darkies to shoulder deir stick guns an’ march off todes de spring-house, whar he say he count on campin’ out an’ ’rangin’ ’bout buildin’ abridge cross de branch so dey kin git at de enemy prowlin’ round. Dat’s de way he carried on, an’ all de darkies in his crowd held deir haids so high dey wouldn’t speak to de niggers on de place j’inin’ we-all’s plantation, an’ dey got so triflin’ dat dey wasn’t fittin’ fur anything but fightin’ under Marse Eddie.

“Miss Grace cert’ney did keer mo fur her brother dan she did fur anything in de worl’, even de young mens dat come to see ’er. Anything Marse Eddie do is des right. She made ’im his newniform, an’ flags, an’ his raid sash, an’ gloried in ’im.

“He was off in Firginny at his uncle’s when de sho-nough war broke out. Old Marster had done made up his company in we-all’s settlement an’ was most raidy to go. De very same day dat de guns come dat dey was waitin’ on, who shall ride up on a hoss des reekin’ wid sweat but Marse Eddie. He lef’ de hoss in de front yard an’ run in de dinin’ room whar his maw an’ sister was. He kissed um mighty quick an’ strange like an’ den say, ‘Whar is father?’

“Old Miss an’ young Miss bofe turn pale an’ trembly, but dey ain’t say a word at fust. Den Marse Eddie say powerful impatient, ‘Grace, whar is father?’

“‘He’s down in de quarter,’ she say an’ den when de boy done lef’ de room most as quick as a skeerd rabbit kin jump, de two women look one ’nother in de face fer a long time powerful still an’ troubled. Den old Miss say, mighty husky in ’er throat:

“‘He must not go, Grace; I carn’t stand it; he’s too young—I carn’t stand dat!’

“De tears was comin’ in young Miss’ eyes an’ she left ’er maw an’ went an’ stood in de kitchen do’ to meet Marse Eddie an’ his paw as dey was comin’ up de garden walk, talkin’ low an’ arm in arm. Somehow young Marster looked like he was all at once as old an’ ’sponsible as his paw. When dey was bofe in de house, Miss Grace tuck ’er brurr by de arm an’ led ’im off to one side, an’ I heer ’er say:

“‘Brurr Eddie, father is goin’ off to fight de Yankees an’ me’n mother carn’t live by ourse’ves. You must stay wid us—one is enough to lose.’

“‘Oh, sister,’ Marse Eddie say, very impatient. ‘Don’t talk nonsense at sech a serious moment. Father, did you say all yo’ men gwine be raidy in de mawnin’? We must not had no mistakes. I’m not tired. I believe I’ll git a fresh hoss an’ ride round mongst ’em.’

“Well, suh, dat was de end o’ de women folks tryin’ to ’fluence ’im. It seem to me dat he was every bit an’ grain as sensible as his pa. It look like Marster was too backward ’bout tryin’ to make ’im stay at home. De next day all marched off an’ dey tuck all de men slaves ’cep’ me. Dey lef’ me kase I was too lame to march an’ somebody had to stay at home.

“Den a whole year went by. Sometimes letters ud come an’ sometimes word ud reach us in one way an’ another. Den old Miss tuck down sick, an’ Miss Grace kept all de bad news from ’er ’bout de war. Den come a letter from Marse Eddie hisse’f. He writ dat he is a little wounded in de arm an’ dat he got a furlough to come home an’ will be wid us as soon as he kin git thoo de lines. But de time went by, day in, day out fur a week an’ no mo’ news ’cep’ old Marster writ dat de boy is done put out fur home some time back; so dar we is—old Marster say he ain’t in de war, an’ he ain’t got to we-all.

“While we-all in dis fix an’ worriment, de Yankee army des swoop down on us lake a swarm o’ grass-hoppers. Dar wasn’t a single Rebel ’cep’ women folks an’ me anywhars around. Den we know dat Marse Eddie is cut off fum us. While de Yankees is camped round us as thick as fleas, a old man come to us, he did, an’ said he’d met up wid Marse Eddie one day up in de mountains what you kin see over dar, an’ ’at he was mighty nigh starved to death an’ unable to git stuff to eat.

