zed cat. If the Yankees
should come down here, they could drive an army of such fellows with
nothing but cornstalks for weapons."

The tone in which these words were uttered set Dick Graham going again,
and he started all the rest that is, all except a few who were so angry
they couldn't laugh. If that dread functionary, the officer of the day,
heard the uproar, he must have thought that the culprits who had been
commanded to report to him did not take their prospective punishment
very much to heart.

Of course the boys who remained below were impatient to hear all about
the things that had happened in and around the belfry, and to know what
was going to be done with Rodney and his cousin. But the last was a
point upon which no one could enlighten them, not even the cousins
themselves when they came from the presence of the officer of the day,
who had given them a stern reprimand and a warning. Being from Louisiana
himself, and having offered his services to her in case they should be
required, he bore down upon Marcy harder than he did upon Rodney, and
even went so far as to try and convince the North Carolina boy that the
word "traitor," which had so often been applied to him by his
schoolmates, was deserved and appropriate. But Marcy could not look at
it that way, and even in the presence of the man who could have shut him
up in the guard-house, with nothing but bread to eat and water to drink,
he did not "haul in his shingle one inch." He never had made any trouble
in the school, and, what was more to the point, he did not intend to;
but neither was he going to stand still and permit a lot of rebels to
run over him. The colonel had said, in so many words, that the flag was
to be hoisted every morning until further orders; and in hoisting a new
one in the place of the one that had disappeared, he had not broken any
rule. The officer knew that to be true, and as he could not punish one
without punishing the other also, he was obliged to let them both go
scot-free; but he detained Rodney a moment to whisper a word of caution
to him.

"Don't let this thing be repeated," said he earnestly. "I think just as
you do, and if I could have my own way, your flag would now be waving on
the tower; but it is my duty to obey orders, and it is your duty as
well. Don't make another move until this State joins the Confederacy,
and then there will be no one to oppose you. The hoisting of another
flag will break up the school, but th