CHAPTER VI
THE MUSICALE

DINNER was served at the family table, with Mr. West at the head and his mother at the foot.

"The eye is the window of the soul," thought Percy, as he met the glance of Adelaide sitting opposite. Certain he was that he had never before looked into such alluring eyes.

Adelaide was neither a girl nor a woman and yet at times she was both. With the other children she was a child that still loved to romp and play with the rest, free as a bird. Her mother, a sweet-faced woman, some years her husband's junior, made sisters of all her daughters, the more naturally perhaps, because the grandmother was still so active and so interested in all phases of homemaking that she seemed mother to them all. Adelaide's two older sisters were married and her brother Charles, also older than herself, by three years, was a senior in college. Adelaide had just finished her course in the Academy where the long service of a maiden aunt as a teacher had secured certain appreciated privileges, without which it is doubtful if both Charles and Adelaide could have been sent away to school at the same time. A boy of fourteen and the eight-year old baby brother with two sisters between comprised the younger members of the family.

Miss Bowman, the teacher of the district school, also occupied a place at the table. The evening meal was disposed of without delay, for there was something of greater importance to follow. A musicale in the near-by country church had been in preparation and Percy heartily accepted an invitation to accompany the family to the evening's entertainment. Or rather he accompanied Mr. and Mrs. West and the grandmother, for all the children had walked the distance before the carriage arrived.

Without having specialized in music, nevertheless Percy had improved the frequent opportunities he had had, especially while at the university, and he had learned to appreciate quality in the musical world. Consequently he was not a little surprised and greatly pleased to sit and listen to a class of music that he had never before heard rendered in country places; but, as he listened for Adelaide's singing in chorus, duet, and solo, he found himself wondering whether the eye or the voice more clearly revealed the soul.

"It seemed like the old times," said the grandmother, with something like a sigh, as she took her place in the carriage. "If our land was only like it used to be! but it's become so mighty poor our children can't have many advantages these days. The Harcourt's and Staunton's whom you met are descendants of ancestors once well known in this state."

"It seems to me that the land need not have grown poor, " said Percy. "If the land was once productive, its fertility ought to be maintained by the return of the essential materials removed in crops or destroyed by cultivation. Surely land need not become poor; but of course I know too little about this land to suggest at the present time what method could best be adopted for its improvement."

"We can tell you what the best method is, " she quickly replied. "Just put on plenty of ordinary farm fertilizer, but, laws, we don't have enough to cover fifty acres a year."

For a time each seemed lost in thought, or listening to the husband and wife who sat in the front seat quietly talking of the evening's performances. Percy recognized some of the names they mentioned as belonging to persons to whom he had been presented at the church. It gradually dawned upon him that he had spent the evening with the aristocracy of the Blue Mound neighborhood. Culture, refinement, and poverty were the chief characteristics of the people who had been assembled.

"It need not have been," he repeated to himself; "surely, it need not have been, "and then he wondered if these were not much sadder words than the oft repeated " it might have been."

"May I ask where your people came from, Mrs. West?" he questioned.

"Where we came from?" she repeated, "I don't quite understand."

"Excuse me," said Percy, "but in the West it is so common to ask people where they are from. You know the West is settled with people from all sections of the East, and many from Europe and from Canada, and I thought your ancestors may have moved here from some other state, as from Pennsylvania for example, where my mother's people once lived."

"Let me advise you, Young Man," said the grandmother briskly, and in a tone that reminded Percy of the twinkle he had at times noticed in her eyes when she seemed young again--"Let me advise you never to ask a Virginian if he was born in Pennsylvania. That's more than most Virginians can stand. Once a Virginian, always a Virginian,--both now, hereafter, and hitherto. It's mighty hard to find a Virginian who came from anywhere except from the royal blood of England; although some may condescend to acknowledge kinship to the Scottish royalty."

The grandmother's voice was raised to a pitch which commanded the attention of the other members in the carriage and a hearty laugh followed her jovial wit, to the full relief of Percy's temporary embarrassment.

"Well," she continued, "to answer your question: my husband and my children are direct descendants of Colonel Charles West, a brother of Lord Delaware, who was Sir Thomas West, whose ancestry goes back to Henry the Second, of England, and to David the First, of Scotland; and my granddaughter is the great-granddaughter of Patrick Henry. So now you know where we came from," and she laughed again like a girl. "Yes," she added, "we have a family tree six feet from branch to branch, but it is stored in a back room where I am sure it is covered with cobwebs, for we have no time to live with the past when the summer boarders are here."

