“I suppose it isn’t,” he assented
good-naturedly. “But you people up at the
North here don’t suspicion what we have been
through. You caught only the edge of the hurricane.
The most of you, I take it, weren’t in it at
all.”
“Our dearest were in it.”
“Well, we got whipped, Wesley, I acknowledge
it; but we deserved to win, if ever bravery deserved
it.”
“The South was brave, nobody contests that;
but ’’t is not enough to be brave’—
“’The angry
valor dashed
On the awful shield
of God,’
as one of our poets says.”
“Blast one of your poets! Our people were
right, too.”
“Come, now, Flagg, when you talk about your
people, you ought to mean Northerners, for you were
born in the North.”
“That was just the kind of luck that has followed
me all my life. My body belongs to Bangor, Maine,
and my soul to Charleston, South Carolina.”
“You’ve got a problem there that ought
to bother you.”
“It does,” said the colonel, with a laugh.
“Meanwhile, my dear boy, don’t distress
Mrs. Wesley with it. She is ready to be very
fond of you, if you will let her. It would be
altogether sad and shameful if a family so contracted
as ours couldn’t get along without internal
dissensions.”
My cousin instantly professed the greatest regard
for Mrs. Wesley, and declared that both of us were
good enough to be Southrons. He promised that
in future he would take all the care he could not to
run against her prejudices, which merely grew out
of her confused conception of State rights and the
right of self-government. Women never understood
anything about political economy and government, anyhow.
Having accomplished thus much with the colonel, I
turned my attention, on his departure, to smoothing
Clara. I reminded her that nearly everybody North
and South had kinsmen or friends in both armies.
To be sure, it was unfortunate that we, having only
one kinsman, should have had him on the wrong side.
That was better than having no kinsman at all. (Clara
was inclined to demur at this.) It had not been practicable
for him to divide himself; if it had been, he would
probably have done it, and the two halves would doubtless
have arrayed themselves against each other. They
would, in a manner, have been bound to do so.
However, the war was over, we were victorious, and
could afford to be magnanimous.
“But he doesn’t seem to have discovered
that the war is over,” returned Clara.
“He ‘still waves.’”
“It is likely that certain obstinate persons
on both sides of Mason and Dixon’s line will
be a long time making the discovery. Some will
never make it—so much the worse for them
and the country.”
Mrs. Wesley meditated and said nothing, but I saw
that so far as she and the colonel were concerned
the war was not over.
