He cleared his throat with a loud rasp. "I remember," said he, "that a man came here once from the North with pretty much the same idea. It was before the war. We got him up a school, and by the black ooze in the veins of old Satan, it wasn't long before he was trying to persuade the negroes to run away from us. I had a feather bed that wasn't in use at the time, and old Mills over here had a first-rate article of tar on hand, and when we got through with the gentleman he looked like an arctic explorer. Where are you from, sir?"
I told him, and then he asked: "The name is all right, and the location is good. My oldest brother knew a Captain Hawes in the Creek war."
"He was my grandfather," I replied. He looked at me, still pulling at his pipe, and said: "Then, sir, I am, indeed, glad to see you. Alf, what's your father doing?"
"Nothing, sir; it's Sunday," Alf answered, blushing. The old General looked at him, cleared his throat and said: "Yes, yes. Folks all well?"
I heard the door open and close and I saw Alf move, even as his father had moved when he came upon me in the road. I heard light foot-falls in the hall, and then out stepped a girl. She smiled and nodded at Alf and the General introduced me to her. Alf got up, almost tumbled out of his chair and asked her to sit down. "Oh, no, keep your seat," she said. "I'm not going to stay but a minute." She walked over to a post and, leaning against it, turned and looked back at us. She wore a flower in her hair, and in her hand she held a calacanthus bud. She was rather small, with a petulant sort of beauty, but I did not think that she could be compared with Guinea, for all of Alf's raving over her. Her cheeks were dimpled, and well she knew it, for she smiled whenever anything was said, and when no word had been spoken she smiled at the silence.
"Alf, what has become of Guinea?" she asked. "It seems an age since I saw her."
"She was over here last, I think," Alf answered.
"Ahem—m—" came from the General. "You'll be counting meals on each other, like the Yankees, after a while," he said. "Why don't you quit your foolishness; and if you want to see each other, go and see. I don't know what your feelings are in the matter, sir," he added, turning to me, "but I don't see much good in this so-called public school system. And of all worthless things under heaven it is a negro that has caught up a smattering of education. God knows he's trifling enough at best, but teach him to read and he's utterly worthless. I sent a negro to the postoffice some time ago, and he came along back with my newspaper spread out before him, reading it on the horse. And if it hadn't been for Millie I would have ripped the hide off him."
"He didn't know any better," the girl spoke up. "Poor thing, you scared him nearly to death."
"Yes, and I immediately gave him the best coat I had to square myself, not with him, but with myself," said the old man. "But I hold that if the negro, or anyone else, for that matter, is to be a servant, let him be a servant. I don't want a man to plow for me simply because he can read. Confound him, I don't care whether he can read or not. I want him to plow. When I choose my friends it is another matter. Your father go to church to-day, Alf?"