He wuz dretful impressed by my eloquence; he acted for all the world just as Mr. Astofeller did. He looked at his watch just as if he wuz anxious to know just the time I said such remarkable things, and I continued on, “Sister Henzy,” sez I, “thinks that the millenium is comin’.”
“Sister Henzy?” sez he inquirin’ly.
“Yes,” sez I, “Sister Mehala Henzy, sister in the M. E. meetin’-house at Jonesville. She sez that this is the great universal war that is to usher in the thousand years of peace and the comin’ of our Lord. She reads Skripter a sight and has explained it out to me and I must say it does look like it. And oh how I do want to be here to see it, but don’t spoze Josiah and I can live a thousand years, no matter how much patent medicine we take, specially as we both have the rumatiz bad, but oh how I would love to.
“Brother Meesick thinks this is goin’ to be a war of the 409 yellow races agin the whites. And though it would come tough on Josiah and me to be driv out of house and home and scalped and made slaves on, yet right whilst them yeller races wuz engaged in it if I could think at all––and of course I don’t know how much the seat of thought is situated in the crown of the head and hair and whether the entire citadel would go with the scalp, but if I could think and keep my conscientiousness as I spoze I should, I should have to give in right then and there that it wuz only justice fur the white races to submit to the revenge of the darker complected, thinkin’ what we’d done to them.
“Josiah bein’ so bald they would probable have to take his head right off, not havin’ anything to hang onto while they scalped him, and I should probably foller him soon, as I couldn’t imagine a life Josiahless. But whilst I lived, and even if I wuz sold into captivity, and see Thomas J. and the rest of the children sold into distant countries, and I chained to widder Henzy, drove off west to be slaves to Hole In The Day or Big Thunder, I should have to say amidst my heart breakin’ groans and sithes, it is just, it is just, we white folks richly deserve it for our treatment to the darker races.”
The Emperor felt my talk deeply, I knew by his looks; he looked completely wore out; it wuz from admiration I knowed.
Sez I: “It is a dretful thing to have all the beasts of the world git mixed up and a-fightin’ and chankin’ each other up, as they have seemed to, whilst the Powers have sot and looked on. Jest now it looks to me as if the Russian Bear is gittin’ the worst on’t and the dragon a-comin’ out on top, and the Eagle has done noble work a-shriekin’ and fightin’ and protectin’ her young.
“It seemed to me and Josiah that the Powers have took things pretty easy and loitered along when their ministers and missionaries wuz chased into a corner and the Boxers ready to take their heads off. It makes a sight of difference in such things whose heads are in danger. If it wuz the 410 Powers’ own heads, for instance, there would probable been more hustlin’ round.
“But things are in a dretful state in Russia and Japan and China. It is a great pity I hadn’t knowed what wuz comin’ when I wuz there; I could probable done lots of good advisin’ the Empress and tryin’ to make her do as she ort to, though my pardner thinks the blame hain’t all on China. He argys wrong, but is sot on it. He sez spozen he wuz slow with his spring’s work and didn’t keep his fences up, or hustle round so and mebby didn’t pay Ury so big wages as the Loontowners did in their factory, and wuzn’t what they called sound on the doctrines. You know they are seven-day Baptisses over in Loontown and Shackville; but Josiah sez if them two Powers got together and tried to force Loonton and Shackville civilization and ways onto Jonesville, which is a older place and glad to be kinder settled down and mind its own bizness; and if they should try to build roads through Jonesville medders and berry lots and set up their tabernacles and manufacturys there and steal right and left and divide Jonesville into pieces and divide the pieces amongst ’em, why, sez he, ‘I would arm myself and Ury and fight to the bitter hind end.’
“Sez Josiah: ‘Why do we want our pleasant woods and fields turned into noisy bedlams by the whirrin’ of wheels, creakin’ of engines and the roar and smoke and dust of traffick? Spozein’ we should make more money and dress better and own more books; money hain’t everything in life, nor hustlin’ in bizness; peace and comfort and mindin’ your own bizness is sunthin’.’