office," Mrs. Cranceford
remarked; and Tom quickly replied: "And I don't blame him for that. I
went in there about a month ago and haven't had a dollar since."

The Major did not laugh at this. The reputed exaction of his executive
chamber was a sore spot to him. "How you robbers, young and old, would
like to fleece me," he said. "And if I didn't turn to defensive stone
once in a while you'd pull out my eye teeth."

"Don't see how anybody could get hold of your eye teeth, dad," Tom
replied. "You are always busy cutting them when I come round. Oh, by
the way," he added with sudden seriousness, "you remember that fellow
Mayo, the one that ran for County Clerk down here some time ago?"

"The scoundrel who swore he was elected?"

"That's the man. He disappeared, you know, after his trouble down here,
then he went on from one community to another, a Democrat one season and
a Republican the next, and now he has returned as a labor leader. I met
him yesterday in Little Rock, and I never have seen a more insolent
ruffian. He makes no secret of his plans, and he says that blood is
bound to flow. I asked him if he had any to spare, and he cocked his eye
at me and replied that he didn't know but he had."

The Major was silent, abstractedly balancing his knife on the rim of his
plate. Mayo, an adventurer, a scoundrel with a brutish force that passed
for frankness, had at one time almost brought about an uprising among
the negroes of Cranceford County, and eager ears in the North, not the
ears of the old soldier, but of the politician, shutting out the
suggestions of justice, heard only the clamor of a political outrage;
and again arose the loud cry that the South had robbed the inoffensive
negro of his suffrage. But the story, once so full of alarm, was
beginning to be a feeble reminiscence; Northern men with business
interests in the South had begun to realize that the white man, though
often in the wrong, could sometimes be in the right. But now a
problem--graver than the over-thrashed straw of political rights, was
about to be presented.

"I was in hopes that somebody had killed that fellow," said the Major,
and his wife looked up with gentle reproof. "Don't say that, dear. The
Lord will take him in His own good time."

The old gentleman winked at Tom. "I don't know about that," he replied.
"I am afraid that the Lord in His management of the universe has
forgotten him."

"John, please don't talk that way." When she was