However, war had not then broken out in Europe. It would be
different now.
A Virginia lady told me of having gone to a dentist in Winchester,
Virginia, and having taken her little niece with her. The child watched
the dentist put a rubber dam in her aunt's mouth, and then, childlike,
began to ask questions. She was a northern child, and she had evidently
heard some one in the town speak of Sheridan's ride.
"Auntie," she said, "was Sheridan a Northerner or a Southerner?"
Owing to the rubber dam the aunt was unable to reply, but the dentist
answered for her. "He was a drunken Yankee!" he declared vehemently.
When, later, the rubber dam was removed, the aunt protested.
"Doctor," she reproved, "you should not have said such a thing to my
niece. She is from New York."
"Then," returned the unrepentant dentist, "she has heard the truth for
once!"
Doubtless this man was an inheritor of hate, like the descendants of one
uncompromisingly bitter old Southerner whose will, to be seen among the
records of the Hanover County courthouse, in Virginia, bequeaths to his
"children and grandchildren and their descendants throughout all future
generations, the bitter hatred and everlasting malignity of my heart and
soul against the Yankees, including all people north of Mason and
Dixon's line.
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