son, entered the room at this moment, exclaiming:

"Well, you des ez well call 'im dead den, kaze marry her he will, an' I
don't blame 'im; an' mo'n dat I'll he'p 'im all I can."

"You don't know what you are talking about," said Silas, wiping his
lips, which were as dry as a bone.

"Maybe I does, an' maybe I don't," replied Rhody. "But what I does know,
I knows des ez good ez anybody. You say dat boy sha'n't marry de gal;
but how come you courtin' de mammy?"

"Doing what?" cried Silas, pushing his chair back from the table.

"Courtin' de mammy," answered Rhody, in a loud voice. "You wuz dar las'
night, an' fer all I know you wuz dar de night befo', an' de night 'fo'
dat. You may fool some folks, but you can't fool me."

"Courting! Why you blasted idiot! I went to see her on business."

Rhody laughed so heartily that few would have detected the mockery in
it. "Business! Yasser; it's business, an' mighty funny business. Well,
ef you kin git her, you take her. Ef she don't lead you a dance, I ain't
name Rhody."

"I believe you've lost what little sense you used to have," said Silas
with angry contempt.

"I notice dat nobody roun' here ain't foun' it," remarked Rhody,
retiring to the kitchen with a waiter full of dishes.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

_The Knights of the White Camellia_

Matters have changed greatly since those days, and all for the better.
The people of the whole country understand one another, and there is no
longer any sectional prejudice for the politicians to feed and grow fat
upon. But in the days of reconstruction everything was at white heat,
and every episode and every development appeared to be calculated to add
to the excitement. In all this, Shady Dale had as large a share as any
other community. The whites had witnessed many political outrages that
seemed to have for their object the renewal of armed resistance. And it
is impossible, even at this late day, for any impartial person to read
the debates in the Federal Congress during the years of 1867-68 without
realising the awful fact that the prime movers in the reconstruction
scheme (if not the men who acted as their instruments and tools) were
intent on stirring up a new revolution in the hope that the negroes
might be prevailed upon to sack cities and towns, and destroy the white
population. This is the only reasonable inference; no other conceivable
conclusion can explain the wild and whirling words that were uttered in
these deb