The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I | Page 7

and the Northern
soldiers, who drew their pay in money that had real value, developed a

weakness for the fruit. Walter Page, a boy of ten, used to take his
peaches to Raleigh, and sell them to the "invader"; although he still
disdained having companionable relations with the enemy, he was not
above meeting them on a business footing; and the greenbacks and
silver coin obtained in this way laid a new basis for the family fortunes.
Despite this happy windfall, life for the next few years proved an
arduous affair. The horrors of reconstruction which followed the war
were more agonizing than the war itself. Page's keenest enthusiasm in
after life was democracy, in its several manifestations; but the form in
which democracy first unrolled before his astonished eyes was a phase
that could hardly inspire much enthusiasm. Misguided sentimentalists
and more malicious politicians in the North had suddenly endowed the
Negro with the ballot. In practically all Southern States that meant
government by Negroes--or what was even worse, government by a
combination of Negroes and the most vicious white elements, including
that which was native to the soil and that which had imported itself
from the North for this particular purpose. Thus the political
vocabulary of Page's formative years consisted chiefly of such words as
"scalawag," "carpet bagger," "regulator," "Union League," "Ku Klux
Klan," and the like. The resulting confusion, political, social, and
economic, did not completely amount to the destruction of a
civilization, for underneath it all the old sleepy ante-bellum South still
maintained its existence almost unchanged. The two most conspicuous
and contrasting figures were the Confederate veteran walking around in
a sleeveless coat and the sharp-featured New England school mar'm,
armed with that spelling book which was overnight to change the
African from a genial barbarian into an intelligent and conscientious
social unit; but more persistent than these forces was that old dreamy,
"unprogressive" Southland--the same country that Page himself
described in an article on "An Old Southern Borough" which, as a
young man, he contributed to the Atlantic Monthly. It was still the
country where the "old-fashioned gentleman" was the controlling social
influence, where a knowledge of Latin and Greek still made its
possessor a person of consideration, where Emerson was a "Yankee
philosopher" and therefore not important, where Shakespeare and
Milton were looked upon almost as contemporary authors, where the

Church and politics and the matrimonial history of friends and relatives
formed the staple of conversation, and where a strong prejudice still
existed against anything that resembled popular education. In the
absence of more substantial employment, stump speaking, especially
eloquent in praise of the South and its achievements in war, had
become the leading industry.
"Wat" Page--he is still known by this name in his old home--was a tall,
rangy, curly-headed boy, with brown hair and brown eyes, fond of
fishing and hunting, not especially robust, but conspicuously alert and
vital. Such of his old playmates as survive recall chiefly his keenness of
observation, his contagious laughter, his devotion to reading and to talk.
He was also given to taking long walks in the woods, frequently with
the solitary companionship of a book. Indeed, his extremely efficient
family regarded him as a dreamer and were not entirely clear as to what
purpose he was destined to serve in a community which, above all,
demanded practical men. Such elementary schools as North Carolina
possessed had vanished in the war; the prevailing custom was for the
better-conditioned families to join forces and engage a teacher for their
assembled children. It was in such a primary school in Cary that Page
learned the elementary branches, though his mother herself taught him
to read and write. The boy showed such aptitude in his studies that his
mother began to hope, though in no aggressive fashion, that he might
some day become a Methodist clergyman; she had given him his
middle name, "Hines," in honour of her favourite preacher--a kinsman.
At the age of twelve Page was transferred to the Bingham School, then
located at Mcbane. This was the Eton of North Carolina, from both a
social and an educational standpoint. It was a military school; the boys
all dressed in gray uniforms built on the plan of the Confederate army;
the hero constantly paraded before their imaginations was Robert E.
Lee; discipline was rigidly military; more important, a high standard of
honour was insisted upon. There was one thing a boy could not do at
Bingham and remain in the school; that was to cheat in class-rooms or
at examinations. For this offence no second chance was given. "I
cannot argue the subject," Page quotes Colonel Bingham saying to the
distracted parent whose son had been dismissed on this charge, and
who was begging for his reinstatement. "In fact,