IT was the bluest Monday the Rev. John Durham ever remembered in his ministry. A long drought had parched the corn into twisted and stunted little stalks that looked as though they had been burnt in a prairie fire. The fly had destroyed the wheat crop and the cotton was dying in the blistering sun of August, and a blight worse than drought, or flood, or pestilence, brooded over the stricken land, flinging the shadow of its Black Death over every home. The tax gatherer of the new “republican form of government,” recently established in North Carolina now demanded his pound of flesh.

The Sunday before had been a peculiarly hard one for the Preacher. He had tried by the sheer power of personal sympathy to lift the despairing people out of their gloom and make strong their faith in God. In his morning sermon he had torn his heart open and given them its red blood to drink. At the night service he could not rally from the nerve tension of the morning. He felt that he had pitiably failed. The whole day seemed a failure black and hopeless.

All day long the sorrowful stories of ruin and loss of homes were poured into his ear.

The Sheriff had advertised for sale for taxes two thousand three hundred and twenty homes in Campbell county. The land under such conditions had no value.

It was only a formality for the auctioneer to cry it and knock it down for the amount of the tax bill.

As he arose from bed with the burden of all this hopeless misery crushing his soul, a sense of utter exhaustion and loneliness came over him.

“My love, I must go back to bed and try to sleep. I lay awake last night until two o’clock. I can’t eat anything,” he said to his wife as she announced breakfast.

“John, dear, don’t give up like that.”

“Can’t help it.”

“But you must. Come, here is something that will tone you up. I found this note under the front door this morning.”

“What is it?”

“A notice from some of your admirers that you must leave this county in forty-eight hours or take the consequences.”

He looked at this anonymous letter and smiled.

“Not such a failure after all, am I?” he mused.

“I thought that would help you,” she laughed.

“Yes, I can eat breakfast on the strength of that.”

He spread this letter out beside his plate, and read and reread it as he ate, while his eyes flashed with a strange half humourous light.

“Really, that’s fine, isn’t it?”

“You sower of sedition and rebellion, hypocrite and false prophet. The day has come to clean this county of treason and traitors. If you dare to urge the people to further resistance to authority, there will be one traitor less in this county.”

“That sounds like the voice of a Daniel come to judgment, don’t it?”

“I think Ezra Perkins might know something about it.”

“I am sure of it.”

“Well, I’m duly grateful, it’s done for you what your wife couldn’t do, cheered you up this morning.”

“That is so, isn’t it? It takes a violent poison sometimes to stimulate the heart’s action.”

“Now if you will work the garden for me, where I’ve been watering it the past month, you will be yourself by dinner time.”

“I will. That’s about all we’ve got to eat. I’ve had no salary in two months, and I’ve no prospects for the next two months.”

He was at work in the garden when Charlie Gaston suddenly ran through the gate toward him. His face was red, his eyes streaming with tears, and his breath coming in gasps.

“Doctor, they’ve killed Nelse! Mama says please come down to our house as quick as you can.”

“Is he dead, Charlie?”

“He’s most dead. I found him down in the woods lying in a gully, one leg is broken, there’s a big gash over his eye, his back is beat to a jelly, and one of his arms is broken. We put him in the wagon, and hauled him to the house. I’m afraid he’s dead now. Oh me!” The boy broke down and choked with sobs.

“Run, Charlie, for the doctor, and I’ll be there in a minute.”

The boy flew through the gate to the doctor’s house.

When the Preacher reached Mrs. Gaston’s, Aunt Eve was wiping the blood from Nelse’s mouth.

“De Lawd hab mussy! My po’ ole man’s done kilt.”

“Who could have done this, Eve?”

“Dem union Leaguers. Dey say dey wuz gwine ter kill him fur not jinin’ ’em, en fur tryin’ ter vote ergin ’em.”

“I’ve been afraid of it,” sighed the Preacher as he felt Nelse’s pulse.

“Yassir, en now dey’s done hit. My po’ ole man. I wish I’d a been better ter ’im. Lawd Jesus, help me now!”

Eve knelt by the bed and laid her face against Nelse’s while the tears rained down her black face.

