risen to the dignity of a landowner and the possession of one or
two slaves. He wrestled with the mysteries of the printed page with
a sad seriousness which made one regret his inability to remember
what was at the top until he had arrived at the bottom. Writing
was a still more solemn business with him, but he was a brave man
and would cheerfully undertake to transcribe a list of names, which
he well knew that anything less than eternity would be too short
to allow him to complete. He was a small, thin-haired, squeaky-voiced
bachelor of fifty, and as full of good intentions as the road to
perdition. If Tommy Glass ever did any evil it would not only be
without intent but from sheer accident.

With Tommy was associated an old colored man, one of those known
in that region as "old-issue free-niggers." Old Pharaoh Ray was a
venerable man. He had learned to read before the Constitution of
1835 deprived the free-negro of his vote, and had read a little
since. He wore an amazing pair of brass-mounted spectacles. His
head was surmounted by a mass of snowy hair, and he was of erect
and powerful figure despite the fact that he boasted a life of more
than eighty years. He read about as fast and committed to memory
more easily than his white associate, Glass. In writing they were
about a match; Pharaoh wrote his name much more legibly than Glass
could, but Glass accomplished the task in about three fourths of
the time required by Pharaoh.

The third member of the board was Captain Theron Pardee, a young
man who had served in the Federal army and afterward settled
in an adjoining county. He was the chairman. He did the writing,
questioning, and deciding, and as each voter had to be sworn he
utilized his two associates by requiring them to administer the