When the gales of peace shall scatter War\'s wild, red rubbish like chaff, When the mills shall renew their clatter Then all the people will laugh.
—Tunison\'s Industrial Hymns.

Randall celebrated his release by retiring to Lucindy\'s house, where he shut himself in and remained for more than an hour. He filled the little room with thanksgiving in the shape of song and prayer, all of which could be heard for a considerable distance. A great burden had been lifted from his simple mind, and he celebrated the fact in a simple and natural way. Lucindy understood his feelings, for she shared them. While Randall was praying and singing in her house, she was in the kitchen with Adelaide. Even while the tears of gratitude and thankfulness were running down her cheeks, and threatening to fall in the things she was cooking (as the child saw), she made light of the whole matter. "I dunner what he mean by gwine \'way off dat-a-way, an\' holdin\' a pray\'r-meetin\' by hisself. He\'ll have de whole town a-stan\'in\' \'roun\' in de yard ef he keep on doin\' like dat."

"Well, Mammy Lucindy, you are crying yourself."

"My eyes weak, honey, an\' dey feels like I done stuck a splinter in bofe un um. You des wait. When you git ol\' ez what I is, I lay yo\' eyes will run water, too."

The idea of Adelaide growing old! Nobody would have thought of such a thing but Lucindy, and the thought only came to her as a means of hiding her own feelings. But it is a fact that the child was about to grow older. For shortly after Randall\'s trouble, all of us took the road for Eighteen-Hundred-and-Eighty-Five. We thought it was a long road, too, and yet, somehow, it was neither long nor rough. But it was a very peculiar thoroughfare. For though all of us tried to walk side by side, it seemed that some of us were toiling up-hill, while others were walking down-hill. It was so peculiar that on several occasions, I was on the point of asking Adelaide what she thought of a road that could be up-hill and down-hill in the same place, and at the same time; but the child had so many quaint and beautiful thoughts of her own that I hesitated to disturb her mind.

Moreover, she was growing so fast, and getting along so well, that I had no real desire to put new ideas in her head. Mr. Sanders declared that she was running up like a weed. This attracted the attention of old Jonas, who fixed his small glittering eyes on the old humourist.

"Like a weed, Sanders?" Mr. Whipple inquired.

"Well," replied Mr. Sanders, "call the weed a sunflower, ef it suits you; but I dunner what\'s the matter with a weed—the Lord made it."

Old Jonas, looking off into space, nodded his head, with "Yes, I reckon maybe He did."

As we went along this road I have been telling you of, I thought that perhaps old Jonas would stop to rest in a fence corner, but the further we went, we found that he was as lively as any of the rest, though perhaps not so nimble. As for Adelaide, she simply grew; there was no other change in her. She carried her child nature along with her, and she carried Cally-Lou. Not much was said of Cally-Lou, but all of us felt that she was in hiding in that wide, clear space that is just an inch or so beyond the short reach of our vision; and, somehow, we were all glad to have the company of the little dream-child who was "not quite white." I think she kept Adelaide from taking on the airs and poses of growing girls. And this was just as well. Adelaide took in knowledge, as though she had learned it somewhere before. When she began to study at school (as we went along) she declared that the books caused her to remember things that she had forgotten. Mr. Sanders said that there never was such a scholar, and Mr. Tidwell agreed with him. Old Jonas said nothing; his face simply wore a satisfied frown.

None of us forgot Randall, or could afford to forget him, for we were journeying along together. His evolution was out of the usual order. Adelaide merely fulfilled the promises of her childhood, and the expectations of those who were in love with her; whereas, Randall outran prophecy itself. The Boogerman developed into a full-fledged minister of the Methodist Church, and, in the course of that development, became a complete engine of modern industry. He went so far and so fast that he had an abundance of time to devote to the religious enthusiasm that kept him inwardly inflamed; and such was the power of his rude eloquence that he attracted the admiration of whites as well as blacks. He was ignorant, but he had a gift that education has never been able to produce in a human being—he had the gift of eloquence. When he was in the pulpit his rough words, his simple gestures, the play of his features, the poise of his body, his whole attitude, were as far beyond the compass of education as it is possible for the mind to conceive. This gift, or power, became so well known that he had a real taste of what is called reputation in this world. He was a pattern, a model, for the men of his race, and, indeed, for the men of any race, for there never was a moment when he was idle after he discovered that an honest and industrious man can make and save money. All that he made, he gave to old Jonas Whipple to keep for him. The more Randall worked the more he learned how to work, so that in the course of a year or two, there was nothing in the way of work that he couldn\'t do well. His credit at the little bank was as good as that of most white men, and his simple word was as good as a bond.

