ILLUSTRATIONS He drew her towards him, and she did not resist "Call up a doctor to come here at once "Take it back," he thundered. "Take it back" He dashed into the crowd with uplifted cane THE AUTHOR'S FOREWORD IN January, a few years ago, a young man took the train at Chicago, Ill., on a trip to Alabama, where he expected to start in business. As he passed through Illinois that evening there was a blanket of snow, a foot deep, all over its fertile prairies. When he reached Kentucky the rain was falling on green fields, and the young man was reminded of the land of his birth, the Emerald Isle. As the train rushed onward toward the equator signs of the springtime multiplied, and soon every trace of winter was gone. In southern Alabama he found roses in bloom and perpetual sunshine. "Here," he said to himself, "is an ideal State." And well he might praise the great Cotton State! With its rich belts of agricultural, mineral, cotton and lumber lands, Alabama surpasses almost every other State in its variety of natural resources, while the sunshine of winter gives a climate where the fierce rigors of a Northern sky are unknown. Arrived at his destination the young man began to make himself at home in his new State. At first he was charmed with everything. He found the inhabitants of the State partly white and partly black, the white race, as was natural, possessing an easy mastery, keen in intellect and strong with the rich inheritance of a thousand years of Christian civilization. But the black race seemed needed also, strong in brawn and genial in disposition, and he could not but admire the dusky laborers who toiled happily under the warm Southern sun. In a little over a year |