North and South Trilogy by John Jakes

thwack on the ear from his father. Mrs. Hazard looked chagrined.
    Stiffly, Orry said, “I’m sorry, I never heard of the Kembles.”
    “Their Saturday-night fetes are famous.” Stanley’s tone suggested that Orry and his home state somehow existed outside the mainstream of national life.
    To Mr. Hazard, Orry said, “They’re ironmakers, are they?”
    The older man nodded. “With candor and envy, I must admit there are none better in the nation.”
    “Maybe they could help my brother.”
    Bored, Stanley forked up a potato. But William Hazard listened politely as Orry explained that in recent letters Cooper had complained about excessive breakage of wrought-iron walking beams and flywheels in the rice mill at Mont Royal.
    “That’s the name of our plantation. The mill used to be powered by the river tides, but my brother talked my father into trying a steam engine. Father was against the idea. Now he thinks he was right.”
    “Casting iron is a tricky business,” Mr. Hazard said. “Perhaps the Kembles could help your brother. Better still, why not let us try? Have him write me.”
    “I’ll do that, sir. Thank you!”
    Orry was always eager to make his older brother think well of him. He wrote Cooper the next day. Cooper’s reply began with words of appreciation to Orry. He then said he suspected that the man in Columbia who made the mill parts understood the process even less than he did. Hence he would be grateful for advice and assistance from experts. He was dispatching a letter to Hazard Iron immediately.
    June approached. To Orry’s surprise, he realized he stood a good chance of surviving his plebe year, although he seemed destined to remain an immortal forever. George continued to stand high in the academic ranking, and without visible effort. Orry envied his friend, but never to the point that jealousy impaired their relationship.
    Both friends had managed to keep their demerit total just under two hundred, and when the new group of prospective cadets began to arrive, pressure on the plebes lessened. Orry and George did their share of deviling the newcomers, but there was little meanness in it. Bent had provided too good an object lesson.
    It was impossible to avoid the Ohioan completely, of course. But whenever they encountered him, he affected an opaque stare, as if they didn’t exist. The friends continued to feel that although Bent had left them alone during their final months as plebes, he certainly hadn’t forgotten about them. Nor was it likely that he had forgiven them, either.
    About ten days before the start of the summer encampment, Cooper arrived unexpectedly. He had just come from Pennsylvania, where William and Stanley Hazard had examined some of the shattered parts from the Mont Royal mill.
    “Your father and brother solved the problem in short order,” Cooper reported to George. “As I suspected, that clod in Columbia doesn’t know what he’s doing. Apparently he doesn’t remelt his pig iron at the right temperature. If I can convince him of that, we may have fewer breakdowns. Of course convincing him won’t be easy. As far as he’s concerned, admitting you can learn something from a Yankee is almost as bad as saying Johnny Calhoun was wrong on nullification.”
    George was fascinated by Cooper Main, who was twenty-three and taller than his younger brother. He wore fine clothes, which managed to look terribly untidy. He had sunken cheeks and darting dark eyes and was not without a sense of humor, although George found him more inclined to sarcastic smiles than to laughter. Cooper and Orry shared certain obvious family traits, including a slender frame, the brown wavy hair, and the narrow, almost haughty nose. But the older brother lacked the robust color Orry developed whenever he spent even one day in the sunshine; Cooper’s thin face and body seemed to have an unhealthy aura, as if he had been born pale, tired, and driven to think too much.
    Cooper had decided to make the