Ten Years After
"Sally, those awful Night Riders are around again."
"No, Milt, you don't really mean it?"
Sally looked up quickly from her sewing across the hearth to where her
stalwart husband sat with crossed legs, making of his swinging right
foot a make-believe skittish horse for Milton, junior, age three.
"Father, what does Night Riders mean?" asked a young girl of nine or ten
standing near, who had her mother's fair complexion and richly tinted
hair, but her father's dark and expressive eyes.
"They are men who band together and ride through the country at night
for the purpose of forcing people to do certain things that the band
demands. The members usually go masked so that they may not be
recognized."
"Then they must be wicked men," continued Alice frankly, "if they are so
afraid they will be seen. Did you ever see a Night Rider, father?"
"A long time ago," answered Milt soberly, but with a mischievous twinkle
in his eye as he glanced across at his wife, "and he was a pretty sorry
sight, I must say."
"Has ma seen one, too?" persisted Alice, with the insistence of
childhood.
"Yes, dear, when I was a girl and lived with your grandma before she
died, at a toll-gate just down the road apiece, I saw a Night Rider
then."
"What was he like?" questioned Alice, deeply interested, "Was he scary
looking?"
"No," said her mother hesitatingly, "I thought him rather good-looking
at the time," and she smiled over at her husband.
"Was he as good-looking as father?" asked Alice, following the glance
with her keen young eyes.
"Nothing like," affirmed Sally emphatically, and then she and Milt both
laughed.
"What are the Night Riders after now?" she inquired some time later,
after the children had gone to bed, and the two sat talking by the fire.
"There are no more toll-gates to be raided."
"It's the tobacco question now, instead of free roads, and it's becoming
a very serious one."
"I knew that in some parts of the old Blue Grass State the tobacco
growers were having considerable trouble, but I hadn't heard that
mischief was brewing in this quarter."
"Yes, the trouble is spreading generally throughout the tobacco growing
regions of the State. Successful raids have been made on several cities
and towns, and the large independent warehouses burned; buyers for some
of these houses have been severely whipped, and in some cases ordered to
leave the State. Troops have been ordered to several points to protect
property and maintain order, and the Governor has been called upon to
suppress the lawlessness that is abroad."
"Why, this is worse than during the toll-gate troubles," said Sally.
"Much worse," assented her husband. "The loss of property is very much
greater. Barns have been burned filled with tobacco, and hundreds of
plant beds scraped, and a promise is being exacted from the growers not
to produce a crop this present season. It's a sort of triangular war in
which the grasping Trust--the pooled Tobacco Association and the
Independent growers, all figure," added Milt.
"And have you agreed to pool your tobacco?" asked Sally, when the
serious situation had been more fully discussed.
"No, I think I have the right to dispose of it as I see fit. I am a free
man, and live in a free country, and I don't intend to be coerced. I
have sold my last year's crop to an independent buyer, and will begin
delivering it sometime within the next few days."
"I hope there'll be no trouble over it if you do," said his wife
earnestly. "I have had quite enough experience along the line of night
riding to last me for several years to come."
"I scarcely think any attempt will be made to intimidate _me_" asserted
Milt confidently. "In some places threatening letters and warnings have
been sent to persons who have fallen under the displeasure of the band,
but nothing of the kind has occurred about here."
"Don't you think it would have been a wise plan to let the growing of
tobacco alone until these troubles are settled?" inquired his wife.
"No, I do not. They are trying to force the farmer to cut out his crop
of tobacco this year, but--as I have said before--this is a free
country, and it seems to me a man should be allowed to grow what he
chooses on his own land."
"It would seem so, and yet when to do this is to invite trouble, it
appears to me that the wisest thing would be to leave the matter alone."
"I hate to be driven against my will," argued Milt. "I have set out to
raise a crop of tobacco this season, and I don't want to back down. That
is why I have put my plant bed in the garden near the house, so I can
protect it, if necessary. I think, though, there need be no uneasiness
along this line."
The next morning on going to his barn, Milton Derr found tied to the
barn-door a bundle of switches and a crudely written note to which was
fastened some matches and a cartridge.
[Illustration: DERR FOUND A BUNDLE OF SWITCHES AND A CRUDE NOTE ON HIS
TOBACCO BARN DOOR.]
The note ran as follows:
"Milt derr, you'r bein watched, we have an eye on you, we hear you air
goin' to turn dumper an' sell yore crop to independents, also air fixin'
to raise another crop. Better not, these three things air for sech as
you. Yore weed may go up in smoke before it's ready for the pipe. Go
slow. N. R."
Milton Derr slowly read over this illiterate note some two or three
times before he seemed to gather its full meaning, then he carefully
folded it up and put it in his pocket. Surely someone must be trying to
play a practical joke on him by sending such a communication as this,
and yet, taking into consideration the numerous rumors of happenings in
other localities, this ill-spelled epistle possessed all the ear marks
of a genuine note of warning from the terrible Night Riders.
"I must keep this from Sally," he muttered, "at least until I can get my
tobacco safely delivered, and it's up to me to deliver it at once,
before the Night Riders conclude to pay me a visit, as this note
intimates they may do in the near future."
"Sally was not so far from wrong after all, when she said trouble would
come of this," he added. "When once I can get my crop safely delivered
and out of my barn, there is little further danger to apprehend."
Acting on this supposition, Milt immediately after breakfast began
preparations for removing his crop, and with the aid of two hired men
was ready by noon to start for the point of delivery some miles distant,
telling his wife that he would return sometime during the night.
After supper Sally sat down to do some mending, and among other things
to fix the pocket-linings of the coat her husband had laid aside for a
heavier one during his long drive, and this note of warning, which he
intended to keep from her knowledge for the present was the first thing
she came across during her self-imposed task.