LADD OF THE BIG SWAMP

The editor of the series contributes a post Civil War story of a Georgia family who moves to the Okefenokee Swamp, and of the problems peculiar to the region. The St. Helena plantation was on the rocks, and his father a fevered invalid, when 15-year old Ladd Ludlow got his family on the move. They sell the plantation to a Northern couple. Their trip south and the first winter in the Swamp are fraught with hardship. There are outlaws and Ku Klux Klanners who resent liberals like the Ludlows who accept the freedom for their erstwhile slaves. There are the natural dangers of the Swamp itself. There's Mr. Ludlow's death. But in spite of all, they start a farm, and by Spring are able to turn down an offer to go back to Georgia in favor of their hard-won economic freedom. Sturdy idealism in regional setting.