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"I always said 't was she that begun on Rube Hobson, not him on her," remarked the Widow Buzzell. "Their land joinin' made courtin' come dretful handy. His critters used to git in her field 'bout every other day (I always suspicioned she broke the fence down herself), and then she 'd hev to go over and git him to git 'em out. She's wed his onion bed for him two summers, as I happen to know. Diademy, don't you want to look out the back way 'n' see if Rube 's come home yet?"

"He ain't," said old Mrs. Bascom; "the curtains is all down. He's gone up to the Mills, 'n' it 's my opinion he's gone to speak to the minister."

"He hed somethin' in the back o' the wagon covered up with an old linen lap robe; 't ain't at all likely he 'd 'a' hed that if he'd ben goin' to the minister's," objected Mrs. Jot.

"Anybody 'd think you was born yesterday, to hear you talk, Diademy," retorted her mother-in-law. "When you've set in one spot 's long 's I hev, p'raps you'll hev the use o' your faculties! Men folks has more 'n one way o' gettin' married, 'specially when they 're ashamed of it. . . . Well, I vow, there's the Hobson children comin' out o' the door this minute, 'n' they 're all dressed up!"

Every woman in the room rose to her feet, and Diadema removed her murderous eye from a fly which she had been endeavoring to locate for some moments.

"I guess they're goin' up to the church to meet their father 'n' Eunice, poor little things," ventured the Widow Buzzell.

...

...

"P'raps they be," said old Mrs. Bascom sarcastically; "p'raps they be goin' to church, takin' a three-quart tin pail 'n' a brown paper bundle along with 'em. ... They're comin' over the bridge, just as I s'posed. . . . Now, if they come past this house, you head 'em off, Almiry, 'n' see if you can git some satisfaction out of 'em. . . They ain't hardly old enough to hold their tongues." An exciting interview soon took place in the middle of the road, and Almira reëntered the room with the expression of one who had penetrated the inscrutable and solved the riddle of the Sphinx. She had been vouchsafed one of those gleams of light in darkness which almost dazzle the beholder.

"That's about the confirmingest thing I've heern yet!" she ejaculated, as she took off her Shaker bonnet. 66 They say they 're goin' up to their aunt Hitty's to stay two days. They 're dressed in their best clean to the skin, 'n' it 's their nightgownds they 've got in the bundle.

...

Mote has gone to Union to stop all night with his uncle Abijah, 'n' that leaves Rube all alone, for the Smith girl that does his chores is home sick with the hives. And what do you s'pose is in that pail? Fruit cake, that's what 't is, no more 'n' no less! I knowed that Smith girl did n't bake it, 'n' so I asked 'em, 'n' they said Miss Emery give it to 'em.

There was two little round trycakes, baked in muffin-rings. Eunice hed took some o' the batter out of her big loaf 'n' baked it to see how it was goin' to turn out."

"There aint no gittin' round that," agreed the assembled company.

"I don't know what they 're goin' to live on," sighed Hannah Sophia Palmer. "Add nothin' to nothin' 'n' you git nothin', - that's arethmetic! He ain't hed a cent o' ready money sence he failed up, four years ago; 'thout it was that fifty dollars that fell to him from his wife's aunt. Eunice 'll hev her hands full this winter, I guess, with them three

hearty children, 'n' him all wheezed up with phthisic from October to April! Who's that comin' down Tory Hill? It's Rube's horse 'n' Rube's wagon, but it don't look like Rube."

"Yes, it's Rube, but he 's got a new Panama hat, 'n' he 's hed his linen duster washed," said old Mrs. Bascom. ... Now, do you mean to tell me that that woman with a stuck-up hat on is Eunice Emery? It ain't, 'n' that green parasol don't belong to this village. He's drivin' her into his yard! Land o' liberty! it's the school-teacher up t' the Mills that he 's married! He's gone and brought another woman int' this village, 'stid o' weedin' one of 'em out, as he'd oughter! Yes, he's helpin' of her out, 'n' showin' her in. . . Of all things!"

"See if he takes his horse out," said Hannah Sophia. "Mebbe he 'll drive her back in a few minutes. No, he's on hitched! ... There, he 's hangin' up the headstall!"

"I've ben up in the attic chamber," panted Diadema; "she 's pulled up the curtains, and took off her hat right in front o' the winder, 's bold as a brass kettle! She's come to stay!"

Almira drew on her mitts excitedly, tied on her Shaker, and started for the door.

"I'm goin' over to Eunice's," she said, "and I'm goin' to take my bottle of camphire. I should n't wonder a mite if I found her in a dead faint on the kitchen floor."

"I'll go with you," said the Widow Buzzell. "I'd like to see with my own eyes how she takes it, 'n' it'll be too late to tell if I wait till after milkin'. If she'd ben more open with me 'n' ever asked for my advice, I could 'a' told her it wa'n't the first time Rube Hobson has played that trick."

