“WEST POINT.

“MY DEAR AUNT:  The life here, as I wrote you, is something almost monastic in its systematic regularity, and its despotic claims on one’s time.  It leaves small leisure for letters except on Sundays; and if a fellow means to be well placed, even then he is wise to do some work.  The outside world seems far away, and we read and can read few papers.

“I am of Uncle Jim’s politics, but although there are many pretty sensitive cadets from the South, some of them my friends, there is so pleasant a camaraderie among us that there are few quarrels, and certainly none of the bitterness of the two sections.

“I think I may have told you that we have no furlough until we have been here two years, but I hope some time for a visit from Uncle Jim and you, or at least from him and Leila.  How she would enjoy it!  The wonderful beauty of the great river in the embrace of these wooded mountains, the charm of the heroic lives it has nourished and the romance of its early history are delightful—­”

“Enjoy it,” murmured Leila, “oh, would I not indeed!” Then she read on: 

“Tell Leila to write me all about the horses and the town, and if Josiah has been heard of.  Tom McGregor writes me that after he is graduated next year, he means to try for a place in the army and get a year or two of army life before he settles down to help his father.  So it takes only two years to learn how to keep people alive and four to learn how to kill them.”

“I wonder who John means to kill.”  She sat in thought a while, and rising to undress said, “He must be greatly changed, my dear boy, Jack.  Jack!”

CHAPTER XVI

The widespread disapproval at the North of the Dred Scott Decision was somewhat less manifest in the middle months of the year because of the general financial distress, which diverted attention from what was so agreeable to the slave States, where in fact the stringency in the money market had been felt but little.

At Grey Pine, as elsewhere in Pennsylvania, the evil influence of the depression in trade was felt as never before.  More men were discharged, and Penhallow and his wife practised economy which to him was difficult and distasteful.  To limit expenditure on herself was of little moment to Ann Penhallow, but to have to limit her ability to give where more and more were needing help was to her at least a hard trial.  With the spring of 1858, business had begun to revive, while more bitterness arose when in the senatorial contest Stephen Douglas encountered the soil-born vigorous intellect of the little known lawyer Lincoln.  The debate put fresh life into the increasing power of the Republican party in the West.

“Listen to this,” said Rivers to the Squire in July of 1858.  “Here is a new choice.  Long ago I got touch of this man, when he said, ’A house divided against itself cannot stand.’” He went on to read aloud parts of the famous speech.