“Marse Eddie tol’ de man ’at he’d started home on his furlough but was tuck down sick at a house on de way, an’ when he got so he could travel an’ come nigh home de Yankees done s’round us so he earn’t git home nur back to his regiment nuther. So he was des obleeged to stay hidin’ out in de woods like a wild animal. Dis news got, to ol’ Miss, an’ it made her wuss an’ we ’lowed she gwine die sho’.

“One night I woke up kase I heerd somebody walkin’ on de porch, an’ when I went to de do’ dar is young Miss standin’ dar lookin’ to’ds de Yankee camp what you could see fum de’r fires dey kept burnin’ so we couldn’t slip up on um an’ throttle um in de’r sleep.

“‘Don’t tell mother, Ham’ she say; ‘po’ thing, she’s very sick, an’ we mustn’t ’sturb ’er. I carn’t sleep wid all dis on my mind. How do we know, Ham, but my po’ brother may be dis minute in gre’t danger? I must keep watch kase I know in reason he’ll try to pass thoo de lines some night to get to we-all’s, an’, Ham, somebody must be up to receive ’im an’ hide ’im less’n dey catch ’im an’ try to kill ’im.’

“She was alraidy a-cryin’, an’ I didn’t have de heart to tell ’er how dangersome it was to try to pass guards on picket duty, kase I had heerd ’bout one po’ feller gittin’ daylight let thoo ’im while he was tryin’ to do it on his all-fours.

“It was as still, suh, dat night as a graveyard. De wind wasn’t blowin’ ’nough to move a blade o’ wavy grass. An’ all of a sudden I heerd a sound way down de road like somebody’s feet—pit-pat, pit-pat, comin’ nigher an’ nigher. Den we heer somebody a-pantin’ mighty nigh out’n breath.

“Young Miss laid ’er han’ on ’er breast an’ breathed hard. De sound kept gittin’ closer an’ closer tell all at once somebody sprung over de fence into de yard. My Gawd, it was Marse Eddie, an’ no dead white pusson could look paler’n he did an’ so thin an’ raggety.

“‘Grace,’ he say, blowin hard, ‘is dis you? My Gawd, sister, dey is atter me. I started to slip thoo de lines an’ dey seed me an’ so I had to run fur my life. Do you heer um?’

“We all listen an’ sho ’nough we heerd de Yankees comin’ as fast as dey kin lick it. Young Miss carn’t speak; she des throwed ’er arms ’roun ’er brurr’s neck an’ tried to pull ’im in de house. But he say, ‘No, no; I mus’ run furder; dey gwine s’arch dis house fust place, kase we-all fur de Souf—good-bye!’ an’ ’fo’ Miss Grace could open ’er mouf he’s off thoo de woods an’ out o’ sight in de dark, dough he wasn’t runnin’ out’n a slow dog-trot kase he was too broke down. In a minute ’bout ten men jump de fence an’ come to us.

“‘Here he is!’ one of um say, an’ he stuck a pistol in my face fur de worl’ like he gwine blow my brains out. Dis was a sho ’nough s’prise to me, I tell you, fur it was a powerful good chance fur young Miss ter tell um, yes, I was de one, an’ git um to stop runnin’ after her brurr. I didn’t know what she was gwine to do ’bout it, but it didn’t suit me one bit. I never seed de line o’ pickets I’d try to run thoo, an’ my time hadn’t come to die nohow.

“But one of de men say, ‘No, it was a white man, an’ a reb to boot kase I seed his face an’ his newniform. Dis is des a’ ol’ nigger dat stays ’roun’ dis house.’ Den he up an’ ’dress young Miss. ‘Young lady,’ he ax ’er, ‘is a man pass heer des now?’

