their children heirs of landed estates stocked with mules.
Every stranger who appeared in the village was regarded with awe as a possible surveyor sent from Washington to un the lines of these forty-acre plots.
And in due time the surveyors appeared. Uncle Aleck, who now devoted his entire time to organising the League, and drinking whiskey which the dues he collected made easy, was walking back to Piedmont from a League meeting in the country, dreaming of this promised land.
He lifted his eyes from the dusty way and saw before him two surveyors with their arms full of line stakes painted red, white, and blue. They were well-dressed Yankees—he could not be mistaken. Not a doubt disturbed his mind. The kingdom of heaven was at hand!
He bowed low and cried:
"Praise de Lawd! De messengers is come! I'se waited long, but I sees 'em now wid my own eyes!"
"You can bet your life on that, old pard," said the spokesman of the pair. "We go two and two, just as the apostles did in the olden times. We have only a few left. The boys are hurrying to get their homes. All you've got to do is to drive one of these red, white, and blue stakes down at each corner of the forty acres of land you want, and every rebel in the infernal regions can't pull it up."
"Hear dat now!"
"Just like I tell you. When this stake goes into the ground, it's like planting a thousand cannon at each corner."
"En will the Lawd's messengers come wid me right