The men of his race watched him with a curious kind of awe. When one of them asked him how he managed to accomplish the results that were plain to every one, his reply was: "Good gracious, man! I jest goes ahead and does it, that\'s how." He had a great knack of meeting opportunity before she knocked at his door—of meeting her and hitching her to his shack of a buggy, where she served the purpose of a family horse. He had the confidence and sympathy of all the white people who knew him. He began to buy tracts of land, and one of his purchases included High Falls, where the children and grown people had their picnic grounds. Many thought this a wild investment, especially old Jonas, who rated him soundly for throwing away his hard-earned money; but Mr. Sanders, who, with all his humour and nonsense, was by all odds the shrewdest business man in all that region, declared that the time would come when the money that Randall had paid for it would be smothered by the money he could sell it for. Randall explained to old Jonas the reason why he had bought this remarkable water-power; it was because the water came so free and fell so far.

All this, by the way, as we were journeying along. We began to try to forget Eighteen-Hundred-and-Sixty-Eight; we knew right were it was, but, as we got farther and farther away from it, it seemed to lose some of its importance; and, sometimes, when we couldn\'t help but remember it, it came back to us as though it was the memory of a bad dream. People began to look up and stir about, Progress, hand-in-hand with Better Conditions, crawled out of the woods, where they had been hiding, and began to pay visits to their old friends. Mr. Sanders said it gave him a kind of Christmas feeling to see the hard times vanishing. Old Jonas felt better, too. At any rate, he seemed to take more interest in Adelaide, who, by this time, had developed into a wonderfully charming young woman—just how charming, I leave you to imagine; for she was a young woman and still a child. It is given to few people in this world to have this combination and to be able to manage it as it should be managed. I don\'t know whether to call it the art of living, or the instinct that makes Everybody feel as though he were Somebody. I never could understand the secret of it, and, indeed, I never tried, until one day a scientist came along peddling his ideas and theories. He declared that there was an explanation somewhere in one of his books, but so far, I have been unable to find it. There was nothing in his dull books about Adelaide and her individuality. It should be borne in mind that Adelaide had, in the course of seventeen years, developed into Something that was quite beyond art and education. Her inimitable personality, which was hers from the first, and quite beyond the contingencies of chance or change, continued to be inimitable. She had received all the advantages that money could buy; but this fact only emphasised her native charm. She was a child as well as a young woman, with the sweet unconsciousness of the one and the dazzling loveliness of the other.

Mean as he was said to be, it was a well-known fact that old Jonas\'s money would go as far as that of any man; and when it came to a question of Adelaide, it was as free as the money of some of our modern millionaires when they desire to advertise their benevolence. He was determined, he said, that his niece should have all the polish the schools could furnish. He called it polish for the reason that he had many a hot argument with Mr. Sanders and Lawyer Tidwell with respect to the benefits of education—the education furnished by our modern system of public schools. He didn\'t believe in it; there was always too much for some people, and not enough for others; there was no discrimination in the scheme. Moreover, it put false ideas in some people\'s heads, and made them lazy and vicious. But he had never said a word in opposition to polish, and when he sent Adelaide to one of the most expensive schools, it was not to educate her, he said, but to give her the "polish" that would elevate her above ordinary people.

Adelaide received the polish, but refused to be elevated, and when she returned home, unchanged and unspoiled, old Jonas Whipple said to himself that his money had been spent in vain. He wanted to see her put on airs and hold herself above people, but this she never did; and she would have laughed heartily at old Jonas\'s thoughts if she had known what they were. Mr. Whipple seemed to have an idea that culture and refinement are things that you can put your fingers on and feel of, and he was sure that dignity and personal pride are their accompaniments. Yet he gave no outward sign of his disappointment if he really had any, and he swallowed such regrets as possessed him with a straight face; for he saw, with a secret pride and pleasure that no one suspected, that Adelaide was the most charming young girl in all that neighbourhood. It filled him with pride for which he could not account when he observed that she could hold her own in any company, and that, wherever she went, she was the centre of admiration and interest.