“Well, suh, I ’lowed she wouldn’t find ’er tongue, she was so bad put out, but she up an’ say: ‘No, suh, not sence I been standin’ here,’ an’ she say it as cool as ef she was des givin’ ’im a passin’ s’lute. But I reckon dat officer seed thoo ’er kase he said: ‘Some o’ you fellers run down dat way an’ fo’ of us will s’arch de house. Miss,’ he say to Miss Grace, ‘we all know you is fur de downfall o’ de republic, an’ you mus’ ’scuse me fur not takin’ yo’ word, but we is been fooled so many times by you women in de Souf dat we got to be partic’lar.’

“Wid dat, fo’ of um go thoo we-all’s house fum bottom to top an’ ol’ Miss was mighty nigh ’stracted. She riz bodily fum ’er bed an’ fronted um. It was a big wonder to me dat dem Yankees ain’t shot ’er daid in ’er tracks fur de way she belittled um.

“‘You dirty gang o’ raid-hand murderers an’ cut-th’oats,’ she say, ‘I hope an’ pray high heaven will fall down on you an’ crush you in everlastin’ punishment. You ain’t satisfied wid takin’ our sons an’ husbands fum us, but you must go an’ tromple our houses wid yo’ muddy feet an’ fo’ce yo’ ugly se’ves into de sick rooms o’ yo’ betters. Dat shows yo’ raisin’; no Southern gen’man ain’t gwine be so brutish.’

“‘Now, madam,’ de leader say as cool as a watermelon in a deep spring, ‘des keep on yo’ jacket. You ketch yo’ death wid cold, A sudden change fum a warm bed is a bad thing whar doctors is so scarce, anyhow. You better not ’cite yo’se’f—’twon’t do a speck o’ good, an’ in fact you ain’t lookin’ well. You act sorter s’picious. Ef dar is a spy in yo’ house we gwine have ’im fur our meat, an’ all yo’ rampageousness won’t stop us. Dough, I make bold to say, madam, dat we-all ud like to have you on we-all’s side. At close range dat tongue o’ yo’n ud beat a grape-gun all holler.’

“Ol’ Miss didn’t say anything back. She looked out’n ’er eyes, dough, like you seed a balkin’ mule ’fo’ now, mebby, when his laigs is been tied together to break ’im fum kickin’ an’ you stan’ hind ’im wid a whip an’ sorer tap ’im in de flank atter he found out he earn’t kick ’nough to skeer a hoss-fly off’n his back.

“Well, dey all go plumb thoo de house widout a speck ur luck, ’cep’ what dey come acrost in de cupboard. When dey et all dey want an’ is raidy to go, de head man say to ol’ Miss: ‘Madam,’ he say, lookin’ at me kinder ’chievous, ‘we got some work in de camp to be done an’ dis ol’ nigger mus’ go an’ tend to it. We’ll sen’ ’im back in de mawnin’ sho ef he gits thoo.’

“Dat ain’t de fust time I had to do odd jobs fur um, an’ I ain’t s’prised. I had to march back wid one lill swivelly white man dat I could a-mashed twixt my fingers like a skeeter, an’ I would a-tried it, too, ef he hadn’t kep’ a musket level’ on me de whole time. De other soldiers went on after Marse Eddie.

“He’s a spy,’ I heer um say, as dey went off, ’an’ he carn’t git away, nuther, kase he is s’rounded on all sides an’ day is breakin’.’

“By de time we got to de camp de sun was ’ginnin’ to rise an’ a kettle drummer was out wakin’ um all up wid his clatter. I had to he’p wash dishes at de officer’s tent, an’ all dat mawnin’ I heerd um axin’ one another is de spy done kotch. To’ds dinner de men all come back an’ wid um was po’ Marse Eddie. He was so weakly dey had to mos’ drap ’im along. Pon my word, I don’t b’lieve de boy know who had ’im; he looked so wild out o’ his raid eyes.

“Dey tuck ’im to a big tent an’ all de officers got in it and held a court martial—dat’s what dey called it. I couldn’t heer a word dat passed, but de Lawd know I seed Marse Eddie was in a bad fix, kase dey was makin’ sech a big to-do.