Daisy In The Field

"That will not be the issue, Daisy," he said.

"Papa, what do you think will?"

"It can have but one issue. The Southern people cannot be put

down."

"Then, if they succeed, what will be the state of things

between them and the North?"

"It is impossible to tell how far things will go, Daisy, now

that they have actually taken up arms. But I do not think the

Southern people want anything of the North, but to be let

alone."

"How would it be, if the North succeeded, papa?"

"It cannot succeed, Daisy. You have heard a different

language, I suppose; but I know the men, - and the women, - of

the South. They will never yield. The North must, sooner or

later."

I could not carry this on, and turned the conversation. But I

had to listen to a great deal of the same sort of thing, in

which I took no part. It came up every day. I discovered that

my mother was using her influence and all her art to induce

our two young friends to return home and enter the Southern

army. She desired with equal vehemence that Ransom should take

the same course; and as they all professed to be strong in the

interests and sympathies that moved her, I was a little

puzzled to understand why they delayed so long. For they did

delay. They talked, but nothing came of it. Still we went on

fresh excursions and made new expeditions; spending days of

delight on the mountain sides, and days of enchantment in the

mountain valleys; and still our party was of the same four. It

is true that papa did not at all share mamma's eagerness to

have Ransom go; but Ransom did not greatly care for papa's

likings; and in the case of the others, I did not see what

held them.

The printed news from home we had of course, regularly; and as

far as I could without being watched, I studied them. The

papers after all were mostly Southern, and so filled with

outrageous invective and inflated boasting, that I could not

judge anything very certainly, from what they said. Nothing of

great importance seemed to be transpiring between the

belligerent parties. I supposed that it wanted but some such

occurrence or occasion to send off our three young men like a

ball from a rifle, straight to the seat of war. Meanwhile we

enjoyed ourselves. Others did, and I did also, whenever I

could put down fear and lift up hope; and I was young, and

that happened to me sometimes. So the weeks ran on.

"I really don't see why I should be in a hurry to plunge

myself into that angry confusion of things at home," Hugh

Marshall said one day. "It seems to me, they can get through

it without my help."