"On the high seas somewhere, and that is all I can tell you."
"And Rodney once said he might never get back again," replied Marcy. "He thinks the South is going to have a navy that will beat anything the world ever saw. Yes, Rodney is a rebel to the backbone," he added in response to an inquiry from his mother. "Says the Northern folks will be whipped before they can take their coats off; but for all that he showed considerable feeling when he came to say good-by. He is under a promise to enlist under the Stars and Bars within twenty-four hours after he reaches home, and I know he will do it, if he can get to a recruiting office. But to return to business. I am sure we had better keep right along as we have been going, instead of pulling up stakes and moving to some new place to meet dangers and difficulties of which we know nothing. We've got to eat, and we must have something to wear; and how are we to get things if we have no crops? Have you any money?"
Mrs. Gray started perceptibly at this abrupt question, and before replying arose to her feet and opened, in quick succession, all the doors leading out of the dining-room.
"Aha!" said Marcy, who thought he knew the meaning of this pantomime. "You remind me of old Uncle Toby. He had money which he lost because he hid it in the ground instead of putting it where it would have been safe."
"That is what I have done with ours," said his mother, in a scarcely audible whisper. "That is to say, I have concealed it."
"How much?"
"Nearly thirty thousand dollars, and it is all in gold."
"W-h-e-w!" whistled Marcy. "What put it into your head?"
"I took warning; that is all. The Southern people have often threatened to secede if a Republican President was elected, and I was sure they meant it; so when the election returns came in and this excitement began, I made several quiet business trips to Newbern, Wilmington, Norfolk, and Richmond."
"Why, you never said a word about it in your letters."