“Aunt Eve, it may not be so bad,” said the Preacher hopefully. “His pulse is getting stronger. He has an iron constitution. I believe he will pull through, if there are no internal injuries.”

“Praise God! ef he do git well, I tell yer now, Marse John, I fling er spell on dem niggers bout dis!”

“I am afraid you can do nothing with them. The courts are all in the hands of these scoundrels, and the Governor of the state is at the head of the Leagues.”

“I doan want no cotes, Marse John, I’se cote ennuf. I kin cunjure dem niggers widout any cote.”

The doctor pronounced his injuries dangerous but not necessarily fatal. Charlie and Dick watched with Eve that night until nearly midnight. Nelse opened his eyes, and saw the eager face of the boy, his eyes yet red from crying. “I aint dead, honey!” he moaned.

“Oh! Nelse, I’m so glad!”

“Doan you believe I gwine die! I gwine ter git eben wid dem niggers ’fore I leab dis worl’.”

Nelse spoke feebly, but there was a way about his saying it that boded no good to his enemies, and Eve was silent. As Nelse improved, Eve’s wrath steadily rose.

The next day she met in the street one of the negroes who had threatened Nelse.

“How’s Mistah Gaston dis mawnin’ M’am?” he asked.

Without a word of warning she sprang on him like a tigress, bore him to the ground, grasped him by the throat and pounded his head against a stone. She would have choked him to death, had not a man who was passing come to the rescue.

“Lemme lone, man, I’se doin’ de wuk er God!”

“You’re committing murder, woman.”

When the negro got up he jumped the fence and tore down through a corn field, as though pursued by a hundred devils, now and then glancing over his shoulder to see if Eve were after him.

The Preacher tried in vain to bring the perpetrators of this outrage on Nelse to justice. He identified six of them positively. They were arrested, and when put on trial immediately discharged by the judge who was himself a member of the League that had ordered Nelse whipped.





Tom Camp’s daughter was now in her sixteenth year and as plump and winsome a lassie, her Scotch mother declared, as the Lord ever made. She was engaged to be married to Hose Norman, a gallant poor white from the high hill country at the foot of the mountains. Hose came to see her every Sunday riding a black mule, gaily trapped out in martingales with red rings, double girths to his saddle and a flaming red tassel tied on each side of the bridle. Tom was not altogether pleased with his future son-in-law. He was too wild, went to too many frolics, danced too much, drank too much whiskey and was too handy with a revolver.

“Annie, child, you’d better think twice before you step off with that young buck,” Tom gravely warned his daughter as he stroked her fair hair one Sunday morning while she waited for Hose to escort her to church.

“I have thought a hundred times, Paw, but what’s the use. I love him. He can just twist me ’round his little finger. I’ve got to have him.”

“Tom Camp, you don’t want to forget you were not a saint when I stood up with you one day,” cried his wife with a twinkle in her eye.

“That’s a fact, ole woman,” grinned Tom.

“You never give me a day’s trouble after I got hold of you. Sometimes the wildest colts make the safest horses.”

“Yes, that’s so. It’s owing to who has the breaking of ’em,” thoughtfully answered Tom.

“I like Hose. He’s full of fun, but he’ll settle down and make her a good husband.”

The girl slipped close to her mother and squeezed her hand.

“Do you love him much, child?” asked her father.

“Well enough to live and scrub and work for him and to die for him, I reckon.”

“All right, that settles it, you’re too many for me, you and Hose and your Maw. Get ready for it quick. We’ll have the weddin’ Wednesday night. This home is goin’ to be sold Thursday for taxes and it will be our last night under our own roof. We’ll make the best of it.”

It was so fixed. On Wednesday night Hose came down from the foothills with three kindred spirits, and an old fiddler to make the music. He wanted to have a dance and plenty of liquor fresh from the mountain-dew district. But Tom put his foot down on it.

“No dancin’ in my house, Hose, and no licker,” said Tom with emphasis. “I’m a deacon in the Baptist church. I used to be young and as good lookin’ as you, my boy, but I’ve done with them things. You’re goin’ to tak............