uldn't have come to-day, if 't hadn't been for me," remarked Mrs.
Ducklow. "Says I to your father, says I, 'I feel as if I wanted to go
over and see Laury; it seems an age since I've seen her,' says I. 'Wal,'
says he, 's'pos'n' we go!' says he. That was only last Saturday; and
this morning we started."

"And it's no fool of a job to make the journey with the old mare!" said
Ducklow.

"Why don't you drive a better horse?" said Laura, whose pride was always
touched when her parents came to visit her with the old mare and the
one-horse wagon.

"Oh, she answers my purpose. Hossflesh is high, Laury. Have to
economize, these times."

"I'm sure there's no need of your economizing!" exclaimed Laura, leading
the way to the dining-room. "Why don't you use your money, and have the
good of it?"

"So I tell him," said Mrs. Ducklow, faintly.--"Why, Laury! I didn't want
you to be to so much trouble to git dinner jest for us! A bite would
have answered. Do see, father!"

At evening Josiah came home; and it was not until then that Ducklow
mentioned the subject which was foremost in his thoughts.

"What do ye think o' Gov'ment bonds, Josiah?" he incidentally inquired,
after supper.

"First-rate!" said Josiah.

"About as safe as anything, a'n't they?" said Ducklow, encouraged.

"Safe?" cried Josiah. "Just look at the resources of this country!
Nobody has begun yet to appreciate the power and undeveloped wealth of
these United States. It's a big rebellion, I know; but we're going to
put it down. It'll leave us a big debt, very sure; but we handle it now
easy as that child lifts that stool. It makes him grunt and stagger a
little, not because he isn't strong enough for it, but because he don't
understand his own strength, or how to use it: he'll have twice the
strength, and know just how to apply it, in a little while. Just so with
this country. It makes me laugh to bear folks talk about repudiation and
bankruptcy."

"But s'pos'n' we do put down the Rebellion, and the States come back:
then what's to hender the South, and Secesh sympathizers in the North,
from j'inin' together and votin' that the debt sha'n't be paid?"

"Don't you worry about that! Do ye suppose we're going to be such fools
as to give the Rebels, after we've whipped 'em, the same political power
they had before the war? Not by a long chalk! Sooner than that, we'll
put the ballot into the hands of the freedmen. They're our friends.
They've fought on the right