Young Griffin gasped for breath, but did not say a word in reply. He did not smile either, as Mr. Gray did, for he failed to see how that new law could affect him.
"Now, I happen to have such a farm up the river road," continued the planter. "There's no one on it but a driver to look out for things, and if you have a mind to go up and take charge of it I shall be glad to have you. And I think I can put you in the way of earning more money than you do now."
"But, Mr. Gray, I am not an overseer," stammered Griffin, who wished from the bottom of his heart that he had chosen that humble but useful vocation instead of telegraphy. "I don't know the first thing about farming."
"Well, you can't learn younger, can you?"
"No, sir. But I—you see—the fact of the matter is, where are the bacon and beef to come from? If they were selling at a dollar a ton I couldn't buy a hundred pounds."
"You have a whole year in which to pay it," replied Mr. Gray. "But I don't believe in going in debt, and perhaps we can scare up cattle and hogs enough on the farm to fill the bill; and I shall depend on you to raise others to replace them. I think you had better go. You can take your mother along to keep house for you, and I don't see why you can't live as well there on the farm as you do here in town. Tell Drummond to come out here a moment."
"Mr. Gray," said Griffin, with tears of gratitude in his eyes, "I wish you would ride around to our house and let mother thank you for your kindness. I don't know how."
"I will save her and you the trouble," said the planter, bending down from his saddle and speaking in tones so low that none of the passers-by could hear his words. "Who was it that kept Rodney from falling into the clutches of that Yankee cotton factor in St. Louis? Tell Drummond to come here."
Drummond came, and Griffin afterward said that he never saw so mad a man as his chief was when the planter explained matters to him in a few brief but emphatic words. The operator had nothing against Griffin personally, but Tom Randolph had, and as Tom had been friendly enough to keep his name off the enrolling list, Drummond felt in duty bound to make common cause with him.
"Mr. Gray, I am afraid it won't work," said he. "Griffin was conscripted before that exemption law was passed."