As the carriage stopped at the side gate, the children's voices could be heard in the rear; for Mr. West had been living over again his younger days with his sweet-faced wife, and the farm team had taken its own time.



CHAPTER VII
A BIT OF HISTORY

"NOW, I shall be at home to-day and glad to assist you in any way possible," announced Mr. West at the breakfast table.

"That is very kind of you," Percy replied. "I want especially to learn some of the things you know about the soils of Westover. Can you show me the best land and the poorest land on the estate?"

"I think I can." said Mr. West. "We have some land that has not grown a crop in fifty years, and we have other land that still produces a very fair crop if properly rotated."

"And what rotation do you practice?"

"Well, the system we have finally settled into and have followed for many years is to plow up the run-out pasture land and plant to corn. The second year we usually raise a crop of wheat or oats and seed down to clover and timothy. We then try to cut hay from the land for two years, and afterward we use the field for pasture for six or eight years, or until finally it produces only weeds and foul grass. Then we cover it with farm manure, so far as we can, and again plow the land for corn. Wheat and cattle are the principal products sold from the farm."

"In this way," said Percy, "you grow one crop of corn on the same field about once in ten or twelve years."

"Yes, about that, and also one, or sometimes two, crops of small grain. We usually have about seventy-five acres of corn, nearly a hundred acres of small grain, and we cut hay from somewhat more than hundred acres, thus leaving perhaps five hundred acres of pasture land, besides about two hundred acres of timber land which has not been cultivated for many years."

"Was the timber land that we see about here formerly cultivated?" asked Percy.

"Oh, yes, nearly all of it was under cultivation when I was a boy, although some had been allowed to go back to timber even before I was born. On our own farm we have some timber land that, so far as I have been able to learn, was never under cultivation; and the character of the trees is different on that land. There you will find original pine, but on the worn-out land the 'old-field' pine are found. They are practically worthless, while the original pine makes very valuable lumber.

"With our system of rotation we keep about all of our farm under control; but the smaller farms were necessarily cropped more continuously to support the family, and they became so unproductive that many of them have been completely abandoned for agricultural purposes; and even some of the large plantations were poorly managed, one part having been cropped continuously until too poor to pay for cropping, while the remainder was allowed to grow up in scrub brush and 'old-field' pine; and, of course, the expense of clearing such land is about as much as the net value of the crops that could be grown until it again becomes too poor for cropping."

"Then the recleared lands are not as productive as when they were first cleared from the virgin forest?"

"Oh, by no means. In the virgin state these lands grew bountiful crops almost continuously for a hundred years or more. Virginia was famed at home and abroad for her virgin fertility. Great crops of corn, wheat, and tobacco were grown. Tobacco was a valuable export crop, and there were many Virginians whose mothers came to America with passage paid for in tobacco. History records, you may remember, that it was the custom for a time to permit a young man to pay into a general store house a hundred pounds of tobacco,--and this was later increased to one hundred fifty pounds,--to be used in payment of passage for young women who were thus enabled to come to America; and there was a very distinct understanding that only those who had come forth with the tobacco were eligible as suitors for the hand of any 'imported' maiden. As a matter of fact some such arrangement as this was almost a necessity," said Mr. West, as he noted Adelaide's almost incredulous look. "Among the first settlers in Virginia, young men greatly predominated; and in the main the people in the home country were themselves in poverty. Under the hereditary laws of England the father's estate and title became the possession of his eldest son; and in large measure the other children of the family were thrown absolutely upon their own resources, so that many, even with royal blood in their veins, were very glad to embrace any opportunity offered to seek a new home in this land of virgin richness.

"Of course," he continued, smilingly and in direct answer to Adelaide's inquiring look, "those young women were in no sense bound to accept the attention or the offer of any man; but naturally most of them did become the wives of those who were able to offer them a husband's love and a home with more of life's comforts perhaps than they had ever known before. They were at perfect liberty, however, to remain in the enjoyment of single blessedness if they chose, and I doubt not," he added, with a twinkle in his eyes, "that some of them had no other choice."



CHAPTER VIII
WESTOVER

WITH an auger in his hand, by means of which a hole could be quickly bored into the soil to a depth of three or four feet, Percy joined Mr. West for the tramp over the plantation.

In general the estate called Westover consists of undulating upland. A small stream crosses one corner of the farm bordered by some twenty acres of bottom land which is subject to frequent overflow, and used only for permanent pasture. Several draws or small valleys are tributary to the stream valley, thus furnishing excellent surface drainage for the entire farm. In some places the sides of these valleys are quite sloping and subject to moderate erosion when not protected by vegetation. Above and between these slopes the upland is nearly level. As they came upon one of these level areas, grown up with small forest trees, Mr. West stopped and said:

"Now right here is probably as poor a piece of land as there is on the farm. This land will positively not grow a crop worth harvesting unless it is well fertilized."

