The excitement of the election of 1876, when native whites strained every nerve to win the negro vote, was fully felt on the Santee. The morning news reached El Dorado of Hampton's election, the Captain, according to custom, walked down to his wharf to give orders for the day. He found his wharf foreman sitting on an upturned canoe, his head hung down, the picture of dejection. "William," the Captain said, "I have good news." "Whut is it, suh?" "General Hampton is elected." Silence. Presently the negro half lifted his face, and looking into the eyes of the white man with the saddest, most hopeless expression in his own, asked slowly: "Well--Cap'n--_whut you goin' tuh do wid we, now?_" The master's heart ached for him! Remanded back to slavery--that was what negroes were taught to look for--to slavery not such as they had known, but in which all the follies and crimes to which they had been incited since freedom should be charged up to them. They did not, could not, realise how their old owners pitied, condoned, forgave. Next election the struggle was renewed. After a hopeful barbecue, the Captain's hands were threshing his rice crop. He called the foreman behind the stacks, and asked: "Well, Monday, what are you people going to do at the polls tomorrow?" "Dee gwi vote de 'Publican ticket, suh. Ef dee tells you anything else, dee's lyin'. I gwi vote de 'Publican ticket, suh. I got it tuh do. I b'lieve all what you white gent'muns been tellin' us at de barbecues. I knows myse'f dat dis way we niggers is a-doin' an' a-votin' ain' de bes' way fuh de country--anybody kin see dat. But den I got tuh vote de 'Publican ticket, suh. We all has. Las' 'lection I voted de Democrack ticket an' dee killed my cow. Abum, he vote de Democrack ticket; dee killed his colt." Monday counted off the negroes who had voted the "Democrack" ticket, and every one had been punished. One had been bombarded in his cabin; another's rice crop had been taken--even the ground swept up and every grain carried off, leaving him utterly destitute. "I tell you, suh," said Monday, "I got tuh do it on my 'count, an' on yo' 'count. You make me fo'man an' ef I didn' vote de 'Publican ticket, I couldn' make dese niggers wuk. I couldn' do nothin' 'tall wid 'em." [Illustration: MRS. WADE HAMPTON (Daughter of Governor McDuffie, of South Carolina.) From a painting photographed by Reckling & Sons, Columbia, S. C.]