here I
am until mother writes me to start for home. Has your father written for
you yet?"

"No; but I am looking for a letter every day, and I don't see why I
don't get it. But it will come fast enough if the Yankees begin
preparations for war, as some lunatics seem to think they will."

"Those same lunatics are about the only sensible people there are in the
South to-day. The Northern States will not stand by with their hands in
their pockets and see this government broken up, and you may depend upon
it," said Marcy earnestly. "If they don't hang a few on both sides the
line, there will be a war here the like of which the world has never
seen."

"Bosh!" exclaimed Rodney, snapping his fingers in the air.

"And some of it will be in your State and mine," continued Marcy.

"Haven't you read our president's speech?" demanded Rodney, almost
fiercely. "He says that if war must come, it will be fought on Northern
soil."

"It takes two to make a bargain. The Northern States are stronger than
we are, and they would be fools to consent to any such arrangement."

"You'll see that it will be done, whether they consent or not," answered
Rodney. "Of course they don't want us to separate from them, for they
have made a lot of money out of us with their high protective tariff and
all that; but how are they to help themselves when there are no laws or
ties of blood to hold us together? Although we speak the same language,
we do not belong to the same race that they do; we are better every way
than they are, and we're not going to be bound to them any longer. The
slave-holders of the South ruled the old Union for sixty out of seventy
years of her existence, and now that the reins of power have been
snatched from their hands, they're not going to stand it. We'll have a
nation of our own that will lead the world in everything that goes to
make a nation. If North Carolina goes out, what will you do?"

"I shall go home, of course, for mother will need me. Our blacks will
all leave us the first chance they get--"

"Bosh!" said Rodney, again. "The niggers know who their friends are, and
I'll bet you there are not a hundred in the South today who would go
over to the Yankees if they had the opportunity."

"Whether they run away or not, mother will need somebody on the
plantation, and I am the only one she can call on, for Jack is at sea,"
replied Marcy.

"And, what's more, he may never get back," added Rodney. "We shall have
a na