ragged but he's a
real boy after a real boy's heart. And the handsomest little beggar I
ever saw--who is he?"

"The boy of a poor white family, the Doyles. They live just outside our
gate on a ten-acre farm. His mother's trying to make him go to school.
His father laughs and lets him go hunting and fishing."

They were strolling past the first neat row of houses in the servants'
quarters. Phil thought of them as the slave quarters. Yet he had not
heard the word slave spoken since his arrival. These black people were
"servants" and some of them were the friends and confidants of their
master and his household. Phil paused in front of a cottage. The yard
flamed with autumn flowers. Through the open door and windows came the
hum of spinning wheels and the low, sweet singing of the dark spinners,
spinning wool for the winter clothing of the estate. From the next door
came the click and crash of the looms weaving the warm cloth.

"You make your own cloth?" the Westerner asked in surprise.

"Of course, for the servants. It takes six spinners and three weavers
working steadily all year to keep up with it, too."

"Isn't it expensive?"

"Maybe. We never thought of it. We just make it. Always have in our
family for a hundred years."

They passed the blacksmith's shop and saw him shoeing a blooded colt.
Phil touched the horse's nostrils with a gentle hand and the colt nudged
him.

"It's funny how a horse knows a horseman instinctively--isn't it, Phil?"

"Yes. He knows I'm going to join the cavalry."

They moved down the long row of whitewashed cottages, each with its yard
of flowers and each with a huge pile of wood in the rear--wood enough
to keep a sparkling fire through the winter. Chubby-faced babies were
playing in the sanded walks and smiling young mothers watched them from
the doors.

Phil started to put a question, stammered and was silent.

"What is it?" Custis asked.

"You'll pardon my asking it, old boy, but are these black folks
married?"

The Southern boy laughed heartily.

"I should say so. A negro wedding is one of the joys of a plantation
boy's life."

"But isn't it awful when they're separated?"

"They're not separated."

"Never?"

"Not on this plantation. Nor on any estate whose master and mistress are
our friends. It's not done in our set."

"You keep them when they're old, lazy and worthless?"

"If they're married, yes. It's a luxury we never deny ourselves, this
softening of the r