“I knows dat mighty well. But you just watch out and see if you hain’t got more black folks up to your plantation dan you ought to have. You is a Union man and I know it, and you ain’t a-going to give me up just ’cause Marse Swayne says so.”
The negro started one way because he heard somebody calling him, and Mr. Sprague joined the men on the porch feeling as if he had a big responsibility resting upon him. He didn’t agree to take all the darkies in the county who might make up their minds to run away from their masters, and how was he going to support them all and find work for them to do?
“I tell you, this thing is coming to a head,” said Mr. Sprague to the man who sat next to him. “You remember what Stephens said about having a Government whose cornerstone should be slavery?”
The man remembered it perfectly. They used to get Confederate papers when the war first broke out, but now that they were in rebellion, and the postmaster was a rebel, they didn’t get a sight of one. The man who had charge of the office removed to Mobile as soon as he saw how things were going, and since then there had not been any post-office.
“Well, sir, old Cuff has just been talking to me, and he thinks of running away. He says that if he goes over into the other county he won’t get his freedom.”
“Good”[“Good”] said the man. “I am glad of it. We’ll see how their ‘corner-stone’ is going to hold out when they get their Confederacy. But they ain’t a-going to whip.”
“But this old Cuff thinks I am going to support him,” said Mr. Sprague. “I haven’t got any work for him to do.”
“Send him into the woods to cut logs for you,” said the man.
“I might do that, but I don’t see where I am going to find market for them. But I will get along somehow. Well, half an hour is gone, and they haven’t got many things out yet. Leon and Tom seem to be making it all right with Carl, don’t they?”
The two boys referred to stood patiently by until the resolutions were complete; then Tom took his copy and Leon fastened his eyes upon the torn manuscript and waited for him to read it. It was all correct; there wasn’t a mistake in it.