"Look here, Camp, we ain't got no hard feelin's agin you, but there's agoin' to be trouble for every rebel in this county who don't git on our side and do it quick." "I'm used to trouble pardner," replied Tom.

"You've got a nice little cabin home and ten acres of land. Fight us, and we will give this house and lot to a nigger."

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Come, come," said Perkins, "you're not fool enough to fight us when we've got a dead sure thing, a majority fixed before the voting begins, Congress and the whole army back of us?"

"I ain't er nigger!" said Tom, doggedly.

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What's the use to be a fool Camp," cried Haley. "We are just using the nigger to stick the votes in the box. He thinks he's goin' to heaven, but we'll ride him all the way up to the gate and hitch him on the outside. Will you come in with us?"

"Don't like your complexion!" he answered rising and going toward the door.

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Then we'll turn you out into the road in less than two years," said Haley as they left.

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'All right!" laughed the old soldier, “I slept on the ground four years, boys."

When he came back into the room he met his wife with

tears in her eyes. "Oh! Tom, I'm afraid they'll do what they say."

"To tell you the truth, ole woman, I'm afraid so too. But we're in the hands of the Lord. This is His house. If He wants to take it away from me now when I'm crippled and helpless, He knows what's best."

"I wish you didn't have to go agin 'em."

"I ain't er nigger, ole gal, and I don't flock with niggers. If God Almighty had meant me to be one He'd have made my skin black.

On election day no publication of the polling places had been made. Ezra Perkins had in charge the whole county. He consolidated the fifteen voting precincts into three and located these in negro districts. He notified only the members of the secret Leagues where these three voting places were to be found, and other people were allowed to find them on the day of the election as best they could.

Perkins made himself the poll holder at Hambright though he was a candidate for member of the Constitutional Convention, and the poll holders were allowed to keep the ballots in their possession for three days before forwarding to the General in command at Charleston, South Carolina.

Scores of negroes, under the instructions of their leaders, voted three times that day. Every negro boy fairly well grown was allowed to vote and no questions asked as to his age.

Nelse approached the polls attempting to cast a vote against the Rev. Ezra Perkins the poll holder. A crowd of infuriated negroes surrounded him in a moment.

"Kill 'im! Knock 'im in the head! De black debbil, votin' agin his colour!"

Nelse threw his big fists right and left and soon had an open space in the edge of which lay a half dozen negroes scrambling to get to their feet.

The negroes formed a line in front of him and the foremost one said,

"You try ter put dat vote in de box we bust yo head open!"

Nelse knocked him down before he got the words well out of him mouth. Honey, I'se er bad nigger! he shouted with a grin as he stepped back and started to rush the line.

Perkins ordered the guard to arrest him.

As the guard carried Nelse away a crowd of angry negroes followed grinning and cursing.

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We lay fur you yit, ole hoss!" was their parting word as he disappeared through the jail door.

That night at the supper table in the hotel at Hambright an informal census of the voters was taken. There were present at the table a distinguished ex-judge, two lawyers, a General, two clergymen, a merchant, a farmer, and two mechanics. The only man of all allowed to vote that day was the negro who waited on the table.

Thus began the era of a corrupt and degraded ballot in the South that was to bring forth sorrow for generations yet unborn. The intelligence, culture, wealth, social prestige, brains, conscience and the historic institutions of a great state had been thrust under the hoof of ignorance and vice.

The votes were sent to the military commandant at Charleston and the results announced. The negroes had elected 110 representatives and the whites 10. It was gravely announced from Washington that a republican form of government" had at last been established in North Carolina.

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TH

CHAPTER XVI

LEGREE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE

HE new government was now in full swing and a saturnalia began. Amos Hogg was Governor, Simon Legree Speaker of the House, and the Hon. Tim Shelby leader of the majority on the floor of the House.

Raleigh, the quaint little City of Oaks, never saw such · an assemblage of law-makers gather in the grey stone Capitol.

Ezra Perkins, who was a member of the Senate, was frugal in his habits and found lodgings at an unpretentious boarding house near the Capitol square.

The room was furnished with six iron cots on which were placed straw mattresses and six honourable members of the new Legislature occupied these. They were close enough together to allow a bottle of whiskey to be freely passed from member to member at any hour of the night. They thought the beds were arranged with this in view and were much pleased.

Ezra was the only man of the crowd who arrived in Raleigh with a valise or trunk. He had a carpet bag. The others simply had one shirt and a few odds and ends tied in red bandana handkerchiefs.

Three of them had walked all the way to Raleigh and kept in the woods from habit as deserters. The other two rode on the train and handed their tickets to the first stranger they saw on the platform of the car they boarded.

"What's this for!" said the stranger.

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Them's our tickets. Ain't you the door keeper?' "No, but there ought to be one to every circus. You'll have one when you get to Raleigh."

The landlady, Mrs. Duke, apologised for the poor beds, when she showed them to their room. "I'm sorry, gentle

men, I can't give you softer beds."

"That's all right M'am! them's fine. Us fellows been sleeping in the woods and in straw stacks so long dodgin' ole Vance's officers, them white sheets is the finest thing we've seed in four years, er more."

They were humble and made no complaints. But at the end of the week they gathered around the Rev. Ezra Perkins for a grave consultation.

"When are we goin' ter draw?" said one.

"Air we ever goin' ter draw? asked another with sorrow and doubt.

"What are we here fer ef we cain't draw?" pleaded another looking sadly at Ezra.

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Gentlemen," answered Ezra, “it will be all right in a little while. The Treasurer is just cranky. We can draw our mileage Monday anyhow."

At daylight they took their places on the bank's steps, and at ten o'clock when the bank opened, the doors were besieged by a mob of members painfully anxious to draw before it might be too late.

Next morning there was a disturbance at the breakfast table. The morning paper had in blazing head lines an account of one James "Mileage," who was a member of the Legislature from an adjoining county thirty-seven miles distant. He had sworn to a mileage record of one hundred and seven dollars.

"That's an unfortunate mistake, sir," said Perkins. "Ten' ter yer own business?" answered James "Mile

age."