ugh that must have been a
sorry day for a Thatcher; but he remembers the great drouth by Ellen
Culpepper's party, where they had a frosted cake and played kissing
games, and--well, fifty years is along time for two brown eyes to
shine in the heart of a boy and a man. It is strange that they should
glow there, and all memory of the runaway slaves who were sheltered in
the cave by the sycamore tree should fade, and be only as a tale that
is told. Yet, so memory served the boy, and he knew only at second
hand how his mother gave her widow's mite to the cause for which she
had crossed the prairies as of old her "fathers crossed the sea."

Before the rain came in the spring of '61 Martin Culpepper came back
from the East an orator of established reputation. The town was proud
of him, and he addressed the multitude on various occasions and wept
many tears over the sad state of the country. For in the nation, as
well as in Sycamore Ridge, great things were stirring. Watts McHurdie
filled _Freedom's Banner_ with incendiary verse, always giving the
name of the tune at the beginning of each contribution, by which it
might be sung, and the way he clanked Slavery's chains and made love
to Freedom was highly disconcerting; but the town liked it.

In April Philemon R. Ward came back to Sycamore Ridge, and there was a
great gathering to hear his speech. Ward's soul was aflame with anger.
There were no Greek gods and Roman deities in what Ward said, as there
were in Martin Culpepper's addresses. Ward used no figures of speech
and exercised no rhetorical charms; but he talked with passion in his
voice and the frenzy of a cause in his eyes. Martin Culpepper was in
the crowd, and as Ward lashed the South, every heart turned in
interrogation to Culpepper. They knew what his education had been.
They understood his sentiments; and yet because he was one of them,
because he had endured with them and suffered with them and ministered
to them, the town set him apart from its hatred. And Martin Culpepper
was sensitive enough to feel this. It came over him with a wave of
joy, and as Ward talked, Culpepper expanded. Ward closed in a low
tone, and his face was white with pent-up zeal as he asked some one to
pray. There was a silence, and then a woman's voice, trembling and
passionate, arose, and Sycamore Ridge knew that Mrs. Barclay, the
widow of the Westport martyr, was giving sound to a voice that had
long been still. It was a simple halting pra