uld go exactly as they wished.
The Yankees would not fight, but, if by any chance they did fight,
they would get a most terrible thrashing. Tom, with a tin cup full of
coffee in one hand and a tin plate containing ham and bread in the other,
sat down by the side of Harry and leaned back against the log also.
Harry had never seen a picture of more supreme content than his face
showed.

"In thirty-six hours we'll have a new President, do you appreciate that
fact, Harry Kenton?" asked young Langdon.

"I do," replied Harry, "and it makes me think pretty hard."

"What's the use of worrying? Why, it's just the biggest picnic that
I ever took part in, and if the Yankees object to our setting up for
ourselves I fancy we'll have to go up there and teach 'em to mind their
own business. I wouldn't object, Harry, to a march at somebody else's
expense to New York and Philadelphia and Boston. I suppose those cities
are worth seeing."

Harry laughed. Langdon's good spirits were contagious even to a nature
much more serious.

"I don't look on it as a picnic altogether," he said. "The Yankees will
fight very hard, but we live on the land almost wholly, and the grass
keeps on growing, whether there's war or not. Besides, we're an outdoor
people, good horsemen, hunters, and marksmen. These things ought to
help us."

"They will and we'll help ourselves most," said Langdon gaily. "I'm
going to be either a general or a great politician, Harry. If it's a
long war, I'll come out a general; if it's a short one, I mean to enter
public life afterward and be a great orator. Did you ever hear me speak,
Harry?"

"No, thank Heaven," replied Harry fervently. "Don't you think that
South Carolina has enough orators now? What on earth do all your people
find to talk about?"

Langdon laughed with the utmost good nature.

"We fire the human heart," he replied. "'Words, words, empty words,' it
is not so. Words in themselves are often deeds, because the deeds start
from them or are caused by them. The world has been run with words.
All great actions result from them. Now, if we should have a big war,
it would be said long afterward that it was caused by words, words
spoken at Charleston and Boston, though, of course, the things they say
at Boston are wrong, while those said at Charleston are right."

Harry laughed in his turn.

"It's quite certain," he said, "that you'll have no lack of words
yourself. I imagine that the sign