"Cracker Jim" [pp. 51-70]

(34 Cracker fim." [July
jest er cumberin' the yearth uv Ameriky making secession badges, and had laughed
like the varmounts dew Big Mounting; this to scorn the disunion sentiments of their
hyar air er white man's kentry-but I air partisan admirers, turned without complaint
gwine ter fght with ye, Jedge. Ye hev or repro~ch to resolute labor and self-sacridone me er power 0 favor, en I haint had fice, to the weaving of homespun and making
no chance ter retaliate the good turns ez of garments for the men who wore the gray.
ye hev done me en dad; en naow, I air yer Judge Barrett was already in command of
man, en thar air my hand on it, en er jug 0' a regiment. In vain did he urge Jim Snythe bestest cider ever fetched ter this hyar der to return home and raise a company in
taown, settin' out in the waggin fur ye. his own community.
Far'well, I'll be mashin' canebrake mud "No, Jedge, I haint er married man, en
afore tew hours en er ha'f; en when I git I`low ter stick ter yer in this hyar war fur
back I air ready fur ye." better ur wusser. I air gwine ter be back
Weeks enough to make two months and hyar er plum day afore ye start, en my critmore had passed when Jim Snyder was ters`ull git over ground betwixt hyar en Big
again seated in Judge Barrett's office-weeks Mounting, I teJl ye, when Jim Snyder air
in which the Amen can people had been mint ter be in er hurry."
writing history. South Carolina had se- And Jim was true to his word. Never
ceded, and in turn each Southern State. had he accomplished the journey home in
~Var was no longer a probability; it was a so short a time-traveling late and early,
fact-a fact proclaimed at every station, and and halting only to rest his exhausted team.
town, and village. Companies and regi- It was twelve o'clock in the night when he
ments were being marshaled at every point. drove into his own yard. Putting his mules
Men left estates, professions, offices, and under shelter, and drinking a gourd of Wafamilies without a mun~ur; and wives and ter to refresh himself, he walked three quarsisters'surrendered husbands without a tear. ters of a mile to a house, under a window
Boys leaped into the arena of war as if they of which he knocked with a persistent dewere going to a picnic instead of a cannon's termination that demanded immediate enmouth, and many a Southern mother, with trance. After some little stir within the
more than Spartan fortitude, sent from a lux- bouse, a inan unfastened the leather string
urious home a lad whose cheek was as fair as that held the wooden blind, and putting his
her own, and on whose bmw not more than head out asked: "Who be ye?"
sixteen summers had shone. Every phase of "Dick Harjoe," answered Jim in a voice
political sentiment and opinion was merged that sounded like a stage whisper, "I hev
into one great thought. Before Mr. Lin- listed fur the war. Let me in at onst."
coln's call for seventy-five thousand troops, Dick Harjoe did not ask his visitor's
even in the midst of disunion, secession name again. Closing the window blind,
found its opposers as well as advocates in while Jim made his way into the open passalmost every household, and argument and age, he opened the door, bearing in his
feeling were often hot and uncompromising. hand a tallow candle. Motioning to Jim,
The action at Washington made a unit of he led the way into the opposite room,
the most diverse opinions. Men most prom- where he set the candle-stick (a block of
inent as exponents or leaders of the Union wood with a hole in the middle) on a white
party were the first to volunteer in the cause pine table. Not a word was spoken until
of the South, asking no higher rank than both men were seated at the table, when
that of a common soldier. Ladies who had Dick, leaning forward on his elbows, and
refused to employ their dainty fingers in looking steadily into his companion's eyes,