"What is it?" asked his master.
"Mars' Robert, I want to be buried right outside de gate o' de garden lot where you an' Miss Lucy is buried, so I kin see you fus' on de mornin' o' de resurrection."
"Harrison, you shall be buried inside the lot with us," replied "Mars' Robert" distinctly, and a lady who heard it told me she never saw such radiant happiness as the old man's face expressed when these words fell on his ear.
CHAPTER XVII.
O bright-winged peace! long didst thou rest o'er the homes of old Virginia; while cheerful wood fires blazed on hearth-stones in parlor and cabin, reflecting contented faces with hearts full of peace and good will toward men! No thought entered there of harm to others; no fear of evil to ourselves. Whatsoever things were honest, whatsoever things were pure, whatsoever things were gentle, whatsoever things were of good report, we were accustomed to hear around these parlor firesides; and often would our grandmothers say:
"Children, ours is a blessed country! There never will be another war! The Indians have long ago been driven out, and it has been nearly a hundred years since the English yoke was broken!"
The history of our country, to our minds, was contained in two pictures on the walls of our house: "The Last Battle with the Indians," and "The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown."
No enemies within or without our borders, and peace established among us forever! Such was our belief. And we wondered that men should get together and talk their dry politics, seeing that General Washington and Thomas Jefferson—two of our Virginia plantation men—had established a government to last as long as the earth, and which could not be improved. Yet they would talk, these politicians, around our parlor fire, where often our patience was exhausted hearing discussions, in which we could not take interest, about the Protective Tariff, the Bankrupt Law, the Distribution of Public Lands, the Resolutions of '98, the Missouri Compromise, and the Monroe Doctrine. These topics seemed to afford them intense pleasure and satisfaction, for, as the "sparks fly upward," the thoughts of men turn to politics.