"If we were in the Illinois corn belt," replied Percy, "I should expect to find the land in this position to be the most productive on the farm. Our level uplands are now valued at from one hundred fifty to two hundred dollars an acre. A farm of one hundred eighty acres, five miles from town, sold for two hundred and fourteen dollars an acre a few days before I started east."

"Well," said Mr. West, "this may have been good land once, but if so it was before my time. Of course most of our uplands here have been cropped for upwards of two hundred years; and about all that has ever been done to keep up the fertility of the soil has been to rotate the crops. To be sure, the farm manure has always been used as far as it would go, but the supply is really very small compared to the need for it."

"Do you think that the proper rotation of crops would maintain the fertility of the soil?" asked Percy.

"No, I have tried too many rotations to think that, but I suppose it is a help in that direction, don't you?"

"I would say that crop rotation may help to maintain the supply of some important constituents of a fertile soil, but it will certainly hasten the depletion of some other equally essential constituents."

"Well, that's a new idea to me. I may not quite grasp your meaning; but first tell me about these tests you are making."

When they stopped on the area of poor land as designated by Mr. West, Percy had turned his auger into the earth and drawn out a sample of moist soil, which he molded into the form of a ball. He broke this in two, inserted a piece of blue paper, and pressed it firmly together. He then laid the ball of soil aside, secured another sample with the auger, and formed it into a cake with a hollow in the upper surface. He took from his pocket a slender box or tube of light wood, removed the screw cap, and drew out a glass-stoppered bottle.

"This bottle contains hydrochloric acid," said Percy. "It is often incorrectly called 'muriatic acid.' It consists of two elements, hydrogen and chlorin, from which its name is derived. But you are perhaps already familiar with the chemical elements."

"Well, I heard lectures at William and Mary for four years, and they included some chemistry as it was then taught; but they certainly did not include the application of chemistry to agriculture, and I am greatly interested to know the meaning of these tests you are making here on our own farm under my own eyes. You may take it for granted that I know absolutely nothing of such use of chemistry as you are evidently turning to some practical value."

"Any other farmer can make these tests as well as I can," said Percy. "This bottle of acid cost me fifteen cents and it can be duplicated for the same price at almost any drug store. The acid is very concentrated, in fact about as strong as can easily be produced, but it need not be especially pure. Some care should be taken not to get it on the clothing or on the fingers, although it is not at all dangerous to handle, but it tends to burn the fingers unless soon removed, either by washing with water or by rubbing it off with the moist soil."

"I use this acid to test the soil for the presence or absence of limestone. Ordinary limestone consists of calcium carbonate. Here, again the chemical name alone is sufficient to indicate the elements that compose this compound. It is only necessary to keep in mind the fact that the ending-ate on the common chemical names signifies the presence of oxygen Thus calcium carbonate is composed of the three primary elements, calcium, carbon and oxygen.
"Of course the chemical element is the simplest form of matter. An element is a primary substance which cannot be divided into two or more substances All known matter consists of about eighty of these primary elements; and, as a matter of fact, most of these are of rare occurence--many of them much more rare than the element gold.

"About ninety-eight per cent. of the soil consists of eight elements united in various compounds or combinations; and only ten elements are essential for the growth and full development of corn or other plants. If any one of these ten elements is lacking, it is impossible to produce a kernel of corn, a grain of wheat, or a leaf of clover; and in the main the supply is under the farmer's own control. But we can discuss this matter more fully later. Let us see what we have here."

Percy poured a few drops of the hydrochloric acid into the hollow of the cake of soil.

"What should it do?" asked Mr. West.

"If the soil contains any limestone, the acid should produce foaming, or effervescence," replied Percy; "but it is very evident that this soil contains no limestone. You see the hydrochloric acid has power to decompose calcium carbonate with the formation of carbonic acid and calcium chlorid, a kind of salt that is used to make a brine that won't freeze in the artificial ice plants. The carbonic acid, if produced at once decomposes into water and carbon dioxid. Now, the liberated carbon dioxid is a gas and the rapid generation or evolution of this gas constitutes the bubbling or foaming we are looking for; but since there is no appearance of foaming we know that this soil contains no limestone."

"Then you have already found that those three elements,--calcium, carbon, and oxygen, you called them, I think--you find that those elements are all lacking in this soil."

