“I couldn’t at first,” confessed Beverly. “Down home even when we go for a few days into the country we take Mammy and old Joe and Mandy—she’s their daughter. You just ought to eat Mammy’s beaten biscuits and fried chicken!”
“Are they black people?” asked Cicely Vane.
“Yes, certainly,” drawled Beverly. “All our servants are niggers.”
“Slaves, Beverly?” Freddie bounced suddenly into the conversation in a way he had. Everybody laughed except Freddie and his Twin, who was busy scraping out an empty jam-jar.
“Slaves!” cried Dick who was lugging in a pailful of water. “We don’t have any slaves in America, don’t you know that, Kid? Why, we fought a war to—” Dick’s voice trailed off into silence, and for once that irrepressible boy looked confused. For Nancy was making frightful faces at him to remind him of the forbidden subject. Once upon a time Beverly’s grandfather had fought in that same war of which he spoke; while Dick’s own grandfather and Nancy’s had fought on the other side, to free the slaves. Those three young men had been college chums before the war. Colonel Peyton, a gallant soldier, had died for the cause he believed to be right. But the Union and Liberty had triumphed. This was the reason why the Northerners had agreed, before Beverly came, not to mention this subject while she was in camp.
“No, we haven’t any slaves in America, Freddie,” said Tante gently, “though some unfair things are still done, which will have to be corrected. But I believe nearly everybody in this land thinks alike about slavery nowadays.”
“I reckon we do,” agreed Beverly. “You needn’t mind talking about that war before me, Nancy. I’m not sensitive about that. And there’s only one Union now, isn’t there?”
“That’s just what I said about your Revolution,” said Cicely. “We can talk about anything, since we are all friendly, can’t we?”
“Of course we can!” nodded Tante. “That is why it is so nice for different kinds of people to get together, always.”
“Heia! Hoia!” called a shrill voice in the woods. And down the path came hurrying Nelly Sackett with a basket on her arm. She had run most of the way from the Cove, and was quite breathless.