True To His Colors. Castlemon Harry

blue of the heavens above,

      And tyrants shall quail 'mid their dungeons afar,

      When they gaze on the motto of love.

      By the bayonet traced at the midnight of war,

      On the fields where our glory was won —

      Oh, perish the hand or the heart that would mar

      Our motto of 'Many in One.'"

      A more disgusted lot of boys had never been seen in Barrington than Rodney and his friends were when Dick finished singing the above, which was a part of two verses of "E Pluribus Unum." Of course the members of the squad all knew the song, but they did not suppose that Dick would have the audacity to mix it up in this way. If they had suspected how the song was going to end, they would have drowned him out in short order.

      "That's about the biggest sell that was ever perpetrated on a party of confiding students," said Ed Billings, as soon as the whoops and yells of derision with which the patriotic words were greeted had died away. "Can't some good Southerner sing something that will hit the spot?"

      Nobody could; for if any of the Confederate songs, which afterward became so popular on both sides the line, were in existence, they had not yet reached Barrington; so the only thing left for the boys to do was to keep step to "hay-foot, straw-foot, boom, boom, boom!" which they chanted with all the power of their lungs. Dick Graham congratulated himself on having said a word for the Union, and paid no sort of attention to the good-natured prods in the ribs which he received from the boys who were marching beside him. He stoutly affirmed that he had uttered nothing but his honest sentiments, and hoped that every one who took a hand in marring "our motto of many in one" would get whipped for his pains.

      The students were well acquainted with the people living along their line of march, and were more than satisfied with the enthusiastic greetings given to them and their flag. When they filed through the gate into the academy grounds the sentry presented arms, and the commandant, who was standing at his window, turned away. The boys saw it, and told one another that the colonel was coming to his senses, and that he would not interpose his authority when they were ready to run up the Stars and Bars on the following morning.

      "You fellows are making a heap of fuss about nothing," said Marcy Gray, as his cousin halted beside the camp-chair in which he was sitting and waved the flag over his head, while the rest of the squad trooped up the wide steps that led into the hall. "Take that thing away. The time may come when you will be sorry you ever saw it."

      "It shall gleam o'er the sea 'mid the bolts of the storm,

      O'er the battle and tempest and wreck,

      And flame where our guns with their thunder grow warm – "

      sang Rodney. "Look here, old fellow: Couldn't you get up spirit enough to give us a cheer?"

      "I don't think I could," replied Marcy. "Did you fellows all have passes? I thought not. If things were as they used to be you would find yourselves in the guard-house in less than ten minutes."

      "We are aware of it," answered Rodney; "but if things were as they used to be, we should not have climbed the fence and gone to town without permission. But these are times when rules don't count. There is your mail, and if you will take a friend's advice, you will read that paper carefully. I think there is something in it that concerns you."

      "What is it, and where is it? Tell me all about it, and then I shall be spared the trouble of looking it up."

      "Well," said Rodney, as if he hardly knew how to give his cousin the desired information, "Congress has passed a law commanding all Northern sympathizers to leave the limits of the Confederacy within ten days."

      "Has this State gone out?"

      "Not that I know of."

      "Then I don't see how that law concerns me. I am not in the Confederacy, am I? As long as the State does not tell me to go, I shall stay where I am until mother writes me to start for home. Has your father written for you yet?"

      "No; but I am looking for a letter every day, and I don't see why I don't get it. But it will come fast enough if the Yankees begin preparations for war, as some lunatics seem to think they will."

      "Those same lunatics are about the only sensible people there are in the South to-day. The Northern States will not stand by with their hands in their pockets and see this government broken up, and you may depend upon it," said Marcy earnestly. "If they don't hang a few on both sides the line, there will be a war here the like of which the world has never seen."

      "Bosh!" exclaimed Rodney, snapping his fingers in the air.

      "And some of it will be in your State and mine," continued Marcy.

      "Haven't you read our president's speech?" demanded Rodney, almost fiercely. "He says that if war must come, it will be fought on Northern soil."

      "It takes two to make a bargain. The Northern States are stronger than we are, and they would be fools to consent to any such arrangement."

      "You'll see that it will be done, whether they consent or not," answered Rodney. "Of course they don't want us to separate from them, for they have made a lot of money out of us with their high protective tariff and all that; but how are they to help themselves when there are no laws or ties of blood to hold us together? Although we speak the same language, we do not belong to the same race that they do; we are better every way than they are, and we're not going to be bound to them any longer. The slave-holders of the South ruled the old Union for sixty out of seventy years of her existence, and now that the reins of power have been snatched from their hands, they're not going to stand it. We'll have a nation of our own that will lead the world in everything that goes to make a nation. If North Carolina goes out, what will you do?"

      "I shall go home, of course, for mother will need me. Our blacks will all leave us the first chance they get – "

      "Bosh!" said Rodney, again. "The niggers know who their friends are, and I'll bet you there are not a hundred in the South today who would go over to the Yankees if they had the opportunity."

      "Whether they run away or not, mother will need somebody on the plantation, and I am the only one she can call on, for Jack is at sea," replied Marcy.

      "And, what's more, he may never get back," added Rodney. "We shall have a navy of our own pretty soon, and then, if the Yankees declare war against us, every ship that floats the old flag will have to watch out. We'll light bonfires on every part of the ocean. If your State secedes, you will go with her, of course?"

      "Of course I'll not do any such thing."

      "Marcy Gray, are you really a traitor? Be honest, now."

      "Not much. I am true to my colors – the same colors that your grandfather and mine died under."

      "But grandfather never dreamed, when he fought under that flag, that it was going to be turned into an emblem of tyranny," answered Rodney impatiently. "I'll bet you he would not fight under it now; and neither would Washington. But how will you fare when you get home? There are plenty of secessionists in your county, and they will have not the first thing to do with you."

      "I don't care whether they do or not," replied Marcy, hardly realizing how much meaning there was in his cousin's last words. "Mother will have something to do with me, I reckon; and so will Jack when he returns; and if the neighbors choose to cut me because I am true to my colors, why I don't see that I can help it."

      "Will you fight for the Union?"

      "I hope I shall not be called upon to choose sides; but you may be sure

      I shall not fight against it."

      "Well, go your road, and I will go mine; but you will yet see the day when you will wish you had done differently. By the way," added Rodney carelessly; "those Taylor girls hinted that they would be pleased to see you at their house; but you don't want to air any of your disloyal sentiments in their presence, for if you do, they will be likely to tell you that you needn't come again. My paper says that is what the Richmond girls are doing, and our Barrington girls are following suit. And, Marcy, you had better haul in a little, for if you do not, you will get into trouble. The citizens are waking