Anyway, Senator Coleman quailed to a extent that I hardly ever see quailed in my hull life, and I have seen lots of quailin’ in my day. And I pressed home the charge.
Sez I, “You say this law wuz made for girls; but what if this boy that your sweet Kate Fairfax left you had happened to be a girl, and had gin away all that makes life worth living, how would you have felt then, Senator Coleman?
“How would you feel a thinkin’ that you had got to meet her lovin’, questionin’ eyes up in heaven, and when she asked you what you had done with her child you would have to say that you had spent all your life a tryin’ to pass laws that wuz the ruination of her darlin’; that you had done your best to frame laws so that them that prey upon innocence and childish ignorance could go unpunished, and that the blood of these souls, the agony of breakin’ hearts wuz a layin’ at your door?
“How could you meet them sweet, lovin’ eyes and have to tell her this?”
He jest crumpled right down, and almost buried his face in his white linen handkerchief, and give vent to some low groans that wuz damp with tears.
That man had never had the truth brung right home to him before, and he trembled and he shrunk before it.
And he promised me then and there that he would turn right round and do his very best to make laws to protect innocence and ignorance and to purify the hull statute-book all he could; and I felt that he had tackled a hard job, but I believed he would try his best. I guess he means to tell the truth.
And I wuz almost overpolite to him after this, not wantin’ to do or say a thing to break up his good intentions; and when he went away he gin me a dretful meanin’, earnest look, and sez he:
“You can depend upon me to keep my word.”
And I believed he would.