The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-12-17
COPYRIGHT. 1912. BY C. P. rurNAms SONS

itary activities going on were such as to lead to but one logical conclusion that war or something very like it was imminent But love outranked logic, in that particular camp at least. At the very opening of the campaign the casualties took in Kerchival West and his demure, dark eyed sister Made line; also, mutual offsetdng to this pair, the gallant Bob EIlingham and his sister Gertrude, the latter a spir- ited girl, with warm bronze hair be- fitting her emotional temperament and vivid complexion to match.
 1 The first cloud that appeared in this roseate sky was Edward Thornton. Thornton was rather a handsome fel- low in his insolent way and a few years older than the two Heutenants- that is to say, he was close upon thirty. He had more than the assurance of manner that such advantage might perhaps be expected to give him-espe- ciaIIy with Mrs. Haverill, the colonePs wife.
 The young people frankly did not like Thornton, though none of them had said so, and probably any or all of them would have denied the charge had it been made.
 Meanwhile pr. Ellingham and the colonel and Mrs. Haveri1 and the Pinckneys South Carolina relatives of the EllinghamO saw graver portents { than sentimental ones on the near hori- zon. Their conv ersation turned upon questions of state sovereignty, the ''old flag" and rights as to secession from the Union.
 eff the interests of your manufactur- ing and shipping states of the north,' ,'' oh nf agricultural and cotton states of the south are not running in harmony, that is no excuse for a family quarrel" 'fI quite agree with you,'' said Colo ne1 Haveri11. s'It is an awkward thing for a soldier to take sides in such a dispute. Theoretically we don't have to. The government settles all that for us, and we simply obey orders. feel confident they will f1nds remedy for the present break as they have for other and perhaps worse ones in the past. If it were not for the slavery question:
 "Ah," sighed the southern conserva- tive, eff I owned the 100000 slaves I would gladly give them all up for the preservation of the Union.'
 "Well, your friend, Major Ruff1n, cer- tainly has more decided opinions on
  er," laughed Haverill, making the cus- tomary effort to divert the conversa- ton into lighter channels.
 Ruff1n was a striking character, typ icaI of the time. They met him after moons at the Charleston hotel or on a sunny morning walking by the Bat tery sea wall, gazing out across the harbor to where the Sumter fortress reared its ferty foot walls on an arti- ficial island built on the shoals. This was one of the important Notifications of the seeding states whose status in relation to the federal government was in ominous dispute.
 Sir Ruffin would say impressively, ''if the status of these federal forts in s the seeded states is not yet determin- ed, it is high time it should be. If an appeal to arms Is necessary, and I can see that it is, sooner or later, let it come right here and now"
 "But, major,' Colonel Haverill would protest, "I understood you were a Vir- ginian? Virginia has not seeded
 ''Not yet, but she will-she must. l am, as you say, sir, Vfrginian born. But this hanging fire is so little to my taste, sir, that I have sold my Virginia property and cast my allegiance with South Carolina for the present. have enlisted with the state troops here, and I awaiE any minute General Beaure- gard's call to the batteries he is plant ing all around Sumter"
 Major Rufin was a white haired, el
 derly man, sixty years old if a day. II 2 his fiery fanatical zeal there was some , thing humOrous-and something tragic Colonel Haverill, f1fty-fve years 0
 age. was distinctively an American sol dier type.
 A veteran of the Mexican war, h. = was happily married to his second , wife, a New York belle up to the tim . of her becoming the colonePs bride
 some six years before the period witt which the present narrative is concern
 ed. His only son, Frank, was at tha
 time a boy of fourteen, bright ant . . spirited; but, as the colonel declared . with real modification, evidently no cut out for soldier. That most la mentable deficiency-in the father
 eyes-gave color to the assertion, mad
 not by Mrs. Haveril1 alone, that tn
 colonel thought more of his youni
 southern wards, Robert and Gertrud . ~ElIingham than he did of his own son However this may have been, tn !, coloneFs young wife more than mad , up to the lad the deprivation of hi fathers full measures of paternaI COT
 fdence and affection. Having no chi , dren of her own, she gave to the bo what in his infancy he had neve
 known-a mothers loving care. As h
 grew up in New York amid good fam ly associations and in comfortable cil
 cumstances, seeing little of his fathe