u sent to the field."

"But, moster," protested the frightened coachman, "de Yankees did
shoot----"

"Hold your tongue! If you lisp another word I will have you sent to the
overseer as sure as you are a living darkey. Now take those things out
of the carriage and put them in my room; and when you have done that, go
off somewhere and spend an hour or two every day telling the truth, so
that you will get used to it. Come into the house," he added gently,
leading his mother up the steps, "and I will tell you all about it. I
wasn't shot. I was struck by a splinter."

"Oh, Marcy," sobbed Mrs. Gray, "your face tells a different story. You
have suffered--you are suffering now; and there isn't a particle of
color in your cheeks. Don't try to deceive me, for I must know the worst
sooner or later."

"I am not trying to deceive you," answered Marcy, although he _was_
trying to break the disagreeable news as gently as he could. "I was
knocked down by a splinter and my arm was broken."

"There now," began his mother.

"But it's all right," Marcy hastened to add. "Beardsley set the bone in
less than three hours after it was broken, and the surgeon I consulted
in Newbern said he made a good job of it. I don't know what you think
about it, but I am not sorry it happened."

"Oh, Marcy! why do you say that?"

"Because it gave me a chance to come home. To tell you the truth,
blockade running is getting to be a dangerous business. We had four
narrow escapes this trip. Beardsley's impudence and a Union captain's
simplicity brought us out of the first scrape, a storm came to our aid
in the second, sheer good luck and a favoring breeze saved us in the
third, and a shot from the second mate's revolver brought us out of the
fourth. We are liable to fall into the hands of the cruisers any day;
and suppose I had been captured and thrown into a Northern prison! You
might not have seen me again for a year or two; perhaps longer. Bring
those bundles in here and take the valise upstairs," he added to the
coachman, who just then passed along the hall with Marcy's luggage in
his hands. "Open that bundle, mother. You need not be ashamed to wear
those dresses, for they were bought in Nassau with honest money--money
that I earned by doing duty as a foremast hand. I didn't pay any duty on
them because no one asked me for it. And in fact I don't know whether
there is a custom-house in Newbern or not. The box in the other bundle
contains nothing bu