He went cheerfully, thinking it quite an honor to serve the Colony
in any capacity--for Freckle, representing a disaffected State, had
fallen under suspicion of lukewarm loyalty, and was most anxious to
clear up any such imputation.
His head was full of odd remembrances as he crossed the Place St.
Sulpice: his plain old father at the old border home, close and
hard-handed, who went afield with his own negroes, and made his sons
take the plough-handles, and marched them all before him every Sunday to
the plank church, and led the singing himself with an ancient
tuning-fork, and took up the collection in a black velvet bag fastened
to a pole.
He had foreseen the war, and sent his son abroad to avoid it. He had
given Freckle sufficient money to travel for five years, and told him in
the same sentence to guard his farthings and say his prayers. Freckle
could see the old man now, with a tear poised on his tangled eyelashes,
asking a farewell benediction from the front portico, upon himself
departing, while every woolly-head was uncovered, and the whole
assembled "property" had groaned "Amen" together.
That was patriarchal life; what was this? Freckle thought this much
finer and higher. He had not asked himself if it was better.
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