“I think,” wrote Gray, “that the same hand is at the bottom of all our misfortunes.  This is Hamilton’s method.”

Miss Kirkman and Mr. Aldrich were married two weeks from the day the convention adjourned.  Mr. Gray was removed from his position on account of inefficiency.  He is still trying to get back, but the very men to whom his case must go are in the hands of Mr. Hamilton.

SILAS JACKSON

I

Silas Jackson was a young man to whom many opportunities had come.  Had he been a less fortunate boy, as his little world looked at it, he might have spent all his days on the little farm where he was born, much as many of his fellows did.  But no, Fortune had marked him for her own, and it was destined that he should be known to fame.  He was to know a broader field than the few acres which he and his father worked together, and where he and several brothers and sisters had spent their youth.

Mr. Harold Marston was the instrument of Fate in giving Silas his first introduction to the world.  Marston, who prided himself on being, besides a man of leisure, something of a sportsman, was shooting over the fields in the vicinity of the Jackson farm.  During the week he spent in the region, needing the services of a likely boy, he came to know and like Silas.  Upon leaving, he said, “It’s a pity for a boy as bright as you are to be tied down in this God-forsaken place.  How’d you like to go up to the Springs, Si, and work in a hotel?”

The very thought of going to such a place, and to such work, fired the boy’s imagination, although the idea of it daunted him.

“I’d like it powahful well, Mistah Ma’ston,” he replied.

“Well, I’m going up there, and the proprietor of one of the best hotels, the Fountain House, is a very good friend of mine, and I’ll get him to speak to his head waiter in your behalf.  You want to get out of here, and see something of the world, and not stay cooped up with nothing livelier than rabbits, squirrels, and quail.”

And so the work was done.  The black boy’s ambitions that had only needed an encouraging word had awakened into buoyant life.  He looked his destiny squarely in the face, and saw that the great world outside beckoned to him.  From that time his dreams were eagle-winged.  The farm looked narrower to him, the cabin meaner, and the clods were harder to his feet.  He learned to hate the plough that he had followed before in dumb content, and there was no longer joy in the woods he knew and loved.  Once, out of pure joy of living, he had gone singing about his work; but now, when he sang, it was because his heart was longing for the city of his dreams, and hope inspired the song.