The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862, page 209 by Various Authors
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n; but the loss of so much money rent his small, black soul into fragments. However, he rewrote the paper, and passed it to me. It was all right; and when he had signed and David had witnessed it, I placed it in my pocket-book. Then, with a trembling hand, he handed me the check. It was drawn to my order; and I remarked, as I took it: 'This is not what I require, sir. I want your check, indorsed by David.'
'This is most unaccountable, Mr. Kirke. Do you question my check for thirty thousand dollars?' he asked, his face flushing with anger.
'Oh! no, sir, not at all; but you might stop its payment. With David's indorsement, you would not dare to do it.'
'I will indorse it,' said David; and he quietly proceeded to write another.
That cold, hard, soulless man had a wife and children; but that old book-keeper was the only being in all this wide world that he loved!
Placing the check with the other paper, I shook David by the hand, and bidding him 'good-night', passed down the old stairway.
As Frank is the hero of my history, I will, in another chapter, go back some seventeen years, and tell the reader how he came to be under my control, and how he rose to be a partner in the great house of Russell, Rollins & Co.
CORN IS KING.
Up among the Granite mountains, By the Bay State strand, Hark! the paean cry is sounding Through all Yankee land. 'Wave the stars and stripes high o'er us, Let every freeman sing, In a loud and joyful chorus: Brave young Corn is King! Join, join, for God and freedom! Sing, Northmen, sing: Old King Cotton's dead and buried: brave young Corn is King.'
Southward rolls the cry of gladness, On past Washington; Where the bond-slave stoops no longer, But stands up, a Man! O'er battle-fields of 'Ole Virginny,' Floats the black man's song: 'Brudders, God is takin' vengeance For de darky's wrong! Shout, shout, for God and Freedom! Sing, darkies, sing! Ole Massa Cotton's dead foreber: Young Massa Corn am King!'
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