"Very good philosophy, indeed!" said Mr. Villars. "And what did he reply?"
"He said, when the wust happened to us, we'd find we had no home, no property, and no country left; and fur his part he had been thinking we'd better go and give ourselves up, make peace with the authorities, and take the oath of allegiance. 'Lincoln won't send no army to relieve us yet a-while,' says he, 'and even if he does, you know, victory for the Federals means the death of our institootions! So I see where the shoe pinched with him; and I said, 'If that continners to be your ways of thinkin', I hain't the least objections to partin' comp'ny with ye, as the house dog said to the skunk; only,' says I, 'don't ye go to betrayin' us, if you conclude to go.' Soon arter that we separated, and that's the last any on us have seen of him."
"They've begun to whip women, too," said Stackridge. "But, by right good luck, when this scamp here—" glowering upon Lysander—"sent to have my wife whipped, he got his own mother whipped in her place! He's a connection o' your family, I know, Mr. Villars; but I never spile a story for relation's sake."
"Nor need you, friend Stackridge. Sorry I am for that deluded young man; but he reaps what he has sown, and he has only himself to blame."
"'Twas a regular secesh operation, that of having his own mother strung up," said Captain Grudd. "They are working against their own interests and families without knowing it. When they think they are destroying the Union, they are destroying their own honor and influence; for so it 'ill be sure to turn out."
"It was Liberty they intended to have beaten," said Penn; "but they will find that it is the back of their own mother, Slavery, that receives the rods."
"Just what I meant to say; but it took the professor to put it into the right shape. By the way, neighbors, we owe the professor an apology. Some of us found fault with his views of slavery and secession; but we've all come around to 'em pretty generally, I believe, by this time. Here's my hand, professor, and let me say I think you was right enough in all but one thing—your plaguy non-resistance."
"He has thought better of that," said Mr. Villars, pleasantly.
"Yes, zhentlemen," said Carl, anxious to exonerate his friend, "he has been conwerted."
"We have found that out, to his credit," said Stackridge.