"No, this test does not prove that," said Percy. "It only proves that they are not present as limestone. Calcium may be present in other compounds, especially in silicates, which are the most abundant compounds in the soil and in the earth's crust; and, as indicated by the ending -ate, oxygen is contained in calcium silicate as well as in calcium carbonate."

"I see; the subject is much more complicated than I thought."

"Somewhat, perhaps," Percy replied; "but yet it is quite simple and very easily understood, if we only keep in mind a few well established facts. Certainly the essential science of soil fertility is much less complicated than many of the political questions of the day, such as the gold standard or free-silver basis, the tariff issues, and reciprocity advantages, regarding which most farmers are fairly well informed,--at least to such an extent that they can argue these questions for hours."

"I think you are quite right in that," said Mr. West. "Of course, it is important that every citizen entitled to the privilege of voting in a democracy like ours should be able to exercise his franchise intelligently; but the citizen who is responsible for the management of farm lands ought surely to be at least as well informed concerning the principles which underlie the maintenance of soil fertility; provided, of course, that such knowledge is within his reach; and from what you say I am beginning to believe that such is the case. At any rate this simple test seems to show conclusively that this soil contains no limestone, and it is common knowledge that limestone soils are good soils."

Percy took up the ball of soil containing the slip of blue paper, broke it in two again, and it was seen that the paper had changed in color from blue to red

"There's a change, for certain," said Mr. West, "that has some meaning to you I suppose."

"This is litmus paper," said Percy. "It is prepared by moistening specially prepared paper with a solution of a coloring matter called litmus, and the paper is then dried. This coloring matter has the property of turning blue in the presence of alkali and red in the presence of acid. The blue paper is prepared with a trace of alkali, and the red paper with a trace of acid. If more than a trace were present the litmus paper would not be sufficiently sensitive for the test.

"This little bottle containing two dozen slips of paper cost me five cents, and it can be obtained at most drug stores.

"Alkali and acid are exactly opposite terms, like hot and cold. The one neutralizes the other. This test with litmus paper is a test for soil acidity, and the fact that the moisture of the soil has turned the litmus from blue to red shows that this soil is acid, or sour. The soil moisture contained enough acid to neutralize the trace of alkali contained in the blue paper and to change the paper to a distinctly light red color; and the fact that the paper remains red even after drying, shows that the soil contains fixed acids or acid salts, and not merely carbonic acid, which if present would completely volatilize as the paper dries.

"Now, these two tests are in harmony. The one shows the absence of limestone, and the other shows the presence of acidity, and consequently the need of limestone to correct or neutralize the acidity, for limestone itself is an alkali."

"But limestone soils are not alkali soils, are they?" asked Mr. West.

"Not in the sense of containing injurious alkali, like sodium carbonate, the compound which is found in the 'black alkali' lands of the arid regions of the far West; but chemically considered limestone is truly an alkali; and, as such, it has power to neutralze this soil acidity."

"Is the acidity harmful to the crops?"

"It is not particularly harmful to the common crops of the grass family, such as wheat, corn, oats, and timothy; but some of the most valuable crops for soil improvement will not thrive on acid soils. This is especially true of clover and alfalfa."

"That is certainly correct for clover so far as this kind of soil is concerned," said Mr. West. " Clover never amounts to much on this kind of land, except where heavily fertilized. When fertilized it usually grows well. Does the farm fertilizer neutralize the acid?"

"Only to a small extent. It is true that farm manures contain very appreciable amounts of lime and some other alkaline, or basic, substances, but in addition to this, and perhaps of greater importance, is the fact that such fertilizer has power to feed the clover crop as well as other crops. In other words it furnishes the essential materials of which these crops are made. In addition to this the decaying organic matter has power to liberate some plant food from the soil which would not otherwise be made available although to that extent the farm manure serves as a soil stimulant, this action tending not toward soil enrichment but toward the further depletion of the store of fertility still remaining in the soil."

"This seems a complicated problem," said Mr. West, "but may I now show you some of our more productive land?"

"As soon as I collect a sample of this," replied Percy, and to Mr. West's surprise he proceeded to bore about twenty holes in the space of two or three acres. The borings were taken to a depth of about seven inches, and after being thoroughly mixed together an average sample of the lot was placed in a small bag bearing a number which Percy recorded in his note book together with a description of the land.

"I wish to have an analysis made of this sample," remarked Percy, as they resumed their walk.

"But I thought you had analyzed this soil," was the reply.

"Oh, I only tested for limestone and acidity," explained Percy. " I wish to have exact determinations made of the nitrogen and phosphorus, and perhaps of the potassium, magnesium, and calcium. All of these are absolutely essential for the growth of every agricultural plant; and any one of them may be deficient in the soil, although" the last three are not so likely to be as the other two."

