rear of Judge Robert P. Dick's house, he rode up every afternoon to consult with the Honourable John A. Gilmer and my father on the conditions of the country. He was a most courteous and elegant man, and in many ways displayed his sympathy with us. Very soon a note was received announcing the arrival of Mrs Cox and the hope that Mrs. Gilmer and Mrs. Walker would do him the honour to call upon his wife. She received us in Mrs. Dick's parlor, simple in manner, dignified, bordering on stiffness-in contrast with the genial manners of her husband. A grand review of all the troops was to be held on the next Saturday, and a pavil on was built in the centre of town-upper seats to be occupied by the Federal ladies. By nine o'clock a four-horse ambulance with outriders was sent with a note from General Cox again "begging the honour of Mrs. Gilmer's and Mrs. Walker's company, with Mrs. Cox to witness the review." Mrs. Gilmer told her husband that she refused to add one more spectator to the pageant, for it was an enemy's bullet that had maimed her only son for life. Violent, decisive words, and very ugly ones, too, were spoken by the other lady; but a peremptory order was given, and with bitter tears, accompanied by one of our soldiers, she went to the pavilion, to be received so graciously by Mrs. Cox.

Three months later there came to Greensboro a man who was to give its Reconstruction history a unique interest and whose departure after a sojourn of thirteen years was to be promptly chronicled by an O. Henry cartoon. Albion Winegar Tourgee, author of "The Fool's Errand, by One of the Fools," was the first carpet-bagger to enter the "somnolent little Southern town" on the heels of the receding armies. But the town was anything but somnolent during his stay. "He was a bold, outspoken, independent kind of

"He

man," writes a Confederate soldier of Greensboro who knew him well and opposed his every move. did not toady to the better class of citizens but pursued the even tenor of his way, seemingly regardless of public opinion. He had a good mind and exercised it. He was masterful and would be dominating. He was not popular with the other carpet-baggers nor with the prominent native scalawags-which speaks much for his honesty and independence." By the votes of recently enfranchised slaves he was made a judge, an able, fearless, and personally honest one. But he was always an alien, an unwelcome intrusion, a resented imposition, "a frog in your chamber, a fly in your ointment, a mote in your eye, a triumph to your enemy, an apology to your friends, the one thing not needful, the hail in harvest, the ounce of sour in a pound of sweet." O. Henry found a silver lining in his presence but Governor Worth succeeded at last in having a more acceptable judge appointed in his place.

"The Fool's Errand" finds few readers to-day but when it appeared, in 1879, it took the country by storm. "There can be no doubt," said the Boston Traveller of this Greensboro story, "that "A Fool's Errand' will take a high rank in fiction-a rank like that of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin."" The Chicago Herald thought that the author must be Mrs. Stowe. "It may be well to inquire," said the Concord Monitor,

of New Hampshire, "in view of the power here displayed, whether the long-looked-for native American novelist who is to rival Dickens, and equal Thackeray, and yet imitate neither, has not been found." "The book will rank," said the Portland Advertiser, of Maine, "among the famous novels which represent certain epochs of history so faithfully and accurately that, once written, they must be read by everybody who desires to be well informed.”

The story takes place in Greensboro, which is called "Verdenton"; Judge Tourgee, "the fool," is "Colonel Servosse"; and most of the other characters are Greensboro men easily recognized. It is certainly a noteworthy fact that "John Burleson," a citizen of Greensboro and the hero in "A Fool's Errand," has recently reappeared as "Stephen Hoyle," the villain, in "The Traitor," the novel which Mr. Thomas Dixon has wrought into the vast and stirring historic drama called "The Birth of a Nation." Neither author attempts an accurate appraisal of the character or career of "John Burleson" alias "Stephen Hoyle," both interpreting him only as the rock on which the Ku Klux Klan was wrecked.

Judge Tourgee had lain awake many a night in Greensboro expecting a visit from "The Invisible Empire," but it had not come. In place of it there came the conviction, which gives form and substance