Andrew the Glad

"And you, I see a sale of half of your land at--"

"Caroline Darrah Brown, look me straight in the eyes," interrupted the

major in a commanding voice. He sat up and bent his keen black eyes that

sparkled under his heavy white brows with absolute luminosity upon the

girl at his side. When aroused the major was a live wire and he was

buckling on his sword to do battle with a woman-trouble, and a dire one.

"Now," he continued, "I'm going to say things to you that you are to

understand and remember, young woman. Your father did come down among us

with what you have heard called a 'carpetbag' in his hands, but it wasn't

an _empty_ one: and while the sums he handed out to each of us might be

considered inadequate, still they were a purchasing power at a time

when things were congested for the lack of any circulating medium

whatever. True, I sold him half my thousand acres for a song; but the

song fenced the other half, bought implements and stock, and made Matilda

possible. She was eighteen and I was twenty-eight when we joined forces

and it was decidedly to the tune of your father's 'song'. It was the same

with the rest of his--friends. You must see that in the painful processes

of reconstructing us the carpetbag had its uses. If it went away

plethoric with coal and iron and lumber, it left a little gold in its

wake. And Peters Brown--"

"Major," said Caroline in a brave voice, "it killed him, the memory of it

and not being able to bring me back to her people. He was changed and he

realized that he left me very much alone in the world. If there had been

any of her immediate family alive we might have felt differently--but

her friends--I didn't know that I would be welcomed. Now--now--I begin

to hope. I want to give some of it back! I have so much--"

"Caroline, child," answered the major with a smile that was infinitely

tender, "we don't need it! We've had a hand-to-hand fight to inherit the

land of our fathers but we're building fortunes fast; we and the

youngsters. The gray line has closed up its ranks and toed hard marks

until it presents a solid front once more; some of it bent and shaky but

supported on all sides by keen young blood. A solid front, I say, and a

friendly one, flying no banners of bitterness--don't you like us?" and

the smile broadened until it warmed the very blood in Caroline Darrah's

heart.

"Yes," she said as she lifted her eyes to his and laid both her hands in

the lean strong one he held out for her then, "and all that awful feeling

has gone completely. I feel--feel new born!"