The next day, when we were deep in the woods, I asked Dr. Sandford if he knew Mr. Davis of Mississippi. He answered Yes, rather drily. I knew the doctor knew everybody.
I asked why Preston called him a great man.
"Does he call him a great man?" Dr. Sandford asked.
"Do you?"
"No, not I, Daisy. But that may not hinder the fact. And I may not have Mr. Gary's means of judging."
"What means can he have?" I said.
"Daisy," said Dr. Sandford suddenly, when I had forgotten the question in plunging through a thicket of brushwood, "if the North and the South should split on the subject of slavery, what side would you take?"
"What do you mean by a 'split'?" I asked slowly, in my wonderment.
"The States are not precisely like a perfect crystal, Daisy,
and there is an incipient cleavage somewhere about Mason and Dixon's line."