“I didn’t expect to see you here. I should as soon have thought of seeing Oldfield farmhouse standing up before me, right in my path, as a group of old neighbors, with my little niece in the midst of them. Heavens and earth—how a civil war shakes people up! I dare say, now, you all left on account of the war.” “No,” said Mr. Force, “we left before the war to visit my brother-in-law here, and to give our young people some advantage in foreign travel. My own ill health has detained us abroad for more than two years. We return now on account of the war.” “Good Lord! Abel Force, you are not thinking of going into the army in your crippled condition!” “No, not exactly. But we can all be useful in the hospitals—even my wife and daughters—in caring for the sick and wounded soldiers, and for the widows and orphans of the dead, so far as our strength and means will go.” “Ah! that is something else! When did you hear from the folks at home? I have not heard from them for years.” “I got a letter a week ago from your niece, Miss Grandiere. Your nephew, William Elk, is in Richmond, on Gen. Lee’s staff; your nephew, Thomas Grandiere, is in New Orleans, with Gen. Butler, and your grandnephew, Edward Grandiere, is with Farragut, in Mobile Bay. Sam has elected to stay at home, follow the plow, and take care of the women.” “Sam has the only solid head in the family, except my own! Look at that, now! Brothers and kinsmen shooting each other down, running each other through the body, blowing each other up, as if they were at war with a foreign enemy! Oh, Lord! Lord!” groaned the old skipper, flinging down his cap with force upon the deck, and furiously wiping his perspiring face. “It is grievous enough; but it is human nature, and we cannot change it. The strangest part of it all is that the men composing the rank and file of each army have no personal ill will toward their antagonists. Each fights from a sense of duty. Each invoke the blessing of God upon their arms. There was a time, Grandiere, in our lives, when peace reigned so long that we all began to believe that war belonged only to history, and barbaric history at that, and had passed away forever, as one of the last relics of barbarism. It was the Mexican War that woke us up from our dream of the millennium. And, since that, there has been in one part of the civilized world or another almost incessant and most ruinous war. So when we call ourselves a Christian, civilized and enlightened people——” “We tell a lot of bragging lies! Out with it, papa, in plain English!” put in Wynnette, who had held her tongue until it ached. “Who is this girl?” inquired the old skipper. “My second daughter, Wynnette. Surely, I introduced her to you,” said the squire. “So you did! But there are so many of them, you know! I used to dandle this one on my knee when she was a baby; but she has grown out of my knowledge!” said the old skipper. Then turning to Wynnette, he grasped her hand, and said: