Kerosene lamps were in use and Jaffray put out the light before the officer walked from the sitting room across to his own rooms. In politics Jaffray was a Republican and he had the courage to live up to his convictions in a community that was enraged against Lincoln and his party. But the Republicans stood for free men, whatever color or creed, and Jaffray championed their doctrines. For him humanity, justice and liberty was the breath of his nostrils. This passion for men's rights he had inherited from a long line of ancestors reaching back into the mists of "In the beginning." He was an Israelite. Renestine was glad to accept this change in their lives, as she realized that Jaffray's affairs were not prosperous and with the assistance of her servants she could help him very well, particularly as he was not in robust health. Whatever situation faced her she met it with high courage and a spirit to do. Their devotion was deep and with their little family they were happy and contented. Sorrow had not spared them, however, for their baby daughter bad contracted whooping cough and died a few months before. Jaffray grieved deeply for the little child and Renestine was almost overcome. But she straightened up herb beautiful head, like a flower after the storm has passed, and comforted her husband. CHAPTER VI JAFFRAY was now Postmaster of Jefferson. he city had resumed its normal life and gained in population and wealth. The streets were filled with wagons loaded with bales of cotton brought from as far away as 250 miles by ox teams, which took three weeks. Jefferson was at the head of navigation on an arm of the Red River. Steamboats came up once or twice a week and the cotton was shipped to New Orleans and from that city to the mills in the East. When the boats arrived the scene on the levee was a very animated one. Negroes would fix large bill hooks into the bagging around the cotton bales and load them into drays. Some of them worked singing, as sailors do when they haul and pull. Sometimes the captains of the larger steamboats would issue invitations to the families for a soiree, when the excitement would fill society for days. The ladies would dress in their silks and laces and the men spruce up in their frock coats and flowered waistcoats and cross the gang plank into the kerosene-lighted steamboats and dance until morning. Those were red letter days for Jefferson. As a matter of etiquette, when the steamboat was loaded and about to start back, everybody would be at the levee to wave good-bye. The side paddle would turn and the hospitable captain would be up in the pilot house, waving his cap in return until the churning side-wheel carried him around the bend.