NELSE HATTON'S VENGEANCE
his veins. I thought that I was reconstructed; but I'm not. My State did n't need it, but I did."
"Where're you from?"
"Kentucky; and there's where I'm bound for now. I want to get back where people have hearts and sympathies."
The coloured man was silent. After a while he said, and his voice was tremulous as he thought of the past, "I'm from Kintucky, myself."
"I knew that you were from some place in the South. There's no mistaking our people, black or white, wherever you meet them. Kentucky's a great State, sir. She did n't secede; but there were lots of her sons on the other side. I was; and I did my duty as clear as I could see it."
"That's all any man kin do," said Nelse; "an' I ain't a-blamin' you. I lived with as good people as ever was. I know they would n't 'a' done nothin' wrong ef they 'd 'a' knowed it; an' they was on the other side."
"You've been a slave, then?" "Oh, yes, I was born a slave; but the War freed me."
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