"I'll go as fur as the bridge with you," said Hannah Sophia, "'n' then I'll wait int' the store till I see you comin' out, 'n' then I'll walk along back

with you and hear what she says. . . Good-by, Lucindy; glad to see how well you stan' this hot spell. You look slim, but I guess you'll tough it out 's long 's the rest of us. I see your log was all right, last time I was down side o' the river."

"They say it's jest goin' to break in two in the middle, and fall into the river," cheerfully responded Lucinda. "They say it's jest hangin' by a thread. Well, that's what they've ben sayin' 'bout me these ten years, 'n' here I be still hangin'! It don't make no odds, I guess, whether it's a thread or a rope you're hangin' by, so long as you hang. . . . Remember me to Eunice, 'n' tell her I did n't take any stock in the reports 'bout her 'n' Rube Hobson."

The next morning, little Mote Hobson, who had stayed all night with his uncle in Union, was walking home by the side of the river. He strolled along, the happy, tousle-headed, barefooted youngster, eyes one moment on the trees in the hope of squirrels and bird's-nests, the next on the ground in search of the first blueberries. As he stooped to pick up a bit of shining quartz to add to the collection in his ragged trousers pockets, he glanced across the river, and at that very instant Lucinda's log broke gently in twain, rolled down the bank, crumbling as it went, and, dropping in like a tired child, was carried peacefully along on the river's breast.

Mote walked more quickly after that. It was quite a feather in his cap to see, with his own eyes, the old landmark slip from its accustomed place and float down the stream. The other boys would miss it and say, "It's gone!" He would "I saw it go!

say,

Grandpa Bascom was standing at the top of the hill. His white locks were uncovered, and he was in his shirt sleeves. Little Jot, as usual, held fast by his shaking hand, for they loved each other, these two. The cruel stroke of the sun that

had blurred the old man's brain had spared a blessed something in him that won the healing love of children. "How d' ye, Mote?" he piped in his feeble voice. 66 They say Lucindy's dead. . . . Jot says she is, 'n' Diademy says she is, 'n' I guess she is. . . It's a dretful thick year for fol'age;

.

some o' the maples looks like balls in the air."

Mote looked in at the window. The neighbors were hurrying to and fro. Diadema sat with her calico apron up to her face, sobbing; and for the first morning in thirty years old Mrs. Bascom's high-backed rocker was empty. Kate Douglas Wiggin.

WHY THE MEN OF '61 FOUGHT FOR THE UNION.

"A historical student soon learns that a man is not morally the worse for being Whig or Tory, Catholic or Protestant, Royalist or Republican, Aristocrat or Democrat, Unionist or Confederate."- FREEMAN, History of Federal Government, Introduction, xi.

ONE of the familiar effects of good, honest fighting is the mutual respect of the combatants for each other. It was matter of every-day experience, during our civil war, that the place where prisoners captured in battle got best treatment was nearest the front. There the end of a desperate tussle brought a reaction of good feeling, such that the captor was ready to share his rations and his blanket with the man he had just been fighting. If he who had lost in the game of war met with bitter words or unhandsome acts, it was after he had passed to the rear. This was not because the physical combat changed men's opinions or diminished their ardor in the cause for which they were fighting. The truth is, rather, that the actual struggle with a man as ready as yourself to risk his life for something is a conclusive argumentum ad hominem as to his sincerity. His looking straight into the muzzle of your rifle, as he comes on, is a noble sort of demonstration of his honesty which the good soldier recognizes, without troubling himself to analyze the logical process. Of course this implies, also, that the cause for which he is

fighting is not one of mere murder or robbery, but is a political struggle, in which, though penalties of treason and rebellion may be incurred, the actions of the participants are (to use the oftquoted saying of Lord Coke) proofs that "those things which are of the highest criminality may be of the least disgrace." The absence of disgrace or infamy makes mutual respect possible, and admiration for heroic personal conduct, and so friendship may be built up on the wreck of the battlefield itself.

The conclusion which the generous combatants reach by a quick instinctive process is more slowly worked out by those who are far from the field, whether in space or in time; but they reach it, soon or late, if they are intelligent, and the student of history justifies the assertion of Dr. Freeman, which I have made the motto for this paper. The result comes more quickly when men of opposing views are brought into contact in any such manner as makes them recognize the pure purpose and high conscientiousness of their adversaries. The work of Lee among his college boys at Lexington, during the last years of his life, was a lesson of this sort that many a Northern man has laid to heart with pathetic and tender interest. I hope it is not improper to add that wherever, in all Christendom, there is hearty appreciation of profound learning allied to conscience

and to a refined life, the recent paper of the Johns Hopkins professor of philology will be taken as conclusive proof that good and true and able men could uphold the cause of the Confederacy even in arms, and never doubt in their hearts that they were right. Yet we of the North were equally undoubting as to our own duty and our own cause, and are to-day devoutly thankful for an unwavering faith that the great conflict was the introduction to a glorious chapter of our country's history, which shall lead into an equal faith the children even of those who honestly struggled for disunion. There are things in the past which we deplore; there are fearful problems in the future of which we cannot see the solution; but that the unity of the American people is the necessary condition of human progress on this continent is to us an indisputable truth.

