EMMIGRATION is a much more serious matter than revolution. Virtually, it is obliteration¹. Thus, Gérard Petit, landing upon the coast of South Carolina in the days of French confusion—a period covering too many dates for a romancer to be at all choice in the matter—gave his wife and children over to the oblivion of a fatal fever. Turning his face westward², he pushed his way to the mountains. He had begun his journey fired with the despair of an exile, and he ended it with something of the energy and enterprise of a pioneer. In the foot-hills of the mountains he came to the small stream of English colonists³ that was then trickling⁴ slowly southward through the wonderful valleys that stretch from Pennsylvania to Georgia, between the foot-hills of the Blue Ridge⁵ and the great Cumberland Range. Here, perhaps for the first time, the je, vous, nous of France met in conflict the "ah yi," the "we uns" and the "you uns" of the English-Pennsylvania-Georgians. The conflict was brief. There was but one Gérard Petit, and, although he might multiply the je, vous, nous by the thousands and hundreds of thousands, as he undoubtedly⁶ did, yet, in the very nature of things, the perpetual volley of "you uns" and "we uns" must carry the day. They belonged to the time, and the climate suited them. By degrees they fitted themselves to Gérard Petit; they carried him from the mountains of South Carolina to the mountains of North Georgia, and there they helped him to build a mill and found a family. But their hospitality did not end there. With the new mill and the new family, they gave him a new name. Gérard Petit, presumably with his hand upon his heart, as became his race, made one last low bow to genealogy⁷. In his place stood Jerd Poteet, "you uns" to the left of him, "we uns" to the right of him. He made such protest as he might. He brought his