Now, it was not long before the promoters of a railway line from Atlanta to Malvern came knocking at the doors of Shady Dale. Mr. Sanders and a number of others were inclined to be more than hospitable to the enterprise, but old Jonas Whipple was opposed to it tooth-and-nail. His arguments in opposition to the enterprise will be thought amusing and ridiculous in this day and time, but it is notorious, the world over, that any man with money can have a substantial following without resorting to bribery, and there were many in Shady Dale, who, basing their admiration on the fact that he had been very successful as a money-maker, in the face of the most adverse conditions, were ready to endorse anything that old Jonas said; he was an oracle because he knew how to make money, though it is well known that the making of money does not depend on a very high order of intelligence. Old Jonas\'s objections to a railway were not amenable to reason or argument; it was sufficient that they were satisfactory to him. He had them all catalogued and numbered. There were six of them, and they ran about as follows:

1. A railroad would add to the racket and riot of the neighbourhood, when, even as things were, it was a difficult matter for decent people to sleep in peace. 2. (This objection was impressive on account of its originality; no one had ever thought of it). The passing of railway trains would produce concussion, and this concussion, repeated at regular intervals, would cause the blossoms of the fruit trees to drop untimely off, and would no doubt have a disastrous effect on garden vegetables. 3. The railroad would not stop in Shady Dale, but would go on to Atlanta, thus making the little town a way-station, and drain the whole county of its labour at a time when everybody was trying to adjust himself to the new conditions. 4. Instead of patronising home industries and enterprises, people would scramble for seats on the cars, and go gadding about, spending anywhere but at home the little money they had. 5. Every business and all forms of industry in the whole section adjacent to the line would be at the mercy of the road and its managers; and, 6. What did people want with railroads, when a majority of the loudest talkers had earned no more than three dollars apiece since the war?

Mr. Sanders tried hard to destroy these objections by means of timely and appropriate jokes. But jokes had no effect on Mr. Whipple. Moreover, there was one fact that no jokes could change: a great body of land belonging to old Jonas lay right across the face of the railway survey, and there was no way to avoid it except by making a detour so wide that Shady Dale would be left far to one side. You would think, of course, that it was an easy matter to condemn a right of way through old Jonas\'s land, and so it would have been but for one fact that could not be ignored. There was a bitter controversy going on between the people and the roads, and the managers were trying to be as polite as they could be under the circumstances. The controversy referred to finally resulted in the passage of the railway laws that are now on the statute books of the state. The promoters of the line to Shady Dale had no desire to arouse the serious opposition of Mr. Whipple and his friends; they had no idea of making a serious contest in view of the state of public opinion, and they had made up their minds that if they failed to secure the right of way through old Jonas\'s lands by fair words, they would leave Shady Dale out of their plans altogether. They had already surveyed another line that would run six or seven miles north of the town, and work on this would have begun promptly but for the representations of Mr. Sanders and other substantial citizens, who declared that only a short delay would be necessary to bring old Jonas to terms. But that result, by the interposition of Providence, as it were, was left for others to accomplish.

Of the contest going on between the old-fashioned, unprogressive faction, headed by her uncle, and the spirited element of which Mr. Sanders was the leader, Adelaide had no particular knowledge. She knew in a general way that some question in regard to the new railroad was in dispute. She had heard the matter discussed, and she had laughed at some of the comments of Mr. Sanders on the obstinacy of her uncle, but the whole matter was outside the circle of her serious thoughts and interests until, at last, it was brought home to her in a way that the novel writers would call romantic, though for some time it was decidedly embarrassing.

Blushing and laughing, she told Mr. Sanders about it afterward. That genial citizen regarded it as a good joke, and, as such, he made the most of it. She was walking about in the garden one day, thinking of childish things, and remembering what fine times she and Mr. Sanders had had when she was a tiny bit of a girl. She was very old now—quite seventeen—but her childhood was still fresh in her remembrance, and she was quite a child in her freshness and innocence. The corn-patch was in a new place now, but to her it was still the Whish-Whish Woods. In the days when she brought down the Boogerman with her cornstalk gun, the corn was growing in the garden next to a side street on which there was very little passing to and fro; but now the corn-patch was next to a thoroughfare that was much frequented. Remembering how delighted she had been when Randall, the Boogerman, responded so completely to her pretence of shooting him with her cornstalk gun, she was seized by a whim that gave her an almost uncontrollable desire to repeat the performance.

