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THE COPPERHEAD




BY HAROLD FREDERIC.


IN THE VALLEY.

    Illustrated by Howard Pyle      $1.50

THE LAWTON GIRL.

    12mo, paper, 50 cents; cloth    $1.25

SETH'S BROTHER'S WIFE.

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THE COPPERHEAD.

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THE COPPERHEAD


BY
HAROLD FREDERIC


NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1893




COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER                            PAGE
   I.   ABNER BEECH                   1

  II.   JEFF'S MUTINY                17

 III.   ABSALOM                      35

  IV.   ANTIETAM                     47

   V.   "JEE'S" TIDINGS              63

  VI.   NI'S TALK WITH ABNER         76

 VII.   THE ELECTION                 90

VIII.   THE ELECTION BONFIRE        106

  IX.   ESTHER'S VISIT              115

   X.   THE FIRE                    133

  XI.   THE CONQUEST OF ABNER       146

 XII.   THE UNWELCOME GUEST         158

XIII.   THE BREAKFAST               172

 XIV.   FINIS                       182




THE COPPERHEAD




CHAPTER I

ABNER BEECH


It was on the night of my thirteenth birthday, I know, that the old
farm-house was burned over our heads. By that reckoning I must have
been six or seven when I went to live with Farmer Beech, because at the
time he testified I had been with him half my life.

Abner Beech had often been supervisor for his town, and could have
gone to the Assembly, it was said, had he chosen. He was a stalwart,
thick-shouldered, big man, with shaggy dark eyebrows shading stern
hazel eyes, and with a long, straight nose, and a broad, firmly shut
mouth. His expansive upper lip was blue from many years of shaving; all
the rest was bushing beard, mounting high upon the cheeks and rolling
downward in iron-gray billows over his breast. That shaven upper lip,
which still may be found among the farmers of the old blood in our
district was, I dare say, a survival from the time of the Puritan
protest against the mustaches of the Cavaliers. If Abner Beech, in the
latter days, had been told that this shaving on Wednesday and Saturday
nights was a New England rite, I feel sure he would never have touched
razor again.

He was a well-to-do man in the earlier time--a tremendous worker, a
"