The Christmas Peace | Page 7

resolve and vigorous in his intellect, was driven by his
loneliness to adapt himself to the new conditions. He applied his
unabated energies to building up a new fortune. His decision, his force,
and his ability soon placed him at the head of one of the earliest new
enterprises in the State--a broken-down railway--which he re-organized
and brought to a full measure of success.
Colonel Drayton, on the other hand, broken in body and in fortunes,
found it impossible to adapt himself to the new conditions. He
possessed none of the practical qualities of General Hampden. With a
mind richly stored with the wisdom of others, he had the temperament
of a dreamer and poet and was unable to apply it to any practical end.
As shy and reserved as his neighbor was bold and aggressive, he lived
in his books and had never been what is known as a successful man.
Even before the war he had not been able to hold his own. The

exactions of hospitality and of what he deemed his obligations to others
had consumed a considerable part of the handsome estate he had
inherited, and his plantation was mortgaged. What had been thus begun,
the war had completed.
When his plantation was sold, his old neighbor and enemy bought it,
and the Colonel had the mortification of knowing that Drayton Hall
was at last in the hands of a Hampden. What he did not know was that
General Hampden, true to his vow, never put his foot on the plantation
except to ride down the road and see that all his orders for its proper
cultivation were carried out.
Colonel Drayton tried teaching school, but it appeared that everyone
else was teaching at that time, and after attempting it for a year or two,
he gave it up and confined himself to writing philosophical treatises for
the press, which were as much out of date as the Latin and Greek
names which he signed to them. As these contributions were usually
returned, he finally devoted himself to writing agricultural essays for an
agricultural paper, in which he met with more success than he had done
when he was applying his principles himself.
"If farms were made of paper he 'd beat Cincinnatus," said the General.
Lucy Hampden, thrown on her own resources, in the town in the South
in which her husband had died, had for some time been supporting
herself and her child by teaching. She had long urged her father to
come to them, but he had always declined, maintaining that a man was
himself only in the country, and in town was merely a unit. When,
however, the plantation was sold and his daughter wrote for him, he
went to her, and the first time that the little boy was put in his arms,
both he and she knew that he would never go away again. That evening
as they sat together in the fading light on the veranda of the little house
which Lucy had taken, amid the clambering roses and jasmine, the old
fellow said, "I used to think that I ought to have been killed in battle at
the head of my men when I was shot, but perhaps, I may have been
saved to bring up this young man."
His daughter's smile, as she leant over and kissed him, showed very

clearly what she thought of it, and before a week was out, the Colonel
felt that he was not only still of use, but was, perhaps, the most
necessary, and, with one exception, the most important member of the
family.
Nevertheless, there were hard times before them. The Colonel was too
old-fashioned; too slow for the new movement of life, and just enough
behind the times to be always expecting to succeed and always failing.
But where the father failed the daughter succeeded. She soon came to
be known as one of the efficient women of the community, as her
father, who was now spoken of as "the old Colonel," came to be
recognized as one of the picturesque figures of that period. He was
always thought of in connection with the boy. The two were hardly
ever apart, and they were soon known throughout the town--the tall,
thin old gentleman who looked out on the world with his mild blue
eyes and kindly face, and the chubby, red-cheeked, black-eyed boy,
whose tongue was always prattling, and who looked out with his bright
eyes on all the curious things which, common-place to the world, are so
wonderful to a boy.
The friendship between an old man and a little child is always touching;
they grow nearer together day by day, and the old Colonel and little
Oliver soon appeared to understand each other, and to be as dependent