“I'd a fine grand bite at the ear of one of them,” he said, in explanation. “'Tis no blood o' mine.”
Abner knitted his brows. “That ain't the way we fight in this country,” he said, in tones of displeasure. “Bitin' men's ears ain't no civilized way of behavin'.”
“'Twas not much of a day for civilization,” remarked Hurley, lightly; and there was no further conversation on our homeward tramp.
[CHAPTER VIII
THE ELECTION BONFIRE]
The election had been on Tuesday, November 4th. Our paper, containing the news of the result, was to be expected at the Corners on Friday morning. But long before that date we had learned—I think it was Hurley who found it out—that the Abolitionists had actually been beaten in our Congressional district. It was so amazing a thing that Abner could scarcely credit it, but it was apparently beyond dispute. For that matter, one hardly needed further evidence than the dejected way in which Philo Andrews and Myron Pierce and other followers of “Jee” Hagadorn hung their heads as they drove past our place.
Of course it had all been done by the vote in the big town of Tecumseh, way at the other end of the district, and by those towns surrounding it where the Mohawk Dutch were still very numerous. But this did not at all lessen the exhilaration with which the discovery that the Radicals of our own Dearborn County had been snowed under, filled our breasts. Was it not wonderful to think of, that these heroes of remote Adams and Jay Counties should have been at work redeeming the district on the very day when the two votes of our farm marked the almost despairing low-water mark of the cause in Agrippa?
Abner could hardly keep his feet down on the ground or floor when he walked, so powerfully did the tidings of this achievement thrill his veins. He said the springs of his knees kept jerking upward, so that he wanted to kick and dance all the while. Janey Wilcox, who, though a meek and silent girl, was a wildly bitter partisan, was all eagerness to light a bonfire out on the knoll in front of the house Thursday night, so that every mother's son of them down at the Corners might see it, but Abner thought it would be better to wait until we had the printed facts before us.
I could hardly wait to finish breakfast Friday morning, so great was my zeal to be off to the post-office. It was indeed not altogether daylight when I started at quick step down the hill. Yet, early as I was, there were some twenty people inside Lee Watkins's store when I arrived, all standing clustered about the high square row of glass-faced pigeon-holes reared on the farther end of the counter, behind which could be seen Lee and his sour-faced wife sorting over the mail by lamp-light. “Jee” Hagadorn was in this group and Squire Avery, and most of the other prominent citizens of the neighborhood. All were deeply restless.