that I know of."
"Then I don't see how that law concerns me. I am not in the Confederacy, am I? As long as the State does not tell me to go, I shall stay where I am until mother writes me to start for home. Has your father written for you yet?"
"No; but I am looking for a letter every day, and I don't see why I don't get it. But it will come fast enough if the Yankees begin preparations for war, as some lunatics seem to think they will."
"Those same lunatics are about the only sensible people there are in the South to-day. The Northern States will not stand by with their hands in their pockets and see this government broken up, and you may depend upon it," said Marcy earnestly. "If they don't hang a few on both sides the line, there will be a war here the like of which the world has never seen."
"Bosh!" exclaimed Rodney, snapping his fingers in the air.
"And some of it will be in your State and mine," continued Marcy.
"Haven't you read our president's speech?" demanded Rodney, almost fiercely. "He says that if war must come, it will be fought on Northern soil."
"It takes two to make a bargain. The Northern States are stronger than we are, and they would be fools to consent to any such arrangement."
"You'll see that it will be done, whether they consent or not," answered Rodney. "Of course they don't want us to separate from them, for they have made a lot of money out of us with their high protective tariff and all that; but how are they to help themselves when there are no laws or ties of blood to hold us together? Although we speak the same language, we do not belong to the same race that they do; we are better every way than they are, and we're not going to be bound to them any longer. The slave-holders of the South ruled the old Union for sixty out of seventy years of her existence, and now that the reins of power have been snatched from their hands, they're not going to stand it. We'll have a nation of our own that will lead the world in everything that goes to make a nation. If North Carolina goes out, what will you do?"
"I shall go home, of course, for mother will need me. Our blacks will all leave us the first chance they get – "
"Bosh!" said Rodney, again. "The niggers know who their friends are, and I'll bet you there are not a hundred in the South today who would go over to the Yankees if they had the opportunity."
"Whether they run away or not, mother will need somebody on the plantation, and I am the only one she can call on, for Jack is at sea," replied Marcy.
"And, what's more, he may never get back," added Rodney. "We shall have a navy of our own pretty soon, and then, if the Yankees declare war against us, every ship that floats the old flag will have to watch out. We'll light bonfires on every part of the ocean. If your State secedes, you will go with her, of course?"
"Of course I'll not do any such thing."
"Marcy Gray, are you really a traitor? Be honest, now."
"Not much. I am true to my colors – the same colors that your grandfather and mine died under."
"But grandfather never dreamed, when he fought under that flag, that it was going to be turned into an emblem of tyranny," answered Rodney impatiently. "I'll bet you he would not fight under it now; and neither would Washington. But how will you fare when you get home? There are plenty of secessionists in your county, and they will have not the first thing to do with you."
"I don't care whether they do or not," replied Marcy, hardly realizing how much meaning there was in his cousin's last words. "Mother will have something to do with me, I reckon; and so will Jack when he returns; and if the neighbors choose to cut me because I am true to my colors, why I don't see that I can help it."
"Will you fight for the Union?"
"I hope I shall not be called upon to choose sides; but you may be sure
I shall not fight against it."
"Well, go your road, and I will go mine; but you will yet see the day when you will wish you had done differently. By the way," added Rodney carelessly; "those Taylor girls hinted that they would be pleased to see you at their house; but you don't want to air any of your disloyal sentiments in their presence, for if you do, they will be likely to tell you that you needn't come again. My paper says that is what the Richmond girls are doing, and our Barrington girls are following suit. And, Marcy, you had better haul in a little, for if you do not, you will get into trouble. The citizens are waking up, and there has been a Committee of Safety appointed to look out for all disturbers of the peace."
"I think such a committee is needed," was Marcy's quiet rejoinder. "The disturbers of the peace are secessionists without exception, and if the committee will shut up every one of that sort they can get their hands on, they will do the public a service. But as I don't care to be snubbed, I don't think I shall go out of my way to call upon those Taylor girls."
"Of course you will do as you please about that. I have simply delivered their message," said Rodney, as he passed up the steps and through the wide archway, waving his flag and making the hall ring with his shouts as he went. "Rally on the center, boys, and yell defiance to the Regicides and Roundheads. Keep your eye on the stairs, Billings, and if the kurn does not come down when he hears the racket, we are all right for to-morrow morning."
For a few minutes the greatest confusion reigned in the corridor. The secessionists yelled themselves hoarse over the Stars and Bars, and, carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment, pledged themselves to enlist with the defenders of their respective States within twenty-four hours after they reached home. Then followed a counter-demonstration for the Stars and Stripes, led by the tall student, Dixon, of Kentucky, who was backed up by nearly all the boys from the States that had not yet joined the Confederacy. The noise was deafening, but the colonel did not come out of his room to put a stop to it, and that confirmed Rodney in the belief that he was "all right for tomorrow morning." His friends were greatly encouraged, and one of them, when the evening gun was fired, jerked, rather than pulled, the old flag down from the masthead; and he would have been glad to show his contempt for it by trampling it under his feet, had it not been for the presence of the guard, who paced the top of the tower in plain view of the open door of the belfry.
It was necessary to keep a sentry there now, for when the students found that they could not do as they pleased with the flag, they watched for an opportunity to pull the halliards out of the block at the head of the flagstaff. Of course the rope could and would have been restored to its place, but not without considerable trouble. The staff was so very slender that the lightest boy in school would have thought twice before attempting to climb it, and therefore the staff would have had to come down. Marcy Gray and his friends, who seemed to have a way of finding out all about the plans that were laid against the flag, thought it would be best to ask the colonel commanding to have a guard placed over the halliards, and this was accordingly done.
Although the sentry who was on duty at this particular time had the reputation of being a good soldier, he was not as friendly to the flag as he might have been; consequently he offered no remonstrance when the orderly gathered the colors up in a bunch and started downstairs to deliver them to the head of the school. But there were parties on the watch, as the orderly found when he reached the upper hall, for there he encountered the tall Kentuckian, Dixon, who at once took him to task.
"What made you wuzzle the flag up in that shape?" he demanded, in no friendly tones. "Put it down here on the floor and fold it as it should be, or off comes your head."
The orderly looked at Dixon, and then at the boys who stood behind him, but he could not see a single one of Rodney Gray's followers among them. Having no one to back him up he dared not refuse to obey the order, for
