t has come," said Samson. "I guess
our Yankee captains brought over most of the niggers and sold them to the
planters of the South."

"There was a demand for them, or those Yankee pirates wouldn't have
brought the niggers," Harry answered. "Both seller and buyer were
committing a crime."

"They established a great wrong and now the South is pushing to extend
and give it the sanction of law," said Abe. "There is the point of
irritation and danger."

"I hear that in the next Legislature an effort will be made to endorse
slavery," said Kelso. "It would be like endorsing Nero and Caligula."

"It is a dangerous subject," Abe answered. "Whatever happens, I shall not
fail to express my opinion of slavery if I go back."

"The time is coming when you will take the bull by the horns," said
Kelso. "There's no fence that will keep him at home."

"I hope that isn't true," Abe answered.

Soon Mrs. Kelso called Bim to set the table. She and Harry brought it out
under the tree, where, in the cool shade, they had a merry dinner.

When the dishes were put away Percy Brimstead arrived with his sister
Annabel in their buggy. Bim went out to meet them and came into the
dooryard with her arm around Annabel's waist.

"Did any one ever see a lovelier girl than this?" Bim asked, as they
stood up before the dinner party.

"Her cheeks are like wild roses, her eyes like the dew on them when the
sun is rising," said Kelso.

"But look at her mouth and the teeth in it the next time she smiles," Bim
went on.

"Aye, they are well wrought," her father answered.

"If you don't stop, I shall run," Annabel protested.

"I haven't said a word, but I want you to know that I am deeply
impressed," said Harry. "No girl has a right to be as handsome as you are
and come and look into the face of a young man who has resolved to look
at the new moon through a knot bole."

"Well, who would have thought it!" Bim exclaimed. "Such a wonderful
compliment, and from Harry Needles!"

"Of course he didn't mean it," said Annabel, whose cheeks were now very
red.

"Of course I mean it," Harry declared. "That's why I keep away from your
house. I am bound to stay single."

"Did you ever see a fairy going to mill on a butterfly's back?" Bim
asked, looking at Harry.

"Not as I remember," he answered.

"If you had, you wouldn't expect us to believe it," Bim asserted.

"There was a soldier in Colonel Taylor's regiment who always ran when the
enemy was in s