The girl had never seen such a sight before and went into ecstasies. Becky wagged her tail with pride at her compliments. Every morning she would pull her gently into the stall just to hear her talk and laugh and pet her babies.
Whatever election day meant to the men, to Marion it was one of unalloyed happiness: she was to ride horseback alone and dance at her first ball. Ben had taught her to ride, and told her she could take Queen to Lover’s Leap and back alone. Trembling with joy, her beautiful face wreathed in smiles, she led the mare to the pond in the edge of the lot and watched her drink its pure spring water.
When he helped her to mount in front of the hotel under her mother’s gaze, and saw her ride out of the gate, with the exquisite lines of her little figure melting into the graceful lines of the mare’s glistening form, he exclaimed:
“I declare, I don’t know which is the prettier, Marion or Queen!”
“I know,” was the mother’s soft answer.
“They are both thoroughbreds,” said Ben, watching them admiringly.
“Wait till you see her to-night in her first ball dress,” whispered Mrs. Lenoir.
At noon Ben and Phil strolled to the polling-place to watch the progress of the first election under negro rule. The Square was jammed with shouting, jostling, perspiring negroes, men, women, and children. The day was warm, and the African odour was supreme even in the open air.
A crowd of two hundred were packed around a peddler’s box. There were two of them—one crying the wares, and the other wrapping and delivering the goods. They were selling a new patent poison for rats.
“I’ve only a few more bottles left now, gentlemen,” he shouted, “and the polls will close at sundown. A great day for our brother in black. Two years of army rations from the Freedman’s Bureau, with old army clothes thrown in, and now the ballot—the priceless glory of American citizenship. But better still the very land is to be taken from these proud aristocrats and given to the poor down-trodden black man. Forty acres and a mule—think of it! Provided, mind you—that you have a bottle of my wonder-worker to kill the rats and save your corn for the mule. No man can have the mule unless he has corn; and no man can have corn if he has rats—and only a few bottles left——”