on is weakening. Our
young men are becoming steeped in the strong commercial spirit of the
North. I should like to continue this pleasant and elevating
conversation, but here's where I am compelled to leave you."

"Can I assist you to mount?" I asked, hardly knowing what else to say.
He shoved his hat back and looked at me in astonishment. "You are kind,
sir, but I am not yet on the lift." But he instantly recognized that
this was harsh, and with a broad smile he added: "Pardon me for my
shortness of speech, but the truth is that a man who has spent much of
his life in the saddle contemplates with horror the time when he must be
helped to his seat."

"General, I am the one to ask pardon," I replied, bowing in my turn.

"Oh, no, I assure you!" he exclaimed, mounting his horse with more ease
than I had expected to see. "It was your kindness of heart, sir; a
courtesy, and though a courtesy may be a mistake, it is still a virtue.
Look at that old field out there," he broke off. "Do you call that an
advancement of civilization. By--the tight rope, again--it is
desolation."

It seemed that while walking he had regarded me as his guest, but that
now, astride his horse and I on foot, he looked upon me as a man whom he
had simply met in the road.

"A return of prosperity," he said, gathering up his bridle rein, "a fine
return, indeed. About another such a return and this infernal world
won't be fit to live in. I wish you good morning, sir."

That very day there came to school the sullen-looking boy whom I had
seen in the tobacco patch. I asked him his name and he answered that he
had forgotten to bring it with him. "Perhaps," said I, "it would be well
to go back and get it."

"If you want it wus'n I do I reckon you better go atter it."

This set the children to laughing. My humiliation was begun.

"I understand why you have come," said I, "and I must tell you that you
must obey the rules if you stay here. What is your name?"

"Gibblits," he answered. The children laughed and he stood regarding me
with a leer lurking in the corners of his evil-looking mouth.

"All right, Mr. Gibblits, where are your books?" He grinned at me and
answered: "Ain't got none."

"Well, sit down over there and I'll attend to you after a while."

"Won't set down and won't be attended to."

"Well, then, I'll attend to you right now." I grabbed him by the collar,
jerked him to me and boxed his jaws. He ran out howling when I turned
him loo