"Dan!" exclaimed father, in a stern voice, loosing his hand, "you've been drinking too much whiskey. I'm ashamed of you! You are taking just the way to make people despise the Democrats. Go to bed and sober up and don't let me see you in this condition again or I'll horsewhip you. Not a word, sir."
Dan went shuffling off, grumbling to himself.
It was no uncommon thing for young men to drink, but the self-respecting class was seldom drunk.
"I wish they'd put a President in for ten years," said father angrily. "I don't know but we will begin to fight each other pretty soon. Let Dan get asleep before you go upstairs, and don't make no note of it in the morning. Dan's a nice lad, generally speaking."
"What is the great difference between the parties?" I inquired.
"Well—I'll be hanged if I know, only 't seems as if men wanted to make it wider all the time. Ther's high and low tariff, and I can't tell which is best. Then ther's slavery, and northern Democrats are pretty much agin that. And money—one paper says one thing, one the other. Both men are good enough fur's I can see. From the bottom of my soul I wish Tippecanoe had been our candidate and a Democrat. Ther's the battle of Miami Rapids and Tippecanoe and Fort Meigs and the Thames. He's a good, brave soldier, and he's shown a wise head about Indian affairs and such, and he's been to Congress. I'd like it to be so you could vote for the best fellow. But it's party, party. Thank the Lord you're not old enough to have anything to do with it."
Dan was all right the next morning, but not as boisterous as usual. I went over to the warehouse in a rather troubled frame of mind, with a misgiving that I had been warned on both sides. At our nooning hour I questioned Mr. Harris about the merits of each party.
"You'd better read up history and the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and see where you come out. I guess there'll always be two parties. Now England's a monarchy and there's two parties there. Sometimes one rules the House of Commons, sometimes the other. But it is a queer thing that reforms start with the weaker party and have a hard time to get a hearing, but they grow and grow, and one is always a check on the other. Yes, you're old enough to begin to understand some of these things, but don't get to be a rabid politician, or you'll be served with walking-papers;" and he laughed.
Thursday Ruth Gaynor went home direct from school and did not take her sewing lesson.
"I do wonder what has happened to Ruth," mother said when I came home to supper. "Was she well last night? You were there?"