"That is what I have done with ours," said his mother, in a scarcely audible whisper. "That is to say, I have concealed it." "How much?" "Nearly thirty thousand dollars, and it is all in gold." "W-h-e-w!" whistled Marcy. "What put it into your head?" "I took warning; that is all. The Southern people have often threatened to secede if a Republican President was elected, and I was sure they meant it; so when the election returns came in and this excitement began, I made several quiet business trips to Newbern, Wilmington, Norfolk, and Richmond." "Why, you never said a word about it in your letters." "I know it. I did not think it necessary to trouble you with it. I drew a little money each time, brought it home in safety, and I trust without exciting suspicion, though on that point, of course, I cannot be sure, and hid it in the cellar at dead of night, after I had taken the greatest pains to assure myself that every one in the house was soundly asleep." "How did you cover up the place where you had been digging?" "I didn't do any digging," his mother answered, with a smile. "I took a stone out of the wall as heavy as I could lift, and cemented it in place again, after keeping out a sum sufficient to meet our immediate wants. It took me three nights to do it." "It's a shame that there wasn't someone here whom you could trust to do the work for you," said Marcy. "I am here to bear the hard knocks now." The Southerners were careful of their women. If they had had the faintest conception of the trials and privations their mothers, wives, and sisters would be called upon to bear, they never would have fired upon Sumter. The patience and heroic endurance exhibited by these carefully nurtured women, during the dark days of the war, were little short of sublime. Marcy and his mother sat a long time at the table, and when they arose from it Mrs. Gray knew pretty nearly what had been going on at Barrington during the last few months (not a word was said, however, concerning the letter Rodney wrote to Bud Goble), and Marcy had a very correct idea of the way matters were being managed on the plantation. He had nothing to suggest. The only thing they could do was to keep along in the even tenor of their way, and await developments. There was one thing for which he was sorry, and that was that he could not discharge Hanson, the overseer, that very day. He believed his mother was afraid of him; but the man was under contract for a year, and could have claimed damages if he had been turned adrift without good and sufficient reason. It was not the damages that Marcy cared for, but he was restrained from urging Hanson's dismissal through fear of setting the neighbors' tongues in motion.