"You say you don't want a protective tariff; you don't want sound money. Well, you remind me of the man who killed his father, mother, brothers, sisters, and when condemned to death he begged the judge to have mercy upon a poor orphan. You have killed the tariff twice, and nearly every mill wheel stopped, and you and I had to beg from door to door or live on dry crackers and shin-bones. Do you want that kind of provender again? Butler says, 'give us greenbacks by the ton, and everybody will be rich.' You tried that once and you carried your money to market in a bushel basket, and brought back the dinner you bought with it in a gill dipper. Do you want any more such times?"
"Be Gorrah," cried my big Irish friend, "that's so: I rimimber it well. I'd forgut it; the bye's right, he is."
"Yes," I yelled, "Butler says he'll leave the Republican party out in the cold. It reminds me of the old farmer who rushed outdoors in his bed-shirt, bareheaded and barefooted in winter, grabbed a barking dog who was disturbing his rest, by the ears; his wife came down to hunt him up. 'What on airth, father, you doin'?' she cried, as she saw his knees knocking together, and his teeth chattering with the cold. 'I've gut the cuss,' he shouted, 'and I'll hold him here till he freezes to death.'
"You'll hold your employers out in the cold, will you? Well, who'll freeze to death first if you stop the factories? The owners who have plenty of money, or you who are dependent upon the work they give you for every cent you get? General Butler who lives in a palace, and drives a kingly equipage tries to frighten you by painting the bugaboo; 'the rich growing richer, and the poor growing poorer,' that soon a half-dozen plutocrats will have all the money there is in the world, and then the rest of the people will all starve. It reminds me of the old farmer who set up such an outrageous looking scarecrow in his field that the crows not only let his present corn alone, but they actually brought back in their terrible fright all the corn they had stolen in the previous ten years. Are we craven crows to be scared by such windy effigies?"
Thus having caught their attention by light weight stories, I gave them broadsides of facts and arguments until I won the greatest political fight of my life. We won a famous victory; the workers, as usual, were soon forgotten; the elected exulted in their brief authority; the defeated at once began log-rolling for the next election, and so the office hunting strife goes on forever. After this I resumed the work of my crusade against ignorance and bad literature, having had my pockets well filled by those who are always eager to trade money for fame.
Our home was three miles from the railroad station, and the wintry winds with deep snows made the frequent journeys to and fro over the bleak, uncomfortable country roads, extremely cold and often hazardous.
I had endured for years these alternate freezing and roasting rides for the pleasure of living near the old folks; but now the numerous colds and coughs resulting from the exposure drove me to move nearer to the depot, and we bought a large three-story house with barn and fourteen acres of land on High Street in the city of N——.
We rejuvenated our old castle with paint, new boiler and paper, letting loose upon our devoted heads numerous fevers and other diseases which generations had stored up on the walls, all eager for new victims. Strange it is, that all bad things are so contagious and so long-lived to punish the innocent for the sins of the guilty.
Upon me, the descendant of a long line of farmers, fell the agricultural fever, and I broke my own back as well as that of the hired man, cultivating that sterile soil where my potatoes cost me about a quarter of a dollar a piece, and each blade of grass, sickness and much hard-earned cash. We made the old place to bud and blossom like the rose, but the game as usual was not worth the candle, and an ulcerated sore throat which some predecessor had breathed upon the paper which we tore off, left me a walking skeleton, when ex-Congressman Loring, then United States Commissioner of Agriculture, came to my relief by appointing me his deputy for Florida at a good salary, to investigate and report upon the developed and undeveloped resources of that State, and its attractions for northern settlers. I gladly accepted this commission to serve my country, for—
Somewhere the sun is shining,
I thought as I toiled along
In the freezing cold of the winter,
Yes, somewhere the sun is shining
Though here I shiver and sigh,
Not a breath of warmth is stirring
Not a beam in the arctic sky.