"Well, if you don't want to go, there is one way you can get out of it," replied Mr. Randolph, as he folded his napkin and pushed his chair back from the table. "You can throw up your commission."
"I have thought of resigning," said Tom; and he had half a mind to broach the subject of Larkin's discharge then and there, but finally concluded that he would leave it to his mother.
"As far as I am concerned, I shall be glad to see you a civilian once more, and to know that I shall never put eyes on that sword and uniform again," continued Mr. Randolph. "The Southern people are all fools, and a year ago I was one of the most senseless of them."
"Does that mean that you have given up the hope of Southern independence?" inquired Tom, who was not greatly surprised, although he had never heard his father talk in this way before.
"It means that we have made beggars of ourselves by trying to break up the government when we had no earthly excuse for it. We were never short of anything before, and now I am put to my stumps to find paper to write on and salt for my table. There will be no bacon and hams for us next winter unless I can induce some of my friends to do a little trading in Baton Rouge for me. I dare not go into the city to do it for myself, for you are captain of the Home Guards. I wish in my soul that I had had a guardian appointed over me about the time I was making such an idiot of myself on account of that company."
Mr. Randolph rubbed some "nigger twist" between his palms, jammed it rather spitefully into an earthen pipe with a cane stem, and went out on the gallery to enjoy his after-dinner smoke. He was a rich planter, and it was not so very long ago that his crop of cotton was worth a fortune to him every year; but he could not smoke cigars now unless they were given to him. Some of his neighbors who had not taken so deep an interest in the Home Guards, Rodney Gray's father for one, had passes that took them in and out of Baton Rouge as often as they chose to make use of them; and these men had salt and tea and coffee, stockings and shoes and cigars in abundance, and "plenty of greenback money, too," as one darkey affirmed, who chanced to catch a momentary glimpse of the inside of Mr. Gray's pocket-book.
Mr. Randolph made his exit from the room through one of the low windows that opened upon the veranda, sat down long enough to take a dozen or more pulls at his pipe, and then came back to say:
"Tom, you want to be kinder careful what you tell about Rodney Gray and his folks, for, if we work matters right, I am sure Gray will lend me a helping hand now and then; and goodness knows I need it bad enough. I suspicion that in some way or other he has got on the blind side of the Yankees in Baton Rouge."
"Then he ought to be reported to our authorities," said Mrs. Randolph spitefully.
"That's what I say!" exclaimed Captain Tom. "If he is giving aid and comfort to the enemy he is breaking our laws; and I say——"