to the slave owner. And it was
this hard driving that taught the negro vaguely to despise the
abolitionist. But as a class the slaves were not unhappy. They were
ignorant, but the happiest song is sometimes sung by ignorance. They
believed the Bible as read to them by the preachers, and the Bible told
them that God had made them slaves; so, at evening, they twanged rude
strings and danced the "buck" under the boughs of the cottonwood tree.

On the vine-shaded veranda the typical old planter was wont to sit,
looking up and down the road, watching for a friend or a stranger--any
one worthy to drink a gentleman's liquor, sir. His library was stocked
with romances. He knew English history as handed down to him by the
sentimentalist. He hated the name of king, but revered an aristocracy.
No business was transacted under his roof; the affairs of his estate
were administered in a small office, situated at the corner of the yard.
His wife and daughters, arrayed in imported finery, drove about in a
carriage. New Orleans was his social center, and he had been known to
pay as much as a thousand dollars for a family ticket to a ball at the
St. Charles hotel. His hospitality was known everywhere. He was slow to
anger, except when his honor was touched upon, and then he demanded an
apology or forced a fight. He was humorous, and yet the consciousness of
his own dignity often restrained his enjoyment of the ludicrous. When
the cotton was in bloom his possessions were beautiful. On a knoll he
could stand and imagine that the world was a sea of purple.

That was the Arkansas planter years ago, before the great sentimental
storm swept down upon him, before an evening's tea-table talk in
Massachusetts became a tornado of iron in Virginia. When ragged and
heart-sore he returned from the army, from as brave a fight as man ever
engaged in, he sat down to dream over his vanished greatness. But his
dream was short. He went to work, not to re-establish his former
condition of ease--for that hope was beyond him--but to make a living
for his family.

On a knoll overlooking the Arkansas River stood the Cranceford
homestead. The site was settled in 1832, by Captain Luke Cranceford, who
had distinguished himself in an Indian war. And here, not long
afterward, was born John Cranceford, who years later won applause as
commander of one of the most stubborn batteries of the Confederate
Army. The house was originally built of cypress logs, but as time