believe that those who don't work can't eat, and that would let
you out so far as grub is concerned. You never did a hand's turn in your
life. Now go and tell Morris to saddle my horse, and then come back, and
put away these guns as I told you."

When Julius left the room Marcy put on his hat, and went out to ask if
any of the other house servants knew that old Mose had run away, and was
not much surprised to find that they all knew of it and had been
expecting it, for Mose had given them due-notice of what he intended to
do. He had often been heard to say that if the Yankee soldiers ever came
to the plantation he would go away with them, and he had kept his word.
Some planters in the neighborhood would have said, "Good riddance to bad
rubbish," for of late years Mose had not done work enough to pay for the
corn meal and bacon he ate, let alone the clothes he wore; but Marcy
felt sorry for him, and predicted that Mose would repent of his bargain
in less than a month.

"Marse Mahcy, will the Yankees luf him come back if he wants to?"
inquired Morris.

"I reckon not," was the boy's answer. "The Federal general, Butler, has
declared slaves to be contraband of war, and I don't think they will
give Mose up any more than they would surrender a mule they had
captured. Now, what do you black ones know about the Home Guards?"

The expression of bewilderment that came upon the ebony faces by which
he was surrounded prepared Marcy for the reply. The servants, one and
all, declared that they did not know what he meant; and this made it
plain that the rebels in the settlement were beginning to learn that
their black people could not be trusted to keep their secrets. He went
into the house to tell his mother what he had learned, and finding his
filly at the door when he came back, he mounted and rode away.

The first white man he saw was one who could have told him all about the
Home Guards if he had been so disposed. It was Captain Beardsley, who
was still in the field with his negroes, Tom Allison and Mark Goodwin
having left him a few minutes before Marcy came up. The man did not stop
his work and come to the fence, nor did he look up as Marcy rode by; and
this made the latter believe that his old captain had some reason for
wishing to avoid him.

"He is going to spring something else on me, and before long, too," was
what Marcy said to himself as he passed on down the road. "When
Beardsley won't talk he is dangerous."

Th