"You're right there, Os." "Now you bet your head's level." "Don't you mistake yourself, it's level!" "I tell you, you just hit the nail on the head that time!"
When this chorus subsided, Mr. Horne, who had just entered, said:
"What do you think of that concession, Os, out back of Braddon's?"
"There is no doubt," said Oscar, promptly, "but that is a question which must be adjusted. It is such internal disputes as these which weaken and destroy the unity of the country, and lay us open to an unexpected attack from the States, which we, by reason of disunion and strife, would be unable to cope with."
The house, composed of Hiram on his sugar barrel, Sam in the one chair, Jack Mackinnon on a cracker box, and a row of men braced against the counters on each side, fairly rose at this. Clearly Oscar Randall had the makings of a great speaker in him!
But Mr. Horne was a man of slow mental methods, who always decided one point before he left it for another. He waited till the chorus of "That's so; that's the ticket," "Bet your life; that's the way to talk," "Let 'em try it; we'd be ready for 'em" (this last from Jack Mackinnon who was a volunteer) had died away, when he said:
"That's right, Os; you're right there, right enough; but what do you think—ought it to be closed or should it be opened?"
"I think," said Oscar, slowly, and with confidential emphasis—"I think, as every patriotic and honest man thinks, that the rights of the people must be preserved."
A diversion occurred here. A shout from the roadway took them all out. Before the door stood a carriage with a little black-a-vised man in it; and behind that, an express waggon, beside the driver of which sat a perky-looking woman, different from anything ever seen in Ovid, for French maids of the real Parisian stripe were not apt to visit this village often.
"The way to old man Morris'? yes," said Oscar Randall, and proceeded to give minute directions.