"Get a dictionary or a book of synonyms, George."
"Perhaps I should. I understand how we happen to differ. But I can't explain it well. Well, maybe it will all blow over. The worries of today are often the jokes of tomorrow."
Major Warren shook his head.
"It may blow over," he said, "but it will be a mighty wind; it will blow a long time, and many things for which you and I care, George, will be blown away by it. When that great and terrible wind stops blowing, our country will be changed forever."
"Don't be so downcast, John, you are not dead yet," said Colonel Kenton, clapping his friend on the shoulder. "You've often seen big clouds go by without either wind or rain."
"How about that attack upon your house and you and your friends? The clouds had something in them then."
"Merely mountain outlaws taking advantage of unsettled conditions."
Harry had listened closely and he knew that his father was only giving voice to his hopes, not to his beliefs. But as they ceased to talk of the great question, his attention wandered to the country through which they were passing. Spring was now deep and green in Kentucky. They were running through a land of deep, rich soil, with an outcrop of white limestone showing here and there above the heavy green grass. A peaceful country and prosperous. It seemed impossible that it should be torn by war, by war between those who lived upon it.
Then the train left the grass lands, cut through a narrow but rough range of hills, entered a gorge and stopped in Frankfort, the little capital, beside the deep and blue Kentucky.
Frankfort had only a few thousand inhabitants, but Harry found here much of the feeling that he had seen in Nashville and Charleston, with an important difference. There it was all Southern, or nearly so, but here North struggled with South on terms that certainly were not worse than equal.