By a gesture which, whether magical or not, admirably served its purpose, Adelaide became a child again. Her beautiful hair, unloosed, fell below her waist, and her face had the same little pucker of earnestness that it wore when, as a child, she was intent on her business of make-believe. She found a cornstalk that suited her purpose, stripped off the blades, and concealed herself in the Whish-Whish Woods, holding her gun in readiness to make a victim of the first person that passed along the street. As Providence would have it, she was not kept waiting, for almost before she could conceal herself, she heard the sound of feet. Whoever it was had no idea of the danger that awaited him, for he was walking along, whistling softly to himself, showing that he was either in high feather, or seriously uneasy with respect to certain plans he had in his head. As he came to the ambush, Adelaide promptly thrust her cornstalk gun forward, with a loud cry of "bang!" The result was as surprising as, and far more embarrassing than, when she made-believe to shoot Randall. This time the victim, instead of falling on the ground and writhing, as a man should do if he is seriously wounded, nearly jumped out of his skin, crying, "Good gracious!"

The voice was strange to Adelaide\'s ears, and when she was in a position to see her intended victim, she discovered that her innocent joke had been played at the expense of a young man whom she had never seen before; he was an utter stranger. The young man, glancing back to see who had waylaid him, caught a glimpse of Adelaide, and politely raised his hat. Adelaide, frightened at what seemed to be her boldness, could hardly articulate clearly, but she managed to say, in the midst of her confusion and embarrassment, "Oh, excuse me! I thought—" but there she paused.

"So did I," said the young man, with a laugh, "and you are quite excusable." Adelaide said to herself that he was making fun of her, but she did not fail to see, in the midst of her vexation and confusion, that he was very pleasant looking. In short he had a clear eye and a strong face. Having seen this much, she gathered her skirts free of her feet, and went running to the house. She couldn\'t resist the temptation to stop in the kitchen and give Lucindy the story of her exciting adventure, and in the midst of it, she paused to say how handsome the young man was. When the narrative was concluded, Adelaide asked Lucindy what she thought of it all. The old negro woman must have had very deep thoughts, judging from her silence. She asked no questions and merely nodded her head while Adelaide was talking; and then, while the excited young woman was waiting for her to make some comment, the little-used knocker on the front door fell with a tremendous whack.

"Whosomever it mought be," remarked Lucindy, "it look like dey er bleedze ter git in, kaze dey er breakin\' de door down!"

"Oh, I believe it\'s the young man I tried to shoot!" cried Adelaide in distress, "and I wouldn\'t meet him again for the world! I wonder where Uncle Jonas is—and why he don\'t have a bell placed on the door?" Then the young woman asked with some indignation, "Mammy Lucindy, do you suppose that young man is knocking at the door because I made a goose of myself in the garden?"

"Lawsy, honey," said Lucindy, soothingly, "don\'t git ter frettin\'; I\'m gwine ter de door—yit I lay ef you had been up ter yo\' neck in de flour-bairl, I wouldn\'t let you run ter de front door an\' grin at whomsomever mought be dar! I lay dat much."

"But, Mammy! I\'m afraid the person at the door is the young man I was rude to when he was passing the garden. Oh, I wish Uncle Jonas would hire a housemaid; I can\'t be running to the front door all the time."

"I ain\'t seed you run much, honey, kaze dat\'s de fust time dat door-knocker is bangded in many\'s de long day. You want a house-gal, does you? Well, you better not fetch no gal in dis house fer ter make moufs at me right \'fo\' my face. She sho\' won\'t last long; I tell you dat right now!"

Lucindy prepared to answer the summons, but before she could wipe the flour from her hands, Adelaide changed her mind. She said she would answer the knock herself, and, as she went into the house, Randall came around the corner and went into the kitchen. He was somewhat excited, and Lucindy inquired if he was ill. "Mammy," he said, "does you know who that is knockin\' at the door? Well, it aint nobody in the roun\' worl\' but ol\' Marster\'s grandson; it\'s Miss Betty\'s boy. Of all people on top of the ground, that\'s who it is."

