Godfrey’s family consisted of a wife and two sons--the latter aged respectively seventeen and fifteen years. His wife was a meek-faced woman who had seen a world of care and trouble, and who, while submitting patiently to her hard lot, hoped for better things, and placed unbounded confidence in her youngest son, David, who was animated by an energetic, manly spirit, which contrasted strangely with his father’s indolence and indifference. Godfrey seemed content to pass the remainder of his days in that hovel, destitute of all the comforts, and even suffering for many of the necessaries of life; but David was not. He had high aspirations, had formed plans, and, better than that, he had perseverance and pluck enough to carry them out. Of him and his brother, Daniel, we shall have more to say as our story progresses. It will be enough, now, to tell the reader that if they had been utter strangers, they could not have been more unlike each other. David was of a lively, cheerful disposition, and his entry into the comfortless hovel he called home, was like a ray of sunshine bursting through a storm cloud. Daniel, on the other hand, was like his father, morose and sullen, and when he came home from the woods or the steamboat landing, where he spent the most of his time, it seemed as if a thunder cloud had suddenly settled down over the cabin. Having drawn his nail-keg up to the table, Godfrey thrust his hand into his pocket, pulled out his jack-knife, and picking up the fork that lay beside his broken plate, held the two close together and looked at them intently for several minutes. The fork was not such a fork as the most of us use at our meals. It was simply a piece of cane sharpened at one end; and perhaps this story will fall into the hands of some who can remember, or who have heard it said, that there was a time, not so very long ago, when a good many families in the South, who had all their lives been accustomed to something better, had their choice between employing their fingers at table, or using such an implement as this we have just described. “Look at this yere, now,” said Godfrey, “jest look at it, I say, the hul on yer, an’ then ax yerselves if it aint a purty pass fur a man to come to, who had a nice house, a fine plantation and four niggers of his own, only twelve short years ago! Eh?” “We can’t help it, father,” said Mrs. Evans, who knew that her angry husband expected her to say something. “We had comforts once, and we might have them now if--if----” “Yes, in course we might, if them Yanks had stayed to hum, whar they belonged,” Godfrey almost shouted. “We didn’t do nothin’ to them that they should come down here an’ burn our houses an’ cotton gins, an’ steal our things, did we?”