uest.

The Davis plantation was a distinct shock to his fixed New England ideas
of the hellish institution of Slavery.

The devotion of these simple black men and women to their master was not
only genuine, it was pathetic. He had never before conceived the abject
depths to which a human being might sink in contentment with chains.

And he had come to break chains! These poor ignorant blacks kissed the
hand that bound them and called him their best friend.

The man they called master actually moved among them, a minister of love
and mercy. He advised the negroes about the care of their families in
his long absence. He talked as a Hebrew Patriarch to his children. He
urged the younger men and women to look after the old and helpless.

He was particularly solicitous about Bob, the oldest man on the place.
Over and over again he enumerated the comforts he thought he might need
and made provision to supply them. He sent him enough cochineal flannel
for his rheumatism to wrap him four-ply deep. For Rhinah, his wife, he
ordered enough flannel blankets for two families.

"Is there anything else you can think of, Uncle Bob?" he asked kindly.

The old man scratched his gray head and hesitated, looked into his
master's face, smiled and said:

"I _would_ like one er dem rockin' cheers outen de big house, Marse
Jeff.--yassah!"

"Of course, you shall have it. Come right up, you and Rhinah, and pick
out the two you like best."

With suppressed laughter Socola watched the old negroes try each chair
in the hallway and finally select the two best rockers in the house.

The Southern leader was obviously careworn and unhappy. Socola found his
heart unconsciously going out to him in sympathy.

Assuming carefully his attitude of foreign detached interest, the young
man sought to draw him out.

"You have given up all hope of adjustment and reunion with the North?"
he asked.

"No," was the thoughtful reply, "not until the first blood is spilled."

"Your people must see, Senator, that secession will imperil the
existence of their three thousand millions of dollars invested in
slaves?"

"Certainly they see it," was the quick answer. "Slavery can never
survive the first shot of war, no matter which side wins. If the North
wins, we must free them, or else maintain a standing army on our borders
for all time. It would be unthinkable. Rivers are bad boundaries. We
could have no others. Fools have said and will continue to say tha