“Why, sin is what all good men and wimmen must fight aginst; educate public sentiment aginst it; make it obnoxious; or what will become of everybody and the world if they don’t? Why, they will be ondone, they and the hull world, if they don’t. I will,” says I firmly, “I will see Uncle Sam about it at once.”
“Oh,” says he, in a impudent, pert tone, “Uncle Sam won’t do nothin’ to hinder us. He has always protected us. He has done well by us. He has let us do about as we was a mind to.”
“I know it,” says I, “but I’ll tell you,” says I, ontyin’ my apron-strings in a absent-minded sort of a mechanicle way, and then tyin’ ’em up agin in the same way (or about the same), “I’ll tell you what,” says I, for I was fairly determined to find some excuse for Samuel, if I possibly could, “the fact is, that old man hain’t been well for quite a number of years. He has seemed to be sort o’ runnin’ down; his constitution hain’t seemed right to me. And he has had miserable doctors; or that is, he has got help in some directions, good help, and in others he has had the poorest kind of physic. But,” says I, firmly, “that old man means well; there hain’t a well-meanin’er, conscientiouser old creeter on the face of the earth than that old man is.”
“Yes,” says he, “he has done well by us. We hain’t no fault to find with him.”
Oh! how that madded me. But I was determined to find all the excuses for Samuel that I could (though I was at my wit’s end, or pretty nigh there, to find ’em, and I can’t deny it). Says I,
THE CALL TO DUTY.
“That old man has been more than half crazy for a number of years back. What with fightin’ and bloodshed right in his own family, amongst his own childern—and the injins screechin’ and warhoopin’ round his frontiers, and the Chinamen a cuttin’ up behind his back, and his neighbors a fightin’ amongst themselves, and jabbin’ at him every chance they got; and congressmen and everybody a stealin’ everything they could, right under his nose, and cuttin’ up and actin’. It is a wonder to me that the old man hain’t gin up long ago, and died off. I guess lots of folks thought, a number of years ago, that he wouldn’t live a year. And it wasn’t nothin’ but his goodness and solid principles that kep’ him up, and everybody knows it. He’s had enough to bear to kill a ox.”
“We ort to speak well of him,” says he agin. “He has done first-rate by us. He has seemed to like us.”
“Shet up!” says I. “I won’t hear another word from you aginst that old man. Your doin’s has worried Samuel almost to death—I know it has. I wouldn’t be afraid to bet (if I believed in bettin’) that it has wore on him more than all the work he has done for years.