Lucindy leaned on the kitchen table, and gazed at Randall in speechless surprise. "De Lord he\'p my soul!" she exclaimed when she could find her voice. "What he been up ter dat he ain\'t never is been here befo\'? He sholy can\'t be much mo\' dan knee-high ter a puddle-duck." She persisted in thinking of her young mistress as she had known her a quarter of a century before. Randall could tell her little beyond the fact that he had "know\'d the favour," and had spoken to the young man on the street, asking if he were not kin to the Bowdens.

This simple question developed into a long conversation, with the result that Randall was as enthusiastic about Miss Betty\'s boy as he was about Miss Betty, who had saved his life. "He sho\' have got the blood in \'im. He don\'t look strong, like all de balance of the Bowdens, but he\'s got their ways. He walks an\' holds his head jest like Miss Betty."

When Adelaide opened the door, and saw standing there the young man at whom she had aimed her cornstalk gun, she was surprised to find that she was not at all embarrassed. She had no idea that this particular meeting had been arranged and provided for long ages ago. But she wondered why she should feel so cool and collected, when she should be confused and blushing. This is the way young women act in story books, and Adelaide had often longed for the opportunity to stammer and blush when a strange but noble young man appeared before her; but now that the young man had come, she felt as if she had known him a long, long time. He was the embarrassed one, while she observed that he had nice brown eyes, to light up his handsome countenance, and these brown eyes seemed to be trying to apologise for something or other; and all the time the young man was thinking that he had never seen such beautiful blue eyes as those that were shyly glancing at him from under their long lashes. It was a desperate moment for all concerned, but Providence was there, and laid its calm, cool hand on the situation. The young man asked for Mr. Whipple, but Providence had been before him, and Mr. Whipple was not to be found in the house, though Adelaide tried hard to find him, not knowing that if her uncle could have been found just at that particular time, a great many possibilities would have been destroyed. Adelaide inquired if the brown eyes wouldn\'t come in and wait for Uncle Jonas, who was to be expected at any moment, and the brown eyes softly admitted that nothing would please them better if such an arrangement were perfectly agreeable to everybody, otherwise not for the world would they intrude—and then, as a matter of course, the blue eyes were compelled to see to it that the time of waiting would be made perfectly pleasant.

After awhile the sound of footsteps was heard on the veranda, and Adelaide, with a secret regret, declared that Uncle Jonas must be coming. But Providence was looking out for the interests of the young fellow with a keener eye, for the footsteps they heard were those of Mr. Sanders. He came in without knocking, as usual, and Adelaide ran to meet him, just as she always did. "You look as flustrated as ef you had man company," Mr. Sanders remarked, as she greeted him. She slapped him lightly on the arm by way of warning and rebuke. "An\' I\'ll lay I kin guess his name: it\'s Winters." Adelaide was very red in the face as she shook her head. "Then it\'s Somers," he declared; "I know\'d it was one of the seasons that had dropped in on you out\'n season. But it happens to be the very chap I\'m arter." He stalked in to the sitting-room, and shook hands with young Somers, calling him Jonah, though his name was John.

Then he casually inquired as to the whereabouts of Mr. Jonas Whipple, in spite of the fact that he already knew. "You see how it is," he remarked to the young man; "you thought you wanted to see Jonas, but it wasn\'t Jonas you wanted to see at all." Mr. Sanders pursed his mouth, and stared at the ceiling. The remark he had made was interpreted by Adelaide in a way he had not intended, but she was quite equal to the emergency.

"Well, Mr. Sanders," she inquired with great dignity, "whom did Mr. Somers desire to see?"

He turned a bland and child-like smile upon her. "Why, he wanted to see me, of course. Who else could it \'a\' been?" Adelaide\'s dignity was not made of the strongest stuff, and she was compelled to laugh. "I understood him to inquire for Uncle Jonas," she said simply, "but I may have been mistaken."

"No; I really want to see Mr. Whipple," the young man insisted. "That is my business here."

Mr. Sanders beamed upon him with a smile that was as broad and sweet as a slice of pie. "I\'ve allers took notice," he remarked, "that wimmen an\' children, an\' young folks in gener\'l, will ax for the identical things they ought not to have. They\'re made that-a-way, I reckon."

In a little while the young man bowed himself out, followed by Mr. Sanders. "You young fellers worry me no little," remarked the Sage of Shady Dale, as they went along the street together. "I happen to know about the business that fetched you here, an\' I mighty nigh swallered my goozle when I seed you makin\' for Jonas\'s."

"Well, I really though............