“Then go to the young Commandant of the post here. Tell him the facts. Tell him that a widow of a brave Confederate soldier is about to be turned out of her home because she can’t pay the taxes levied by this infamous negro government. Ask him to loan you the money for the telegram and the ticket.” The Preacher seized his hat and made his way as fast as possible to the camp. The young Captain heard his story with grave courtesy. “Certainly, doctor,” he said, “I’ll loan you the forty dollars with pleasure. I wish I could do more to relieve the distress of the people. Believe me, sir, the people of the North do not dream of the awful conditions of the South. They are being fooled by the politicians. I’ll thank God when I am relieved of this job and get home. What has amazed me is that you hot-headed Southern people have stood it thus far. I don’t know a Northern community that would have endured it.” “Ah, Captain, the people are heartsick of bloodshed, They surrendered in good faith. They couldn’t foresee this. If they had”-- The Preacher paused, his eyes grew misty with tears, and he looked thoughtfully out on the blue mountain peaks that loomed range after range in the distance until the last bald tops were lost in the clouds. “If General Lee had dreamed of such an infamy being forced on the South two years after his surrender, as this attempt to make the old slaves the rulers of their masters, and to destroy the Anglo-Saxon civilisation of the South--he would have withdrawn his armies into that Appalachian mountain wild and fought till every white man in the South was exterminated. “The Confederacy went to pieces in a day, not because the South could no longer fight, but because they were fighting the flag of their fathers, and they were tired of it. They went back to the old flag. They expected to lose their slaves and repudiate the dogma of Secession forever. But, they never dreamed of Negro dominion, or Negro deification, of Negro equality and amalgamation, now being rammed down their throats with bayonets. They never dreamed of the confiscation of the desolate homes of the poor and the weak and the brokenhearted. Over two hundred thousand Southern men fought in the Union army in answer to Lincoln’s call--even against their own flesh and blood. But if this program had been announced, every one of the two hundred thousand Southern soldiers who wore the blue, would have rallied around the firesides of the South. This infamy was something undreamed save in the souls of a few desperate schemers at Washington who waited their opportunity, and found it in the nation’s blind agony over the death of a martyred leader.” The Preacher pressed the Captain’s hand and hastened to tell Mrs. Gaston of his plans. He found her seated pale and wistful at her window looking out on the lawn, now being parched and ruined since Nelse was disabled and could no longer tend it. Charlie was trying to kiss the tears away from her eyes.