autiful white and green villages
of New England, and the fertile prairie farms of the West. "Even the
dogs," he said, "look old-fashioned." Oh, for a change in his beloved
South--a change of almost any kind! "Even a heresy, if it be bright and
fresh, would be a relief. You feel as if you wished to see some kind of
an effort put forth, a discussion, a fight, a runaway, anything to make
the blood go faster." Wherever Page saw signs of a new spirit--and he
saw many--he recorded them with an eagerness which showed his loyalty to
the section of his birth. The splitting up of great plantations into
small farms he put down as one of the indications of a new day. A
growing tendency to educate, not only the white child, but the Negro,
inspired a similar tribute. But he rejoiced most over the decreasing
bitterness of the masses over the memories of the Civil War, and
discovered, with satisfaction, that any remaining ill-feeling was a
heritage left not by the Union soldier, but by the carpetbagger.

And one scene is worth preserving, for it illustrates not only the zeal
of Page himself for the common country, but the changing attitude of the
Southern people. It was enacted at Martin, Tennessee, on the evening of
July 2, 1881. Page was spending a few hours in the village grocery,
discussing things in general with the local yeomanry, when the telegraph
operator came from the post office with rather more than his usual
expedition and excitement. He was frantically waving a yellow slip which
bore the news that President Garfield had been shot. Garfield had been
an energetic and a successful general in the war and his subsequent
course in Congress, where he had joined the radical Republicans, had not
caused the South to look upon him as a friend. But these farmers
responded to this shock, not like sectionalists, but like Americans.
"Every man of them," Page records, "expressed almost a personal sorrow.
Little was said of politics or of parties. Mr. Garfield was President of
the United States--that was enough. A dozen voices spoke the great
gratification that the assassin was not a Southern man. It was an
affecting scene to see weather-beaten old countrymen so profoundly
agitated--men who yesterday I should have supposed hardly knew and
certainly did not seem to care who was President. The great centres of
population, of politicians, and of thought may be profoundly agitated
to-night, but no more patriotic sorrow and humiliation is felt