“We will give you an hour to pack up things. If you are in the house at the end of that time, we shall set fire to it.”
“Well, now, see here,” said Swayne, who grew more frightened than ever; “I can’t pack up in an hour—”
“I have told you just what I intend to do,” said Mr. Sprague, consulting his watch. “It is now ten o’clock. If you are in here at eleven we shall set the house going. If you are out of it in that time, why, we’ll save it. You want to make up your mind in a hurry.”
“Of all the brazen-faced fellows I ever saw you are the beat,” said Swayne, his fear giving place to anger. “I wish I had half a dozen Confederate soldiers here to protect me.”
“By gum! We’ll set the house a-going before you get out of it,” said one of Mr. Sprague’s men. “You ain’t a-going to talk to us like that.”
“One moment, Bud. We’ll sit down here on the porch until he gets through being mad, and then maybe he’ll pack up. You had better go, Swayne, for as sure as we are sitting on this porch, so sure will we set fire to it.”
In the meantime Leon and Tom had stood close together, and as Carl flounced into the house after his uncle, the two bounded up the steps and went up to the frightened boy.
“A word in your ear,” said Leon.
“Well, I don’t want anything to do with you,” said Carl, almost ready to cry when he found himself driven away from his home. “A man who will do as you have done has no business with a white person.”
“One moment,” said Leon, while Tom cocked his gun and brought it to bear on Carl’s head. “That brings you to your senses, don’t it? Here’s a resolution of secession that my father got up yesterday, and which was left on a tree down here, and I found it torn up and strewn on the ground. Did you have a hand in it?”