"I take the name with pleasure," said Langdon. "It's a compliment to be called Happy Tom. Happy I was born and happy I am. I'm so happy I must sing:
"Ol Dan Tucker was a mighty fine man,
He washed his face in the frying pan,
He combed his hair with a wagon wheel
And died with a toothache in his heel."
"That's a great poem," said a long North Carolina youth named Ransome, "but I've got something that beats it all holler. 'Ole Dan Tucker' is nothing to 'Aunt Dinah's Tribberlations.'"
"How does it go?" asked St. Clair.
"It's powerful pathetic, telling a tale of disaster and pain. The first verse will do, and here it is:
"Ole Aunt Dinah, she got drunk,
Felled in a fire and kicked up a chunk,
Red-hot coal popped in her shoe,
Lord a-mighty! how de water flew!"
"We've had French and Italian opera in Charleston," said St. Clair, "and I've heard both in New Orleans, too, but nothing quite so moving as the troubles of Ole Dan Tucker and Ole Aunt Dinah."
They sang other songs and the Guards, who filled two coaches of a train, joined in a great swinging chorus which thundered above the rattle of the engine and the cars, so noisy in those days. Often they sang negro melodies with a plaintive lilt. The slave had given his music to his master. Harry joined with all the zest of an enthusiastic nature. The effect of Shepard's words and of the still, solemn face of Jefferson Davis, framed in the open window, was wholly gone.
Spring was now advancing. All the land was green. The trees were in fresh leaf, and when they stopped at the little stations in the woods, they could hear the birds singing in the deep forest. And as they sped across the open they heard the negroes singing, too, in their deep mellow voices in the fields. Then came the delicate flavor of flowers and Harry knew that they were approaching Charleston. In another hour they were in the city which was, as yet, the heart and soul of the Confederacy.
Charleston, with its steepled churches, its quaint houses, and its masses of foliage, much of it in full flower, seemed more attractive than ever to Harry. The city preserved its gay and light tone. It was crowded with people. All the rich planters were there. Society had never been more brilliant than during those tense weeks on the eve of men knew not what. But the Charlestonians were sure of one fact, the most important of all, that everything was going well. Texas had joined the great group of the South, and while the border states still hung back, they would surely join.