e, Kelsey his name is. I know you don't
collogue with no such, but mebbe you know who he is."

Marcy started, and looked first at his mother and then at Captain
Beardsley. The latter sat with his bearded chin on his breast, regarding
Marcy through his half-closed eyelids, and there was an expression on
his face that had a volume of meaning in it. Taken by surprise at last,
the usually sharp-witted boy had betrayed the secret he was most anxious
to keep from the knowledge of everybody.

CHAPTER V.

MARCY'S RASH WISH.

"I know mighty well that Kelsey is trifling and lazy when he ain't got
nothing much to occupy his mind," said Beardsley, who was not slow to
catch the meaning of the frightened glances which mother and son so
quickly exchanged, "but when he was working on my place and bossing my
hands, I found him----"

"Are you in earnest in proposing him for my mother's overseer?" cried
Marcy, as soon as he could speak. "Our fields can grow up to briars
first."

"But really, he wants work," began the colonel.

"Then let him go down to the Island and work in the trenches," replied
Marcy. "He can't come here."

"But Kelsey is the only support of his family," the colonel remarked.
"He is loyal to our cause, and would enlist in a minute if he had enough
ahead to support his wife and children during his absence; but he hasn't
got it."

"They will fare just as well without him as they do with him. If they
get hungry, my mother will no doubt feed them as she has done a hundred
times before; but Kelsey can't come on this place to work. There isn't
money enough in the State to induce us to agree to that."

"But what you uns going to do for an overseer?" said Beardsley again.
"You'll need one if you intend to run the place."

"Not until the hands return from the Island," replied Marcy, "and then I
shall take hold myself."

Having done all they intended to do when they came there the visitors
were ready to leave, and Colonel Shelby gave the signal by arising from
his chair and pulling his collar up about his ears.

"I still think, Mrs. Gray, that Marcy ought to take this money," said
he. "The captain does not offer it to him as a gift but as his due."

"We perfectly understand the object he had in mind," answered the lady;
whereupon the colonel opened his eyes and looked at her very hard. "But
if Marcy thinks he ought not to receive it I have nothing to say."

"I hope you will not regret it," said the colone