Produced by Al Haines OCTAVIA The Octoroon BY J. F. LEE, M.D. THE Abbey Press PUBLISHERS 114 FIFTH AVENUE London NEW YORK Montreal Copyright, 1900, by THE Abbey Press in the United States and Great Britain. All Rights Reserved. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. The Prize Fight CHAPTER II. A Baptismal Scene CHAPTER III. The Birth of Octavia CHAPTER IV. Almost a Watery Grave CHAPTER V. The "Underground Railway" CHAPTER VI. Mistaken Identity and Escape from Bruin CHAPTER VII. Liberated CHAPTER VIII. Cotton Prowling--Employing Octavia's Governess CHAPTER IX. Progress in Studies CHAPTER X. Ready for College CHAPTER XI. In the Red Cross Service CHAPTER XII. In Foreign Lands--Strategy--Love Conquers Octavia the Octoroon. CHAPTER I. THE PRIZE FIGHT. Just before the beginning of the civil war between the States there was a large and valuable plantation on the Alabama River on which there were several hundred slaves, said farm being in what is known as the "black belt of Alabama," having a river front of several miles, and annually producing five hundred bales of cotton, fifteen thousand bushels of corn, besides oats, wheat, hay, mules, horses, hogs, cattle, sheep and goats in abundance. This mammoth farm belonged to Hon. R., then a member of the United States Congress from Alabama, and afterwards a gallant officer in the Confederate army, rising from the rank of first lieutenant to colonel, by which latter title he will be known in this story. He lived in what was then one of the flourishing towns of the State, but which has long since gone to ruin and decay. Colonel R.'s farm was managed by what was then known as an "overseer," but now would be termed a superintendent. He had assistants, white and black, who, with the overseer, managed the farm in a systematic and scientific manner, bringing it up to a high state of cultivation, which made it one of the most productive and valuable in the State. Colonel R., with his man in livery, a thousand-dollar carriage and finely caparisoned span of horses, visited his farm once a month when at home, to give general directions to his overseer, and receive the annual proceeds of his cotton crop. This was the state of affairs when Lincoln was elected President, when the Southern States seceded from the Union, and when the guns at Fort Sumter belched forth their shot and shell, ushering in a war that had no equal in ancient or modern times.