“I tell you I didn’t hear a thing about the war,” Harriot insisted, much aggrieved. “If I had, it isn’t a crime to mention it, is it? Besides, I’d only begun when mother sent me up to you. There was a man talking about Abe Lincoln and a proclamation, letting the birds free or something. I didn’t understand much of it.”
“What have Abe Lincoln’s proclamation to do with us?” said April sharply, more to herself than to her sister.
At that moment Mrs. May came into the room, closing the door carefully behind her.
“I have no doubt the proclamation is the promised emancipation of the slaves, honey,” she suggested quietly, having overheard April’s question. “I didn’t wish it mentioned before the women downstairs. There is no use unsettling the quarters yet. But they’ll learn of it fast enough; for, from now on, the negroes are free.”
“Mother!” exclaimed April passionately, “how can you say such things? What does the South care for Lincoln’s proclamation? And as for the slaves—they’ll do as they’re bid. They know they can’t escape the hounds just because a miserable Yankee says they’re free.”
Mrs. May looked at her beautiful daughter in silence for a moment, shaking her head gently. When she spoke it was with a note of sadness in her voice.
“It hurts me to hear you talk like that, my child, even though I know you don’t mean it. You are no more capable of sending the hounds after one of our people than I am.”
“Oh, well, our servants will never leave us,” April replied with deep conviction. “What difference does this proclamation make to us? Mr. Davis is the President of our country, not Abe Lincoln.”
“I’m afraid you don’t understand, dear,” Mrs. May replied patiently. “As I see it, this proclamation gives the Confederacy its death-blow. England, which has been seizing slave ships and fighting slavery for many years, cannot side with the South in this war when slavery is made the open issue. Without her aid what shall we do? You know how short we are already of necessities. If England refuses to supply us, how can we go on?”
“Oh, but, mother, we must beat them,” April cried. “We shall find a way.”