I might add that Sister Rosalie Shackleford, hampered though she was by skirts and the trappings of woe, nevertheless finished inside the money herself. Jefferson Poindexter, calm, smiling and debonair, picked his way daintily among overthrown chairs and through a litter of hats, helmets, umbrellas and swords across the hall to Ophelia, who, helpless with shock, was plastered, prone and flat on the floor, close up against the side wall, where Smooth had flung her as he launched himself in flight. Right gallantly Jeff raised her to her feet and supported her; and right mainfully she clung to him, inclosing herself, all distracted and aquiver, within the circle of his comforting arms. Already they were almost alone and within a space of moments would be entirely so, except for one fat auntie, lying in a dead faint under the wrecked snack stand. Also there still remained Red Hoss Shackleford, who wavered to and fro upon the platform, with a hand to his bewildered brow, trying foggily to figure out just how he had been thwarted of his just retribution upon the persons of those vanished arch-detractors of him. He had had his revenge--had it sugar-sweet and brimming over--only he didn't know it yet. “Oh, Jeffy,” gasped Ophelia, “wuzn't you skeered too?” “Who--me?” proclaimed Jeff. “Me skeered of a wet nigger, full of stick gin? Fair lady, mebbe I don't keer so much fur gittin' my clothes all mussed up fightin' wid bully niggers, but I ain't never run frum no ghostes yit; an' I don't never aim to, neither--not 'thout waitin' round long 'nuff to find out fust w'ether hit's a real ghost or not. Dat's me!” “Oh, Jeffy, you suttinly is de bravest man I knows!” she answered back in muffled tones, with her head on his white waistcoat. At this moment precisely the town clock sounded the first stroke of twelve, and all the steam whistles in town let go, blasting out shrilly; and all the giant firecrackers in town began bursting in loud acclaim of the New Year. But what the triumphant, proud, conquering Jeff heard was his Ophelia, speaking to him soul to soul. CHAPTER VIII. CINNAMON SEED AND SANDY BOTTOM Major putnam stone is dead, but his soul goes marching on. Mainly it does its marching on at Midsylvania University. Every fall, down yonder, on the night of the day of the last game of the season, when the squad has broken training and many of the statutes touching on the peace and quiet of the community, there is a dinner. At the end of this dinner the captain of the team stands up at one end of the table and chants out: “Cinnamon Seed and Sandy Bottom!”--just like that. Whereupon there are loud cheers. And then, at the far end of the table from him, the chairman of the athletic community stands up in his place and lifts his mug and says, in the midst of a little silence: “To the memory of Major Putnam Stone!” Then everybody rises and drinks; and there are no heel-taps.