It's all a mistake. I know it must be a
mistake!"
"We couldn't help it, ma'am," said one impulsive youth, putting in
before the elders had time to speak; "the niggers was marching on
the town here. Did you suppose we was going to sit still and let
them burn and ravage without opposition? Oh, we haven't got so low
as that, if the Yankees did outnumber us. Not yet!"
There was a sneering tone in his voice which did more than sympathy
could, to restore her equanimity. So she said, with a hint of a
smile on her yet tearful face,
"The worst thing those poor fellows meant to do, gentlemen, was
to make a parade over their new-found privileges--march up to the
polls, vote, and march home again. They are just like a crowd of
boys over a drum and fife, as you know. They carefully excluded
from the line all who were not voters, and I had them arranged so
that their names would come alphabetically, thinking it might be
handier for the officers; though I don't know anything about how an
election is conducted," she added, with an ingenuous blush. "It's
all my fault, gentlemen! I did not think any trouble could come
of it, or I would not have allowed it for a moment. I thought it
would be better for them to come in order, vote, and go home than
to have them scattered about the town and perhaps getting into
trouble."
"So 'twould," said the sheriff. "Been a first-rate thing if we'd
all understood it--first-rate.
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