“I suppose it isn’t worth while,” said the man, seating himself on the porch-steps and wiping the perspiration from his forehead. “The boys are not so much to blame. It’s their parents who instill into their minds that spirit of intolerance, who deserve to be chastened. Now you can see, Robert,” turning to the boy, “the extremes to which the Northern adherents of Lincoln’s cause carry their hate for those who will not agree with them.” “I know, father, I know. It’s an outrage. They have treated me even worse than they have you. And yet--and yet I can’t believe Lincoln is to blame for it.” For once the defense of Lincoln did not arouse Bannister’s ire. He was too deeply interested in what the boy had said of himself. “And how have they treated you, Robert? What have they done to you?” “Oh, nothing much. Only they say you’re a copperhead, and they--they--” “Well?” “They think I must be a copperhead, too.” “So! Well, it’s not a pretty name, to be sure, but it stands for something in these days. And suppose you were a copperhead, what then?” “But I’m not. And that’s how they hurt me.” “What have they done to you, Robert? What have they said to you? How have they hurt you? I want to know.” The pitch of anger was back in the man’s voice. He could stand persecution for himself, but to have his loved ones persecuted, that was unbearable. “Oh, it don’t amount to much,” replied the boy; “they simply didn’t want me, that’s all.” “Didn’t want you when? where? how? Tell me, Robert! I say, tell me!” It was the last thing the boy would have told to his father voluntarily, the story of the slight put upon him that evening at the village. But, inadvertently, he had stumbled into the mention of it, and now there was no escape from telling the whole story. He had never learned the art of equivocation, and it did not take many questionings before the whole humiliating tale was in his father’s possession. But the outburst of wrath that the boy had feared did not come. Instead, for many minutes, the man sat silent, looking down at the gray footpath losing itself in the shadows of the trees. When at last he raised his head, he spoke slowly as if to himself. “Poor, weak, wicked human nature! Poor, paltry, fluctuating popular sentiment! Utterly illogical, brutally oppressive, with no mind nor thought of its own, led hither and thither by charlatans and demagogues ‘clothed with a little brief authority.’ Ah! but those men who rule and ruin down there at Washington will have much to answer for some day! It may not be until the last great day, but the accounting is bound to come. Mary,” turning to his wife, “is it better that we should follow the lead of our own minds and consciences, and suffer humiliation and insult and ostracism; or shall we yield to popular pressure, and hide our sentiments, and go along with the shouting, cheering, mindless rabble, and shout and cheer with them?”