SHEPHERDSTOWN, ON THE POTOMAC. <)1 



walks and conversations with my young cousins, conversations some- 

 times so bitter as to verge on quarrels. As for instance: "Well, 

 Helen, you've had six months of us now," (it was late in May) "what 

 do you think — will you be able to live with us? How do we compare 

 with the Yankees? " asked Harry Southard, my oldest cousin. "Now, 

 Harry, Ma asked you not to call them Yankees, and Helen is not a 

 Yankee anyhow," said my cousin, Margaret, the oldest of the 

 girls. But I had made up my mind on this point. "Yes I am a 

 Yankee, Margaret," I said, "I would not be anything but a Yankee 

 if I could. I wish I could make you understand, once for all, that I 

 love Yankees, and I love the name. Please believe me when I tell 

 you," exaggerating slightly, perhaps, as I warmed up to the business, 

 " that I don't consider that there is anything absurd or ugly in the 

 name, and I would rather be called by it than by any other. It really 

 belongs to you Southerners as well as to us. The English who gave 

 it to us, applied it to all of the Americans ; and they call even Cana- 

 dians Yankees. But I am sure we are quite willing to take it for 

 ourselves, and all I hope is that we will never disgrace it." "Well, 

 you may call yourself a Yankee, Cousin Helen, but you really are 

 not like one," said Ellen Southard, the second of the girls, aged about 

 fourteen. "Cousin Helen can't be a Yankee," came to our ears 

 in Charley's piping tones, " she has real blood. I saw a lot of it yes- 

 terday when she cut her thumb." 



"Well, what in thunder should she have? " asked Bob. 



"Cold white stuff, like turnip juice," said Charley, confidently. " It 

 is so — all Yankees have that" — he went on angrily, as Bob roared 

 out laughingly, " Old Uncle Si told me so, and I reckon he knows. 

 Why he's more'n a hundred years old, and his old master told him 

 about it, himself, and he had seen it — so now ! " 



"Oh, Helen ! " exclaimed Margaret, " I am so sorry that you should 

 hear such ignorant, impertinent nonsense. Uncle Si is perfectly 

 dreadful. I heard Ma, this morning, tell the boys that they are not 

 to go to his quarters any more. He's always putting them up to 

 mischief, or teaching them wickedness of some sort or other." 



"Dear Margaret, I don't mind it at all, indeed," which I did not, 

 " of course I know it is nothing but childish nonsense." 



We were taking what Harry Southard called a family walk ; he 

 was at home on a short vacation, and he seldom stirred abroad with- 



