When men might be so happy, why need they stain their hands with each other's blood ?" Frank was unprepared for an answer.

He knew that it was his father's departure which led his mother to speak thus.

He wished to divert her mind, if possible.
Circumstances favored his design.
They had accomplished perhaps three-quarters of the distance home when, as they were passing a small one-story building by the roadside, a shriek of pain was heard, and a little black boy came running out of the house, screaming in affright: "Mammy's done killed herself.

She's mos' dead!" He ran out to the road and looked up at Mrs.Frost, as if to implore assistance.
"That's Chloe's child," said Mrs.Frost.

"Stop the horse, Frank; I'll get out and see what has happened." Chloe, as Frank very well knew, was a colored woman, who until a few months since had been a slave in Virginia.