FOLKS FROM DIXIE
ness; they would throw me a bone because they thought it would weigh something in the balance against their sins. To you I am an unfortunate man; to them I am a tramp."
The stranger had spoken with much heat and no hesitation; but his ardour did not take the form of offence at Nelse's question. He seemed perfectly to comprehend the motive which actuated it.
Nelse had listened to him with close attention, and at the end of his harangue he said, "You had n't ought to be so hard on your own people; they mean well enough."
"My own people!" the stranger flashed back. "My people are the people of the South, the people who have in their veins the warm, generous blood of Dixie!"
"I don't see what you stay in the North fur ef you don't like the people."
"I am not staying, I'm getting away from it as fast as I can. I only came because I thought, like a lot of other poor fools, that the North had destroyed my fortunes and it might restore them; but five years of fruitless struggle in different places out of Dixie have shown me that it is n't the place for a man with blood in
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