"How long will it take to make this analysis?" was asked.

"About a week or ten days. Perhaps I shall collect two or three other samples and send them all together to an analytical chemist. It is the only way to secure positive knowledge in advance as to what these soils contain. In other words, by this means we can take an absolute invoice of the stock of fertility in the soil, just as truly as the merchant can take an invoice of the stock of goods carried on his shelves."

"So far as we are concerned, this would not be an invoice in advance," remarked Mr. West, with a shade of sadness in his voice. "If we knew the contents of the crops that have been sold from this farm during the two centuries past, we would have a fairly good invoice, I fear, of what the virgin soil contained; but can you compare the invoice of the soil with that of the merchant's goods?"

"Quite fairly so," Percy replied. "The plant food content of the plowed soil of an acre of normal land means nearly, if not quite, as much in the making of definite plans for a system of permanent agriculture, as the merchant's invoice means in the future plans of his business.

"It should not be assumed that the analysis of the soil will give information the application of which will always assure an abundant crop the following season. In comparison, it may also be said, however, that the merchant's invoice of January the first may have no relation to the sales from his store on January the second. Now, the year with the farmer is as a day with the merchant. The farmer harvests his crop but once a year; while the merchant plants and harvests every day, or at least every week. But I would say that the invoice of the soil is worth as much to the farmer for the next year as the merchant's invoice is to him for the next month.

"It should be remembered, however, that both must look forward, and plans must be made by the merchant for several months, and by the farmer for several years. Your twelve-year rotation is a very good example of the kind of future planning the successful farmer must do. On the other hand, some of your neighbors, who have not practiced some such system of rotation now have 'old-field' pine on land long since abandoned, and soil too poor to cultivate on land long cropped continuously."

"This is a kind soil," remarked Mr. West, as he paused on a gently undulating part of the field.

"That is a new use of the word to me," said Percy. "Just what do you mean by a 'kind' soil?"

"Well, if we apply manure here it will show in the crop for many years. It is easy to build this soil up with manure; but, of course, we have too little to treat it right."

"The soil is almost neutral," said Percy, testing with litmus and acid. " Does clover grow on this soil?"

"Very little, except where we put manure."

Another composite sample of the soil was collected, and they walked on.

"Now, here," said Mr. West, "is about the most productive upland on the farm."

"Is that possible?" asked Percy, the question being directed more to himself than to his host.

"That is according to my observation for about fifty years," he replied. "Where we spread the farm fertilizer over this old pasture land and plow it under for corn, we often harvest a crop of eight barrels to the acre, while the average of the field will not be more than five barrels.--A barrel of corn with us is five bushels."

They had stopped on one of the steepest slopes in the field.

"These hillsides would be considered the poorest land on the farm if we were in the corn belt," said Percy, "but I think I understand the difference. Your level uplands when once depleted remain depleted, because the soil that was plowed two hundred years ago is the same soil that is plowed to-day; but these slopes lose surface soil by erosion at least as rapidly as the mineral plant food is removed by cropping; and to that extent they afford the conditions for a permanent system of agriculture of low grade, unless, of course, the erosion is more rapid than the disintegration of the underlying bed rock, which I note is showing in some outcrops in the gullies.

"I want some samples here," he continued, and at once proceeded to collect a composite sample of the surface soil and another of the sub-soil.

"In the main this soil is slightly acid," said Percy, after several tests, with the hydrochloric acid and the litmus paper; "although occasionally there are traces of limestone present. The mass of soil seems to be faintly acid, but here and there are little pieces of limestone which still produce some localized benefit, and probably prevent the development of more marked acidity throughout the soil mass.

"If I can get to an express office this afternoon," he continued, "I shall be glad to forward these four composite samples to an analyst."

"If you wouldn't mind riding to Montplain with Adelaide when she goes for her music lesson this afternoon, it would be very convenient," said Mr. West.

"With your daughter's permission that would suit me very well," he replied. "I shall be glad to spend one or two days more in this vicinity, and then I wish to visit other sections for a week or two, after which I would be glad to stop here again on my return trip and probably I shall have the report of the chemist concerning these samples."



CHAPTER IX
THE BLACK PERIL

AS Percy stepped out of the house in the early afternoon upon the announcement from Wilkes that "De ca'age is ready," he noted that the "ca'age" was the two-seated family carriage and that Adelaide had already taken her place in the front seat, as driver, with her music roll and another bundle tucked in by her side. Her glance at Percy and at the rear seat was also sufficient to indicate his place.

