Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1897-06-03
IN A BORDER TOWN.


forgotten the time when white tents
had not shone on their hilltops,
and uniforms OF blue or gray had
not made color in the streets. 1t
was first one camp and then the
other. The Georgia Zouaves had
come. had danced and ridden horse
back with the prettiest Of the girls
IN the Southern families. only six
months before ; and-now the town
was in the hands or q Vermont reg
iment, with n colonel as grim as
one of his own rocky hills, and Of
ficers and men whe knew more
about plowing than dancing.
Many of the Northern sympathi-
zers had crossed the river into Ohio
during the Southern occupation /:
but when the Federal troops came,
the Southerners were cut off from
their own. They found a great
many of the more outspoken of the
townspeople hauled up to take the
despised oath of allegiance to the
United States and after that, ha-
tired burned all the deeper that it
was repressed. Old friends and
neighbors who had visited daily for
years, looked the other way when
they passed on the street which ran
sociably twisting its way through
the town, accommodating itself to
the shape of everybody's front yard.
Only the Roses had remained
friends IN all this unpleasantness.
Rose Allen and Rosie Miller had
been friends from their babyhood.
Their families had never been init
mate. The Millers were of the soil;
their great grandfather had been an
elegant gentleman in the days when
the Aliens had made money in
speculation, in any way and every
way. Traders the Millers called
them contemptously. The crown
ing insult had come when Mr.. A.
len had married the beautiful but
poor girl with whom Mr.. Miller
was in love, and built a porticoed,
cuploed house next door to the
old colonial mansion where four
generations of Millers had been
born, had brought home brides, and
had been carried ont for the last
time.
But all the spite and heart burn
ing never touched the children.
When they were babies, their nurs-
es gossiped while the children play
ed. When they grew older, they
found shady place where the pal
ings were broken in the garden
fence. Rose sat in her little chair
on her side, and Rosie on her stool
on her own ancestral soil, and the
children of wax and wood, and rag
and corncob, made perilous jour-
neys into forbidden territory. 1t
was when they went to school and
came dancing home, their arms
about each other, that the people
began to call them the red and
white Roses
Rose Allen, black eyed, red
checked, daring, pert. and saucy,
was no prettier than Rosie Miller,
with her yellow curls and soft, shy
blue eyes. But Rose was the lead
er, always. She took possession of
her gentler friend, and, if their was
no other way, stormed her into SUBJ
mission But the other girl or boy
who was not sweetness itself to Ro-
sic had to tread thorny path.
The friendship lasted even to the
evil day when armies pushed each
other back and forth over the broad
sweet country, and Brownton be-
came camp. While Sir. Allen
had Onered his house to the North
ern horde and was reputed to be
making money in army contracts,
Mr.. Miller had taken with him the
sons Of the old Southern families
IN the county. aud had offered his
services to the Confederacy. The
seriousness of var did not touch
the light hearts of the Roses. When
the boys from Dixie were riding
through the town, there was always
q merry party of themat the Miller
house; and when Rosie rode out
with them, Rose Allen went too.
She had no preiudices, and she
laughed when Rosie turned her face
indignantly from the sight of blue
uniform.
1t was while the Georgia Zouaves
were staggering through the streets
each one of them brilliant and