nd justice for all_."

"That's the oath of allegiance!" cried Carl, Mary, and Tim in chorus,
as they leaped to their feet and stood at salute.

"We say it at school every morning," continued Tim, "but I never knew
before what it meant."

"You will know better now, won't you?" Captain Dillingham replied.
"Every time you say those words remember the brave men of the South who
really believed they had a right to establish a government of their own
and protect the prosperity of their part of this great land. If you do
this you will learn to honor both sides alike, each of which fought so
devotedly for the cause he cherished. And now that the war is over the
entire country has the South to thank for one of its greatest sources
of wealth--cotton. The South raises it; the North, with its many mills,
transforms the raw product into a finished commodity. How is that for
team work? Could there be better proof of how vitally each section
needs the other?"

CHAPTER X

A LESSON IN THRIFT

That evening Carl resumed the cotton-raising subject by idly remarking,
"I suppose since the invention of the cotton gin and the abolition of
slavery most of the drudgery connected with the cotton industry has
disappeared."

His uncle smiled.

"Hardly that, I am afraid, sonny," replied he. "Even under the best
possible conditions the cultivation and gathering of the cotton crop
entails drudgery. This cannot be helped. In the first place cotton
demands steady heat to make it grow; and you know what it means to work
all day in the broiling sun. Of course the negroes are to a certain
degree accustomed to this; and moreover they belong to a race that
finds hot weather less hard to bear than do many other persons.
Nevertheless heat is heat, and say what you may, a hot sun pouring down
on one's head does not make for comfort. In addition there is the
monotony of the harvesting. As I told you before, this has to be done
by hand--there is no escape from that; and since it must be, the
dullness of the task is an unavoidable evil."

Carl mused thoughtfully for a moment.

"I don't see," observed he presently, "that after all the negroes are
much better off than they were in slave days."

"Oh, yes, they are," Captain Dillingham instantly responded. "Remember
they now receive wages; their hours of work have also been shortened
and regulated; and overseers have become more humane and now invent
little ways of breaking the monotony and maki