“Steve’s nineteen, and he’s six feet!—You are six feet too? I thought you were about that. I hope I’ll be six feet. I like that height, don’t you? Steve’s at the University, but he don’t study much, I reckon. Are you at college?—Where? Oh! I know. I had a cousin who went there. He and two or three other Southern fellows laid outside of the hall for one of those abolition chaps who was making a speech, to cut his ears off when he came out, and they’d have done it if he had come out that way. I reckon it’s a good college, but I’m going to the University when I’m sixteen. I’m thirteen now—You thought I was older? I wanted to go to West Point, but my father won’t let me. Maybe, Rupert will go there. I go to school at the Academy—Doctor Maule’s—everybody knows about him. I tell you, he knows a lot.—You have left college? Was it too hot for you? Were you after somebody’s ears too? What! painted the President’s horse red! Oh! wasn’t that a good one! I wish I’d been there. I’ll tell Steve and Blair about that. Steve put a cow up in the Rotunda once. The worst thing I ever did was making Blair jump off the high barn. I don’t count flinging old Eliphalet Bush in the creek, because I believe his teeth were false anyhow! But I’ll remember painting that horse. I reckon he was an abolitionist too?”
So the boy rattled on, his guests drawing him out for the pleasure of seeing him.
“What State are you from? Maybe, we are cousins?” he said presently, giving the best evidence of his friendliness.
“What! Mass—a—! I beg your pardon.”
He looked so confused that both Mr. Welch and Middleton took some pains to sooth him.
“Yes, of course I was not talking about you; but I wouldn’t have said anything about Massachusetts if I had known you came from there. I wouldn’t like anybody to say anything about my State. You won’t mind what I said, will you? I think Massachusetts the best of the Northern States—anyhow——” And he left them, his cheeks still glowing from embarrassment.
This apology, sincerely given, with a certain stress on the word Northern, amused Mr. Welch, and even Middleton, to whom it presented, however, an entirely new view.
“Aren’t they funny?” asked Middleton of his cousin, after their young host had left them. “You know I believe they really think it.”
“Larry, you have understated it. They think they know it.”