"This does not seem right to me, Miss West," said Percy. "Unless you prefer to drive I shall be very glad to do so and let you occupy this more comfortable seat."

"No thank you," she replied, in a tone that left no room for argument. "I often drive our guests to and from the station, and I much prefer this seat."

The rear seat was roomy and low, so that Percy could scarcely see the road ahead even by sitting on the opposite side from the driver.

Aside from an occasional commonplace remark both the driver and the passenger were allowed to use the time for meditation.

While Adelaide was already an experienced horsewoman, she was rarely permitted to drive the colts to the village, although she enjoyed riding the more spirited horses, or driving with her brother in the "buck board."

A mile from the village the road wound through a wooded valley, and then climbed the opposite slope, passing the railway station a quarter of a mile from town and the "depot hotel" near by. Here Percy left the carriage with the bags of soil, it being arranged that he would be waiting at the hotel when Adelaide returned from the village.

Adelaide's "hour" was from four to five, and being the last pupil for the day, the teacher was not prompt to close.

"I did not realize the days were becoming so short," said Miss Konster as she opened the door. "I'm sorry you have so far to drive."

"Oh, I don't mind," said Adelaide, "I know the way home well enough. You see I have the double carriage, for I brought a guest to the depot as usual, although he is to return with me, and is probably very tired of waiting at the 'depot hotel.'"

It was nearly dark as Percy took his place in the rear seat, Adelaide having again declined to yield her position as driver, and now she had more packages nearly filling the seat beside her.

The team leisurely took the homeward way and nothing more was said except an occasional word of encouragement to the horses. They passed the lowest point in the valley and began to ascend the gentle slope, when the carriage suddenly stopped, and Adelaide uttered a muffled scream. "Come, Honey, said a masculine voice."

As Percy half rose to his feet, he saw that a negro had grasped Adelaide in an effort to drag her from the carriage. A blow from Percy staggered the brute and he released his hold of Adelaide, but, as he saw Percy jump from the carriage on the opposite side, he paused.

"De's a man heah. Knock him, Geo'ge," he yelled, as he turned to again grapple with Adelaide

"Coward," cried Adelaide, as she saw Percy jump from the carriage and dart up the road. Facing this black brute, she was standing alone now with one hand on the back of the seat. As the negro sprang at her the second time he uttered a scream like the cry of a beast and fell sprawling on his face. Almost at the same moment his companion was fairly lifted from his feet and came down headlong beside the carriage.

"Look out for the horses," called Percy, as he drove the heels of his heavy shoes into the moaning mass on the ground.

"Lie there, you brute," he cried, "don't you dare to move."

"I have the lines," said Adelaide hoarsely, "but can't I do something more?"

"No. they're both down," he answered. "Wait a minute."

He found himself between the negroes lying with their faces to the ground. Instantly he grasped each by the wrist and with an inward twist he brought forth cried for mercy. It was a trick he had learned in college, that, by drawing the arm behind the back and twisting, a boy could control a strong man.

"Can't I help you?" Adelaide called again, and Percy saw that she was out of the carriage and standing near.

"Will the horses stand?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, they're quiet now."

"Then take the tie rope and tie their feet together. Use the slip knot just as you do for the hitching post," he directed. "If they dare to move I can wrench their arms out in this position. Right there at the ankles. Tie them tight and as closely together as you can. Wrap it twice around if it's long enough."

Adelaide tied one end of the rope around the ankle of one negro and wrapped the other end around the ankle of the other, drawing their feet together and fastening the ends of the rope with a double hitch, which she knew well how to make.

Percy gave the rope a kick to tighten it.

"Now get onto your feet and I'll march you to town," he ordered, adding pressure to the twist upon their wrists and drawing them back upon their knees Thus assisted, they struggled to their feet.

"I am afraid you will have to drive home alone, Miss West," began Percy, when Adelaide interrupted with:

"No, no, if you are going back to town, I will follow you. I can easily turn the team and I will keep close behind."

Thus tied together, Percy almost ran his prisoners toward the village, still holding each firmly by the wrist. As they reached the "depot hotel," he called for assistance, and several men quickly appeared.

Percy made a brief report of the attack as they moved on to the town house, where the villians were placed in shackles and left in charge of the marshall.

"Will you drive, please, Mr. Johnston?" asked Adelaide as he stepped to the carriage; for Adelaide had followed almost to the door of the jail house.

"Yes, please," he replied, taking the seat beside her.

"I hope you will pardon my calling you a coward, I felt so desperate, and it seemed to me for the moment that you were leaving me." Adelaide's voice still had an excited tremor to it.

