"What are you in favor of, Patrick Henry?" Mrs. Diggs asked, in her shrill, sharp tones, of her own hopeful son.
"I'm in favor of freedom and the Stars and Stripes," answered Patrick Henry, gnawing vigorously at the chicken bone he held in his hand.
"He is a patriot," exclaimed the 'Squire. "He talks of nothing so much as Revolutionary days and Revolutionary heroes. He has such a taste for military life that I'd send him to West Point, but his mother objects."
"Yes, I do object," put in the shrill-voiced, cadaverous Mrs. Diggs, "They don't take a child of mine to their strict military schools. Why, what if he was to get sick, away off there, and me here? I wouldn't stop day or night till I got there."
Dinner over, the party repaired to the parlor, and 'Squire Diggs asked his son to speak "one of his pieces" for the entertainment of the company.
"What piece shall I say?" asked Patrick Henry, as anxious to display his oratorical talents as his father was to have him.
"The piece that begins, 'I come not here to talk,'" said Mrs. Diggs, her sallow features lit up with a smile that showed the tips of her false teeth.
Several of the negroes, learning that a show of some kind was about to begin in the parlor, crowded about the room, peeping in at the doors and windows. Patrick Henry took his position in the centre of the room, struck a pompous attitude, standing high as his short legs would permit, and, brushing the hair from his forehead, bowed to his audience and, in a high, loud monotone, began:
"I come not to talk! You know too well
The story of our thraldom. We—we—"