"We shape ourselves the joy or fear
Of which the coming life is made,
And fill our Future's atmosphere
With sunshine or with shade."
"What will you bet?"
"The honor of my wife."
"You have no wife. Don't think you are going to come that game over me. I'm as much of a yankee as you are, born and reared in a yankee town."
"I'll come back to you within three months with the handsomest wife yankee land can produce, and whose life is as pure as a cotton ball before it is cursed by slave labor, for hang it Jim, since I went north I believe slave labor is accursed. Say, will you bet?"
"Bet? yes, I'll bet you that thousand dollars I've just won, and have it drawn up in writing. But a man of your character will never get a yankee girl of that stamp. They are too shrewd. You don't know 'em as I do. You judge 'em by the character of our southern women which may be pure enough for anything I know, but by thunder they'd all have to live old maids if they should be as particular as they are up north. I'd as soon live in a straight jacket as be cooped up with one of them all my days, and a man wants his liberty sometimes; you know that. That's the charm of southern life to which
