“She, at least, will not have Miss Slipley’s very objectionable drawbacks—for, if I remember aright, Miss Bush has no figure at all,” said Mrs. Welch. “Heaven save me from women with figures! When an ugly woman has nothing else, she is always showing her figure or her feet.” When Miss Bush arrived Mrs. Welch found her impressions verified. She was a homely little body, yet with kind eyes and a pleasant mouth. She acceded cheerfully to all Mrs. Welch’s views. She was perfectly willing to live with the woman at whose house it had been arranged that she should board; she wished, she said, to live unobtrusively. She was in deep mourning and wore a heavy veil. Miss Bush had not been in her position long before Mrs. Welch felt that at last she had found the very person for the place. She was as quiet as a mouse, and not afraid of any work whatever. She not only taught, but wholly effaced herself, and, in fact, proved a perfect treasure. By the negroes she was called Miss May (a contraction for Mary), which went abroad as her family name. Miss May proved to be a strict disciplinarian, and a firm believer in the somewhat obsolete, but not less wise doctrine, that to spare the rod is to spoil the child, and as this came to be known, it had the effect of establishing her in the good esteem of the neighborhood. Thus, though no one visited her, Miss May received on all hands a respectful regard. This was suddenly jeopardized at the opening of the new campaign, by a report that the school-house, in addition to its purposes as a school-building, was being used as a public hall by negroes for their Union-league meetings. Leech, whose head-quarters were now in the city, had come up to take charge of the canvass, and had boasted that he would make it hot for his opponents—a boast he appeared likely to make good. He attended the meetings at the new school-house, and it was reported that he had made a speech in which he said that the whites owed the negroes everything; that the time had come for payment, and that matches were only five cents a box, and if barns were burned they belonged to them. The report of this speech was carried through the County next day. One night shortly afterward Andy Stamper’s store was burned to the ground, and this was followed by the burning of several barns throughout Red Rock and the adjoining counties. The reappearance of the masked order that had almost disappeared followed immediately in some places. A meeting was held in Brutusville, denouncing the outrage of such speeches as those of Leech, at which Dr. Cary presided, and Steve Allen and General Legaie, Jacquelin Gray and Captain McRaffle spoke, but there was no reappearance in this County of the masked men. McRaffle denounced the patrons and teacher of the new school with so much heat that Steve Allen declared he was as incendiary as Leech.