it may
not be in my day--it may not be in yours,--he will wipe it out with
blood!' and here was where he used to make the dishes rattle."

"Maybe, then, this is the Lord's good time," said grandmother.

"I believe in preserving the Union at any cost, slavery or no
slavery," said Bertrand.

"The bigger and grander the nation, the more rottenness, if it's
rotten at heart. I believe it better--even at the cost of war--to wipe
out a national crime,--or let those who want slavery take themselves
out of it."

Betty began to quiver through all her little system of high-strung
nerves and sympathies. The talk was growing heated, and she hated to
listen to excited arguments; yet she gazed and listened with
fascinated attention.

Bertrand looked up at his father-in-law. "Why, father! why, father!
I'm astonished! I fail to see how permitting one tremendous evil can
possibly further any good purpose. To my mind the most tremendous evil
that could be perpetrated on this globe--the thing that would do more
to set all progress back for hundreds of years, maybe--would be to
break up this Union. Here in this country now we are advancing at a
pace that covers the centuries of the past in leaps of a hundred years
in one. Now cut this land up into little, caviling factions, and where
are we? Why, the very motto of the republic would be done away
with--'In Union there is strength.' I tell you slavery is a sort of
Delilah, and the nation--if it is divided--will be like Sampson with
his locks shorn."

"Well, war is here," said Mary, "and we must send off our young men to
the shambles, and later on fill up our country with the refuse of
Europe in their stead. It will be a terrible blood-letting for both
North and South, and it will be the best blood on both sides. I'm as
sorry for the mothers down there as I am for ourselves. Did you get
the apples, Bertrand? We'd better start, to be there at eight."

"I put them in the carryall, my dear, Sweet Boughs and Harvest apples.
The boys will have one more taste before they leave."

"Father, we want to carry some. Put some in the carriage too," said
Martha.

"Yes, father. We want to eat some while we are on the way."

"Why, Jamie, they are for the soldiers; they're not for us," cried
Betty, in horror. To eat even one, it seemed to her, would be greed
and robbery.

In spite of the gravity of the hour to the older ones, the occasion
took on an air of festivity to the children. In grandfath