Toward the end of the week the General began to show him a grave friendly interest. He invited Gaston to go over the mills with him. The mills were located back of the wooded cliffs a quarter of a mile up the river. There were now four magnificent brick buildings stretching out over the river bottoms at right angles to its current. And there was a big dye house, a ginning house and a cotton-seed oil mill. The General stood on the hill top and proudly pointed it out to him.
“Isn’t that a grand sight, young man! We employ 2,000 hands down there, and consume hundreds of bales of cotton a day. We began here after the war without a cent, except our faith, and this magnificent water power. Now look!”
“You have certainly done a great work,” said Gaston, “I had no idea you had so many industries in the enclosure.”
“Yes, I sit down here on the hill some nights in the moonlight and look into this valley, and the hum of that machinery is like ravishing music. The machinery seems to me to be a living thing, with millions of fingers of steel and a great throbbing soul. I dream of the day when those swift fingers will weave their fabrics of gold and clothe the whole South in splendour!—the South I love, and for which I fought, and have yearned over through all these years. Ah! young man, I wish you boys of brain and genius would quit throwing yourselves away in law and dirty politics, and devote your powers to the South’s development!”
“Yes, but General, the people of the South had to go into politics instead of business on account of the enfranchisement of the Negro. It was a matter of life and death.”
“I didn’t do it.”
“No, sir, but others did for you.”
“How?” he asked incredulously, with just a touch of wounded pride.
“Well how many negroes do you employ in these mills?”
“None. We don’t allow a negro to come inside the enclosure.”