horns," and one day he disheartened the
overseer by declaring:

"I seen something dis day, Marse Hanson, dat done took my breff all plum
away; I did so. Marse Marcy he come home a purpose to go into our army;
and his mother she cried and cried, and pooty quick she say: 'My deah
boy, dat man Linkum mus' be whopped; dat am de facs in de case'; and den
she slap him on de back and sick him on. Yes, sar. I done see dat wid my
own two eyes dis bery day."

The reason Hanson was disheartened was because he had been promised a
liberal reward if he could bring evidence to prove that Mrs. Gray was
opposed to secession, and that her journeys to Richmond and other cities
had been made for the purpose of drawing funds from the banks; and when
Marcy backed up the young negro's bold statement by shipping on board
Captain Beardsley's privateer, Hanson came to the sorrowful conclusion
that it was not in his power to earn that reward. He was none too good
to bear false witness against Mrs. Gray, but he was afraid to do it.
Sailor Jack might come home some day, and--well, Hanson had never seen
sailor Jack but he had been told that he was a good one to let alone.

The long-expected wanderer returned in due time, and the wide-awake
little negro was the second on the plantation to find it out, Bose being
the first. Julius slept in the back part of the house, so close to
Marcy's room that if the latter wanted anything during the night, all he
had to do was to open his window and call out, and consequently it was
no trouble at all for him to catch every word that passed between Jack
and his brother. He was not far off when the sailor was admitted at the
front door, and when he saw the reunited family go into the dining-room,
he bounded up the back stairs into the store-room and placed his ear at
the stovepipe hole--not because he wanted to repeat anything he heard,
you will understand, but because he wanted to know what subjects to
steer clear of in his interviews with the overseer. When he heard that
Jack had passed himself off for a rebel, that he had brought a smuggler
into a Southern port, and that he had made considerable money out of the
sale of his venture, Julius thought it would help matters if the news
were spread broadcast; and he lost no time in spreading it among the
negroes, and by their aid it reached Nashville before the boys went
there for their mail the next morning. He told about the _Hattie's_
adventure with the steam lau