“Probably the old gentleman wood hev become indignant, and would hev remarked to him to go, and never let him see his audacious face agin, or rather, he would hev strangled the harlots, scattered the blacklegs, and choked the young sprout into submission. Them’s me. I am anxious to kill that fatted calf, and am also anxious to put on yoo robes and shoes. But, alas! the calf suffered from want uv attention so long doorin the late misunderstandins that he’s too poor—the robes wuz all cut up into bloo kotes for the soljers we sent out to fetch you in—the shoes they wore out, and the rings—Jeff’son Davis wears the only style we hev. When you come back in good shape, yool find us ready to meet you; but till then, chaw husks!”
Lookin around, this armed tyrant remarked that there would be no more preaching that day, and sadly the congregation dispersed.
I’m heart sick. At every turn I make that Burow stares me in the face, and counteracts my best endeavors. It’s curious, though, what different sermons kin be preached from the same text, and it’s also curious how quiet our folks listen to a ablishnist who hez muskets to back him.
Petroleum V. Nasby,
Lait Paster uv the Church of the New Dispensashun.
XXVII.
A Pleasant Dream, the Philadelphia Convention being the Subject thereof.
Confedrit × Roads
(wich is in the Stait uv Kentucky),
July 28, 1866.
My dreams, uv wich I hev hed many doorin the past five years, hevent bin overly pleasant; indeed, they hev taken more the shape uv hideous nitemares than anything else—Linkin, Grant, Sherman, and armies dressed in blue, figurin extensively therein. But last nite I hed a vision wich more than repaid me for all I hev suffered heretofore. I hed bin at the Corners assistin in inauguratin a new grocery. The proprietor wuz a demoralized Ablishnist who hed sold likker surreptitiously in Maine, among them Ablishunists, and consekently hed no idea uv the quantity a full grown Kentucky Democrat cood throw hisself outside uv. His entire capital with which he proposed to commence biznis wuz one barrel uv new corn whiskey, and some other necessaries, and ez a starter, to make the acquaintance uv his customers, he announced one free nite, and invited the entire community. His invitashun wuz considered generous, and we met it in the same noble sperit—in a more nobler sperit than the confidin and ignorant man desired, in fact; for when we got through, in about 38 minits, there wuzn’t a drop uv the whiskey left, and while the new grocery keeper wuz a rollin uv us out, he wuz cussin hisself for a fool. He didn’t open agin; he consoomed his stock in trade in givin the blow-out to sekoor customers. His stock, like A. Johnson’s Unionism, didn’t survive an inaugerashen.
I succumbed in a fence corner, and overpowered ez I wuz, slept