"Day after to-morrow," said Barclay, meditatively, as he heard the
first faint screaming of the heavily laden wheels under him, "day
after to-morrow, Daddy Mason, we will be home with Colonel Culpepper
and his large white plumes."




CHAPTER VIII


This chapter might have had in it "all the quality, pride, pomp, and
circumstance of glorious war" if it had not been for the matters that
came up for discussion at the meeting of the Garrison County Old
Settlers' Association this year of our Lord Nineteen Hundred and
Eight. For until that meeting the legend of the last hour of the
County-seat War of '73 had flourished unmolested; but there General
Philemon Ward rose and laid an axe at the root of the legend, and
while of course he did not destroy it entirely, he left it scarred and
withered on one side and therefore entirely unfitted for historical
purposes. It seems that Gabriel Carnine was assigned by President John
Barclay of the Association to prepare and read a paper on "The Rise,
Decline, and Fall of Minneola." Certainly that was a proper subject
considering the fact that corn has been growing over the site of
Minneola for twenty years. And surely Gabriel Carnine, whose black
beard has whitened in thirty years' faithful service to Sycamore
Ridge, whose wife lies buried on the Hill, and whose children read the
Sycamore Ridge _Banner_ in the uttermost parts of the earth,--surely
Gabriel Carnine might have been trusted to tell the truth of the
conflict waged between the towns a generation ago. But men have