“Stop swearin’, instantly and this minute; and if you want my advice, proceed, and go on.”
Says he, “There I have voted that ticket seventeen times, and I was paid to vote the democrat.” Says he, “I am a man of my word, I am a poor man but a honest one. And here I have,”—says he in a mournful tone—“here I have voted the wrong ticket seventeen times.” Says he in a bitter tone, “I had ruther have give half a cent than to had this happen.” Says he, “I am a poor man, I haint no capital to live on, and have got to depend on my honesty and principles for a livin’. And if this gets out, I am a ruined man;” says he in awful bitter tones, “what would the man that hired me say, if he should hear of it?”
“What did he give you?” says I, and as I said this, that strange, curious feelin’ came over me again, as strange a feelin’ as I ever felt.
Says he, “He give me this coat.”
Then I knew it all. Then the cast-iron entered my sole, the arrer that had been a diggin’ into me, unbeknown to me as it was, went clear through me, and come out on the other side, (the side furtherest from sister Minkley.) Then I knew the meanin’ of the strange feelin’ I had felt. It was Father Allen’s coat—one that had fell to Josiah. Then I knew the meanin’ of my companion’s mysterious demeanor, as he bore the bundle from the barn. His plottin’s the week before, and his drawin’s onto my sympathy, to keep me from puttin’ it into the carpet rags, when I was fairly sufferin for blue in the fancy stripe, and refrained from takin’ it, because he said it would hurt his feelin’s so. Oh the fearful agony of that half a moment. What a storm was a ragin’ on the inside of my mind. But with a almost terrible effort, I controlled myself, and kep’ considerable calm on the outside. Truly, everybody has their own private collection of skeletons; but that haint no sign they should go abroad in public a rattlin’ their bones; it don’t help the skeletons any nor their owners, and it haint nothin’ highlarious and happyfyin’ to the public. I hadn’t no idee of lettin’ sister Minkley into the clothes-press where my skeletons hung, knowin’ that she probable had a private assortment of her own skeletons, that she could look at unbeknown to me.
“What made you vote the wrong ticket?” Says I, “can’t you read?”
“No,” says he, “we can’t none of us read, my father, nor my brothers; there is nine of us in all. My father and mother was first cousins,” says he in a confidential tone; “and the rest of my brothers don’t know only jest enough to keep out of the fire. I am the only smart one in the family. But,” says he, “my brothers will all do jest as father and I tell ’em to, and they will all vote a good many times a day, every ’lection; and we are all willin’ to do the fair thing and vote for the one that will pay us the most. But not knowin’ how to read, we git cheated,” says he with that bitter look, “there is so much corruption in politics now-a-days.”
“I should think as much,” says I. And almost overcome by my emotions, I spoke my mind out loud.
“There couldn’t be much worse goin’s on, anyway, if wimmen voted.”
“Wimmen vote!” says he in a awful scornful tone. “Wimmen!”