As the story of the experience of an educated young Virginian in search of a political creed shows, in the true historical way, how such an one came to think it right to fight for secession, and as that of the equally earnest and intelligent young Kentuckian makes us understand the stress on the heartstrings which accompanied his decision to stand by the Union, so, perhaps, it may be worth while to follow the actual experience of one in the free States who learned to be active, yea militant, in nationalizing the free-state system.

It is natural that those who took the Confederate side in our civil war should strive to make the point of departure that of the passage of ordinances of secession in the South. They say: "We believed that, under the Constitution as it was, we might rightfully dissolve the Union when continuance in it seemed to us oppressive: you denied this, and we therefore appealed to arms. The whole question, therefore, is whether you or we were acting within the lawful right." They protest that the question of slavery was not the issue, and should not

be made prominent in the discussion. It is, no doubt, true that this view was the one which influenced very many Southern men, and made it possible for them (especially in Virginia and North Carolina) to deprecate the dissolution of the Union, and yet conscientiously to "go with the South." I shall show, by and by, that there was a very different sentiment as to the real issue among the aggressive secessionists of the Gulf States; but it is enough now to say that, whilst this reasoning is good as explaining the morality of the conduct of those who acted upon it, it by no means covers the whole ground as it lay in the minds either of the majority of Northern men, or of the aggressive secessionists to whom I have referred. To these the question was distinctly the nationalizing of slavery or the nationalizing of freedom, and both classes accepted fully Mr. Lincoln's dictum that the Union could not exist half slave and half free. The "right" of secession has been a much abused term. I never knew a Northern man refuse to admit the right of revolution when a people, or a considerable section of a people, found their political position intolerably and irremediably oppressive. I never knew a Southern man deny that such intolerable and remediless oppression must exist to justify secession. The controversy between the Confederate government and that of Georgia, during the war, was proof enough that no federal government could or would leave it to the whim or to the sole judgment of one State whether it should "nullify" or should "secede " as a mere act of sovereign will and pleasure. The distinction between secession and revolution vanishes in the presence of any grave conjuncture in practical statesmanship, and the fact is patent to him that runs that, except by mutual desire and consent, no "perpetual union" of modern states can be broken up by the forcible act of a part without making a casus belli under the law of nations. If

the government is ready to admit that it is oppressive, it will be ready to give redress. If it denies the wrong, the forcible rejection of its authority as tyrannical is a challenge to arms which will not be refused till its decadence has left it at the mercy of any invader. Revolution or secession, therefore, call it which we will, is never undertaken except at the peril of sustaining it by war, and whether successful or unsuccessful, the difference of name would count for nothing. Even if prearranged machinery of dissolution were provided in a constitution, it would not avoid the conflict, if either party thought its safety or prosperity imperiled by the change; for the loss of its safety or the destruction of its prosperity by the act of its neighbor will surely be a cause of war, even between independent states, till nations "learn war no more." It did not need our great conflict to teach this.

Whilst, therefore, an asserted right of secession may be fairly used to explain the moral attitude of men who honestly fought for the South although they did not regard themselves as champions of human slavery, the judgment of history as to the principles at stake in the revolutionary struggle of the seceders must ultimately be based upon the larger examination of the events which led to the attempt at secession. How did South Carolina and Mississippi justify to themselves and to the world the ordinances of secession and the acts of war which followed? That is the only important question. Whether the federal government had the right, under its Constitution, to fight in the war begun by the bombardment of one of its forts is a mere academic question, at which practical statesmen would smile. It required the weakness of a Buchanan, at the head of a cabinet of which half was secessionist, to give any practical importance to the discussion of the right to coerce a State. Our Northern people had accepted the Websterian doctrine of national

ity, which left them in no doubt as to the theoretic question of power, but they did not fight for that. They elected Mr. Lincoln President with the avowed purpose of preventing the formation of another slave State from any of the Territories of the United States. In doing so, they reversed the decision of the majority of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case, where the right to prohibit the spread of slavery had been denied, and the practice of our government from the free-territory ordinance of 1787 downward had been declared unconstitutional. That election, on that platform, was, beyond all quibbling or dispute, the overt act on which the States which led off in secession based their action. They resolved on revolutionary secession as soon as the election proved that the free-state movement was strong enough to accomplish its purpose. They chose to fight for secession rather than abandon the nationalizing of slavery, which had been their great victory in the Kansas-Nebraska legislation, and, like some other great victories, had been their undoing.

Here, then, the two opposing forces were in presence. On this great debate the seceders appealed to arms, and ordered an unnecessary attack upon Fort Sumter, to prevent retreat or compromise. On both sides there were auxiliaries who had their own reasons for action, and who came short of the sharply defined purpose and creed of the leaders. At the South, some, like most Virginians, asserted that there was no sufficient cause for secession, but found the federal government's acceptance of the gage of battle a good ground for joining the seceders. On both sides, many simply "went with their State," and accepted without reasoning the lot of their neighbors and their kin. History will not permit any of these side issues to be made the vital contention of the great struggle. It was, on the one side, slave property protected everywhere, North, South, and in the Territories, by the

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