Rodney's entrance into the dining room seemed to be the signal that the house servants had been waiting for. The moment he stepped over the threshold they rushed in through every door, some smiling, some laughing outright, and all pushing and crowding one another in the effort to be the first to shake "young moster" by the hand. Foremost in the struggle was Rosebud, the darkey who had been Rodney's playmate in the days of his babyhood, and who yelled so dolefully when he went away. Although they all inquired particularly after his health, there was not one among them who asked what he thought of the Yankees as fighters now that he had had some experience with them. They knew as well as he did that he and his comrades had failed utterly in their efforts to take Missouri out of the Union.
Mrs. Gray could not describe in one dinner hour everything that had happened in and around Mooreville during the last fifteen months, nor could she do it in a dozen hours; and even at the end of a week she and her husband had many questions to answer as well as many to ask. But before he went to bed that night Rodney knew pretty nearly what Tom Randolph and his Home Guards had been doing, and how he and the enrolling officer stood in the community, and had been made to see at least one thing very clearly: the surest way for him to keep out of the army was to follow Ned Griffin's example and take a position as overseer on one of his father's plantations.
"I am overjoyed to know that you have decided to remain at home with us," said his father, "but, to be honest, I did not look for it, so I gave Griffin the best opening I had. Our upper plantation, as you are aware, is right in the middle of the woods; but I think Ned will be willing to make the change if I ask him."
"Not for the world," said Rodney quickly.
"I am used to living in the woods, so I will take the little farm and let Ned and his mother stay near civilization, where they can see white folks once in a while. Besides, I'd rather like to be within reach of the cotton you've got up there. A Northern paper that came into our hands just before we left Tupelo contained the information that there's going to be trading allowed along the river, and what the Yanks especially want is cotton."
"I don't blame them," said Mr. Gray, with a smile. "It is worth sixty cents a pound in New York."
This piece of news almost took Rodney's breath away.
"Four hundred and fifty bales at—let me see; $270 a——Great Scott, father! That doesn't look as though you are going to be reduced to beggary."