r? How could
that be if the quarters were so bad?"

"No, sah," he said, "Ah should never call the old massa kind, he was
fair an' ready to help a willin' worker. But his slaves was his slaves
an' they had no rights. Thar wasn't any whippin' or any o' that sort o'
thing, but it was work all day, f'om befo' daylight till afteh dark, an'
we lived jes' anyhow."

"How came he to start the town, then?" queried Hamilton. "Your
description of him doesn't sound as though he were a man who would do
much for you."

"It was jes' because o' that, Ah think, that he did, sah. He was just,
sah. He said that while we were slaves we should be treated as slaves.
Now that the negro was not a slave any mo', thar was no reason to make
him live like one. He used to say the South was now pledged to help the
nation instead o' the Confederacy, an' while he did not agree, he would
live up to that pledge."

"That seems as fair as anything could be."

"Yas, sah, but it was easier to say that than to do it. Thar was no
money in the place, the slaves hadn' had wages, an' yo' can't build
houses without money, an' money was scarce afteh the war."

"How in the wide world did you manage it?" asked Hamilton.

"As Ah was sayin', sah, it was Colonel Egerius' doin'. He got a surveyor
from the town an' hunted over the plantation to fin' the best site fo'
a village,--the surveyor's name was Buller."

"That's where the town got its name, then?"

"Yas, sah, Ah jes' wanted it called Egerius, but the Colonel wouldn't
hear of it. Then all o' the ol' slaves that wanted to stay by the place
got together, an' the Colonel showed us how to make a sort o' syndicate.
Then he sol' us the land jes' as low as it could be made, payment to be
in labor on the plantation, so in a few years' work every man who wanted
to stay reg'lar on the job got title to his lan' an' his house, an' took
wages afteh that."

"That was a wise move," said the boy after a moment's thought. "He sold
his land at a fair price, got the money back that he put into buildings,
established a regular supply of labor for his plantation, and at the
same time fixed it all right for you."

"Yas, sah," the old negro answered, "an' now every man in the town
either owns his house or is buyin' one f'om the syndicate, an' we have
bought up all the surveyed property f'om the Colonel. Now, sah,"
continued the preacher, "if yo' will excuse me, Ah will see that yo'r
supper is got ready. Hyar, sah," he added