"I heard you say 'coward,'" said Percy, "but I didn't realize that you referred to me. I saw the two brutes almost at the same time, the one who attacked you and the other on the same side near the horses' heads. I struck the one as best I could from my position, and as he yelled and the horses reared, I ran up the slope ahead of the team and came down at the other brute with a blow in the neck, but I was surprised to find them both sprawling on the ground; and under the street lights I saw that one of them had an eye frightfully jammed. I am sure I struck neither of them in the eye.

Adelaide made no reply, but she knew now that the piercing, beastly cry from the negro reaching for her was brought forth because the heel of her shoe had entered the socket of the brute's eye.

"You're mighty nigh too late for supper, said grandma West, as they stopped at the side gate. Adelaide hurried to her father who took her in his arms as he saw how she trembled.

"My child!" he said.

Yes, child she was as she relaxed from the tension of the last hour and related the experience of the evening.

"I cannot express our gratitude to you, Sir," said Mr. West: "I am glad you landed the devils in jail."

"I am only thankful I was there when it happened," replied Percy. "I am sure no man could have done less. I have promised to return to town in the morning to serve as legal witness in the case. I hope your daughter need not be called upon for that."

"Probably that will not be necessary," Mr. West replied.



CHAPTER X
THE SLAVE AND THE FREEDMAN

THE others had retired but Percy and his host continued their conversation far into the night.

"There are almost as great variations among the negroes as among white people," Mr. West was saying. "To a man like Wilkes who was born and raised here on the farm, I would entrust the protection of my wife and children as readily as to any white man. He has been educated, so to speak, to a sense of duty and honor; and negroes of his class have almost never been known to violate a trust. Of course there are bad niggers, but as a rule such negroes have grown up under conditions that would develop the evil in any race of men.

"During the Secession it was the most common thing for the men to go to war and leave their defenseless women and children wholly in the care of their slaves; and, even though the federal soldiers were fighting to free the slaves and their masters to keep them in slavery, rarely did a negro fail to remain faithful to his trust. They hid from the northern soldiers the horses and mules, cotton and corn, clothing and provisions, and all sorts of valuables; and in most cases were ready to suffer themselves before they would reveal the hidden property. To be sure there were masters who abused their slaves, and some of these were naturally ready to desert at the first opportunity; but in the main the slave owner was more kind to his human property than the considerate soldier was to his horse, and the negro as a race is appreciative of kindness."

"I suppose the depreciation in soil fertility and crop yields dates largely from the freeing of the slaves does it not?" asked Percy.

"Well, that was one factor, but not the most potential factor. Much land in the south had been abandoned agriculturally long before the war, and much land in New York and New England has been abandoned since the war. The freeing of the negroes produced much less effect in the economic conditions of the south than many have supposed. The great injury to the South from the war was due to the war itself and not to the freeing of slaves. In the main it cost no more to hire the negro after the war than it cost to feed and clothe him before; and the humane slave owner had little difficulty in getting plenty of negro help after the war. Very commonly his own slaves remained with him and were treated as servants, not particularly differently than they had been treated as slaves. Of course there were some brutal slave holders, just as there are brutal horse owners, and such men suffered very much from the loss of slave labor.

"The southern people have no regrets for the freeing of the slaves. Probably it was the best thing that ever happened to us; and the South would have less regret for the war itself, except that our recovery from it was greatly delayed by the reconstruction policy which was followed after the war. The immediate enfranchisement of the negro, especially in those sections where this resulted in placing all the power of the local government in the hands of the negro, was a worse blow to the South than the war itself.

"It is believed that this would not have been done if Lincoln had lived. Lincoln was always the President of all the people of the United States, and his death was a far greater loss to the South than to the North. To place the power to govern the intelligent white of the South absolutely in the hands of their former ignorant slaves was undoubtedly the most abominable political blunder recorded in history; and even this was intensified by the unprincipled white-skinned vultures who came among us to fatten upon our dead or dying conditions. Those years of so-called reconstruction, constitute the blackest page in the history of modern civilization."

"I quite agree with you," said Percy, "and so far as I know them the soldiers of the northern armies also agree with you. Several of my own relatives fought to free the negro slave; but none of them fought to enslave their white brothers of the South by putting them absolutely under negro government. And yet there is one possible justification for that abominable reconstruction policy. It may have averted a subsequent war which might have lasted not for four years, but for forty years. Even if this be true, perhaps there is no credit in the policy for any man who helped to enforce it, but you will grant that there were two important results from those bitter years of reconstruction:

"First, the negro learned with certainty at once and forever that he was a free man.

