drilling, and dozing during the day, and at night dancing to the sweet music of Flavian Dion's violin. Nan and Gabriel thought it was fine, and, as well as can be remembered, Cephas was of the same opinion. As for Tasma Tid, she thought that the fife and drums, and the general glare and glitter of the affair were simply grand, very much nicer than war in her country, where the Arab slave-traders crept up in the night and seized all who failed to escape in the forest, killing right and left for the mere love of killing. Compared with the jungle war, this pageant was something to be admired.

And many of the older citizens held views not very different from those of the children, for enthusiasm ran high. The Shady Dale Scouts went away arrayed in their holiday uniforms. Many of them never returned to their homes again, but those that did were arrayed in rags and tatters. Their gallantry was such that the Shady Dale Scouts, disguised as Company B, were always at the head of their regiment when trouble was on hand. But all this is to anticipate.

CHAPTER TWO

A Town with a History

Before, during, and after the war, Shady Dale presented always the same aspect of serene repose. It was, as you may say, a town with a history. Then, as now, there were towns all about that had no such fortunate appendage behind them to explain their origin. No one could tell what they were begun for; no one could say whether they had for their nucleus an old field or a cross-roads grocery, or whether a party of immigrants pitched their tents there because the grass was fine and the water abundant. There is one city in Georgia, and it is the most prosperous of all, that was built on the idea that the cattle-paths and the old government roads afford the most convenient and picturesque contours for the streets; and to this day, the thoroughfares of that city afford a most interesting study to those who are interested in either topography or human nature; for it is possible to go to that city, and, with half an eye, discover the places where the waggons and other vehicles turned aside nearly a hundred years ago to avoid the mudholes, the fallen trees, and other temporary obstructions. They have been preserved in the conformation of the streets.

Shady Dale is no city, and it may be that its public-spirited citizens stretch the meaning of the term when they call it a town. Nevertheless, the community has a well-defined history. When Raleigh Clopton, shortly after the signing of the treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain, crossed the Oconee, and settled on the lands of the hostile Creeks, his friends declared that he was tempting Providence; and so it seemed; but the event proved that from first to last, his adventure was under the direct guidance of Providence. He demonstrated anew the truth of two ancient maxims: he who risks nothing, gains nothing; heaven helps those who help themselves. Raleigh Clopton risked everything and gained the most beautiful domain in all the land. He had, indeed, one stormy interview with General McGillivray, the great Creek chief and statesman, but after that all was peace and prosperity.

General McGillivray was one of the most remarkable men of his time, and his time was during an era of remarkable men. He possessed a genius that enabled him to cope successfully with the ablest statesmen of his day. He drew Washington into a secret treaty with the Creek Nation, and when McGillivray died, the Father of his country referred to him as "my friend," and deplored his taking off. Courageous and adventurous himself, McGillivray was no doubt attracted by the attitude and personality of the fearless Virginian. He became the warm friend of Raleigh Clopton, and marked that friendship by deeding to the first white settler two thousand acres of land lying between the Little River hills on one side, and the meadows of Murder Creek on the other. Moreover, he named the estate Shady Dale, and aided Raleigh Clopton to establish a trading-post where the court-house of the town now stands; and on a pine near by, he caused to be made the semblance of a broken arrow, a token that between the Creeks and the Master of Shady Dale a lasting peace had been established.

This was the beginning. When the multifarious and long-disputed treaties between the United States and the Creek Nation had been signed, and a general peace was assured, Raleigh Clopton communicated with his friends in Wilkes, Burke, Columbia and Richmond counties—the choice spirits who had fought by his side in the bloodiest battles of the War for Independence—informed them of his good fortune, and invited them to share it. The response was all that he could have desired. His old friends and comrades lost no time in joining him—the Dorringtons, the Tomlins, the Gaithers, the Awtrys, the Terrells, the Odoms, the Lumsdens, and, later, the friends and relatives of these. For the most part they were men of substance and character.

Well, perhaps not all. There are black sheep in every flock, and wherever the nature of Adam survives, there we may behold wisdom and folly dancing to the same tune, and sin and repentance occupying the same couch. So it has been from the first, and so it will be to the end. But, take them all in all, making due allowance for the tendencies of human nature, the men and women who responded to the invitation of Raleigh Clopton may be described as the salt of the earth. They had all, women and men, been subjected to the trials and hardships of a war in which no quarter was asked or given; and their experiences had given them a strength of character, and a versatility in dealing with unexpected events, that could hardly be matched elsewhere. To each of those who responded to his invitation, Raleigh Clopton gave a part of his domain, and laid out their settlement for them.

This was the origin of Shady Dale. But to set forth its origin is not to describe its beauty, which is of a character that refuses to submit to description. You go down to the old town from the city, and you say to yourself and your friends that you are enjoying the delights of the country. You visit it from the plantations, and you feel that you are breathing the kind of atmosphere that should be found in the social life of a large, refined and perfectly homogeneous community. But whether you go there from the city, or from the plantations, you are inevitably impressed with a sense of the attractiveness of the place; you fall under the spell of the old town—it was old even in the old times of the sixties. And yet if you were called upon to define the nature of the spell, what could you say? What name could you give to the tremulous beauty that hovers about and around the place, when the fresh green leaves of the great trees are fluttering in the cool wind, and everything is touched and illumined by the tender colours of spring? Under what heading in the catalogue of things would you place the vivid richness which animates the town and the landscape all around when the summer is at its height? And how could you describe the harmony that time has brought about between the fine old houses and the setting in which they are grouped?

All these things are elusive; they make themselves keenly felt, but they do not lend themselves to analysis.

It is a pity that those who are interested in traditions that are truer than history could not have all the facts in regard to Shady Dale from the lips of Mr. Obadiah Tutwiler, who had constituted himself the oral historian of the community. Mr. Tutwiler was alive as late as 1869, and had at his fingers'-ends all the essential facts relating to the origin and growth of the town, and he related the story with a fluency, an accuracy, and a relish quite surprising in so old a man.

As was fitting, the old court-house, the temple of justice, had been reared in the centre of the town, and the square that surrounds it took the shape of a park of considerable dimensions. On two sides were some