lag is flying over all the public
buildings. Let's follow their example, and haul that flag down from the
tower. Come on, Marcy."

These two boys, Rodney and Marcy Gray, were very popular among their
fellows, and had been looked up to as leaders ever since they arrived at
the dignity of memberships in the first class and company. They were
cousins, and both were Southern born. Marcy was a "Tarheel," because he
came from North Carolina, and Rodney was called a "Pelican," Louisiana
being his native State.

Rodney's father was a rich sugar-planter who did not want to have
anything to do with Northern men, some of whom would have taken his
slaves from him if they had possessed the power, and thus deprived him
of the means of working his fine plantation; and it was natural that his
only son should follow in his lead. Rodney believed in State Rights, and
preached his doctrines as often as he could find any one willing to
listen to him. His Cousin Marcy had no father (he was lost at sea when
the boy and his older brother, Jack, were quite young), and he believed
as his mother did--that slavery was wrong, that the Union was right, and
that those who wanted to destroy it were fanatics who did not know what
they were about. But Marcy was not a passive Unionist. On the day South
Carolina began threatening secession, he declared that she ought to be
whipped into submission; and he had never ceased to proclaim his
principles in spite of the lowering looks he saw and the threats he
heard on every side. The boys declared that they would send him to
Coventry; that is, withdraw from all fellowship with him; but when they
came to try it, they found to their surprise and disgust, that they
would have to go back on more than half the school, for some of the best
boys in it promptly sided with Marcy. The latter had many friends, and
the Union sentiment was strong in the academy; but on the morning that
Rodney Gray read the extract from the Charleston _Mercury,_ showing that
South Carolina had made no idle threat when she threatened to secede if
she could not have her own way, then the real test came. Many of the
boys were astonished and shocked, for they had never believed that
things would come to such a pass. The mail having just been distributed,
they all had papers, but they did not stop to read them after listening
to those ominous headlines. They shoved them into their pockets and went
slowly out of the building, while Rodney and his