"Tell Leila to write me all about the horses and the town, and if Josiah
has been heard of. Tom McGregor writes me that after he is graduated next
year, he means to try for a place in the army and get a year or two of
army life before he settles down to help his father. So it takes only two
years to learn how to keep people alive and four to learn how to kill
them."

"I wonder who John means to kill." She sat in thought a while, and rising
to undress said, "He must be greatly changed, my dear boy, Jack. Jack!"




CHAPTER XVI


The widespread disapproval at the North of the Dred Scott Decision was
somewhat less manifest in the middle months of the year because of the
general financial distress, which diverted attention from what was so
agreeable to the slave States, where in fact the stringency in the money
market had been felt but little.

At Grey Pine, as elsewhere in Pennsylvania, the evil influence of the
depression in trade was felt as never before. More men were discharged,
and Penhallow and his wife practised economy which to him was difficult
and distasteful. To limit expenditure on herself was of little moment to
Ann Penhallow, but to have to limit her ability to give where more and
more were needing help was to her at least a hard trial. With the spring
of 1858, business had begun to revive, while more bitterness arose when
in the senatorial contest Stephen Douglas encountered the soil-born