"Second, he at once acquired a degree of independence effectually preventing the development of a situation throughout the South, in which the negro, though nominally free, would have remained virtually a slave, a situation which, if once established, might have required a subsequent war of many years for its complete eradication. Even under the conditions which have prevailed, there have been isolated instances of peonage in the southern states since the war; and if the education and gradual enfranchisement of the negro had been left wholly in the hands of their former masters, from the immediate close of the war, I can conceive of conditions under which slavery would essentially have been continued."

"Such a possibility is, of course, conceivable," said Mr. West, "and we must all admit that there were some slave holders who would have taken advantage of any such opportunity; but had Lincoln lived the terms made would probably have been such that the South would have felt in honor bound to enforce them. Probably the enfranchisement would have been based upon some sort of qualification such as the southern states have very generally adopted in subsequent years; but the idea of social equality of slave and master was so repulsive to the white people of the South that it could not be tolerated under any sort of government."

"This question of social equality," remarked Percy, "has probably been the cause of more misunderstanding between the North and the South than all other questions relating to the negro problem. I have rarely, if ever, talked with a southern man who did not have it firmly fixed in his mind that the common idea of the northern people is that the negro race should be made the social equal of the white race. This I have heard from southern lecturers; I have read it in southern newspapers; and I have found it in books written by southern authors; but, Mr. West, I have never yet heard that idea advanced by a man or woman of the North.

"Of course there have been visionary theorists or 'cranks' in all ages, and there must have been some basis for this almost universal erroneous opinion in the South that the people of the North advocated social equality or social intercourse between the white and colored races; and yet nothing could be farther from the truth. In all my life in the North, I think I have never seen a colored person dining with a white man. This does not prove that there are no such occurrences, but it certainly shows that they are extremely rare. On the other hand, in traveling through the South I have seen a white woman bring her colored maid or nurse, to the dining car and sit at the same table with herself and husband. Of course there is no suggestion of social equality or social intercourse in this, but there is a much closer relationship than is common or would be allowed in the North."

"That may be true," said Mr. West, "and there was in slave times a very intimate relationship between the negro nurses and the white children of the South. Some of our people are ready to take offense at the suggestion that we talk negro dialect, and perhaps we would all prefer to say that the negroes have learned to talk as we talk; but the truth is that the negroes were brought to America chiefly as adults; and, as is usually the case when adult people learn a new language, they modified ours because their own African language did not contain all of the sounds of the English tongue. Similarly we hear and recognize the other nationalities when they learn to speak English. Thus we have the Irish brogue, the German brogue, and the French brogue, or dialect.

"The negro children learned to speak the dialect as spoken by their own parents; and as a very general rule the white children learned to talk as their negro nurses talked. So far as there is a southern dialect it is due to the modification of our language by the negro."

"You have mentioned several things," said Percy, "that are much to the credit of the negro who has had a fair chance to be trained along right lines; and I think the modficaton of our language which his presence has brought about in the South is not without some credit. It is generally agreed that the most pleasing English we hear is that of the Southern orator.

"Referring to social conditions, the most marked difference which I have noticed between the North and South, and really, it seems to me, the only difference of importance, is that the South has separate schools for white and colored, whereas in the North the school is not looked upon as a social institution.

"As a rule no more objection is raised to white and colored children sitting on separate seats in the same school room than to their sitting on separate seats in the same street car. The school is regarded as a place for work, where each has his own work to do, much the same as in the shop or factory where both white and colored are employed. The expense of the single school system is, of course, much less than where separate schools are maintained; and perhaps an equally important point is that in the single system the same moral standards are held up by the teachers for both white and colored children."

"That point is worthy of consideration," said Mr. West. "It is very certain that a class of negroes has grown up in these more recent years that was practically unknown in slave times when white men were more largely responsible for their moral training. The vile wretches who made the attack this evening probably never received any moral training. It is conceivable that the moral influence of the white children over the negroes in the same school might exert a lasting benefit, even aside from the influence of the teacher; and the relationship of the school room could not be any real disadvantage to the white child. But this could only be brought about where white teachers were employed. Some such arrangement would doubtless have been made had the mind of Lincoln directed the general policy of reconstruction; but it is doubtful now if the negro teacher will ever be wholly replaced, although time has wrought greater changes in political lines since the black years of the reconstruction."

"Yes," said Percy, "and those changes which have been brought about in the South have the full sympathy and approval of the great majority of the Northern people. Indeed, it is extremely doubtful if the North will be able to completely banish such a source of vice and corruption as the open saloon until limitation is placed upon the franchise by an educational qualification."