"That will not be the issue, Daisy," he said.
"Papa, what do you think will?"
"It can have but one issue. The Southern people cannot be put
down."
"Then, if they succeed, what will be the state of things
between them and the North?"
"It is impossible to tell how far things will go, Daisy, now
that they have actually taken up arms. But I do not think the
Southern people want anything of the North, but to be let
alone."
"How would it be, if the North succeeded, papa?"
"It cannot succeed, Daisy. You have heard a different
language, I suppose; but I know the men, - and the women, - of
the South. They will never yield. The North must, sooner or
later."
I could not carry this on, and turned the conversation. But I
had to listen to a great deal of the same sort of thing, in
which I took no part. It came up every day. I discovered that
my mother was using her influence and all her art to induce
our two young friends to return home and enter the Southern
army. She desired with equal vehemence that Ransom should take
the same course; and as they all professed to be strong in the
interests and sympathies that moved her, I was a little
puzzled to understand why they delayed so long. For they did
delay. They talked, but nothing came of it. Still we went on
fresh excursions and made new expeditions; spending days of
delight on the mountain sides, and days of enchantment in the
mountain valleys; and still our party was of the same four. It
is true that papa did not at all share mamma's eagerness to
have Ransom go; but Ransom did not greatly care for papa's
likings; and in the case of the others, I did not see what
held them.
The printed news from home we had of course, regularly; and as
far as I could without being watched, I studied them. The
papers after all were mostly Southern, and so filled with
outrageous invective and inflated boasting, that I could not
judge anything very certainly, from what they said. Nothing of
great importance seemed to be transpiring between the
belligerent parties. I supposed that it wanted but some such
occurrence or occasion to send off our three young men like a
ball from a rifle, straight to the seat of war. Meanwhile we
enjoyed ourselves. Others did, and I did also, whenever I
could put down fear and lift up hope; and I was young, and
that happened to me sometimes. So the weeks ran on.
"I really don't see why I should be in a hurry to plunge
myself into that angry confusion of things at home," Hugh
Marshall said one day. "It seems to me, they can get through
it without my help."