We had to rise betimes to secure a ride of tolerable length before the warmth of the spring and summer days made the exercise fatiguing and unpleasant. A glass of milk and a biscuit were brought to me while I was dressing in the gray dawn, and I would join my escort at the front gate, where stood the hostler with both horses, while the east was yet but faintly colored by the unseen sun. We were pacing quietly along a plantation road five miles from the Court House, and I was dreamily enjoying the fresh taste of the dew-laden air upon my lips, and inhaling the scent of the wild thyme and sheep-mint, bruised by the horses’ hoofs, when my companion, who, I had seen, had been in a brown study for the last mile, began with: “I have been thinking—” The sure prelude to something worth hearing, or so I believed then. A Whig rally was meditated. He had consulted with three of his friends as to the scheme born of his brain, and there would be a meeting of perhaps a dozen leading men of the party in his counting-room that afternoon. The affair was not to be spoken of until date and details were settled. My heart swelled with pride in him, and in myself as his chosen confidante, as he went on. The recollection of the scenes succeeding the barbecue was fresh in our minds, and the memory sharpened the contrast between the methods of the rival parties. I was brimful of excitement when I got home, and the various novelties of the impending event in the history of county politics and village life were the staple of neighborhood talk for the weeks dividing that morning ride from the mid-May day of the “rally.” That was what they called it, for it was not to be a barbecue, although a collation would be served in the grounds surrounding the Grove Hotel, situated in the centre of the hamlet, and separated from the public square by one street. The meeting and the speaking would be in the grove at the rear of the Court House. Seats were to be arranged among the trees. It was at my father’s instance and his expense that the benches would be covered with white cotton cloth—“muslin,” in Northern parlance. This was in special compliment to the “ladies who, it was hoped, would compose a great part of the audience.” This was the chiefest innovation of all that set tongues to wagging in three counties. The wives and mothers and daughters of voters were cordially invited by placards strewed broadcast through the length and breadth of Powhatan. The like had never been heard of within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. It was universally felt that the step practically guaranteed the county for Clay and Frelinghuysen. XIII A WHIG RALLY AND MUSTER DAY