UNCLE NATE GOWDEY.
Sez John Richard, “I have lived in the South for years, and I know what I am talking about. And I say that you Northern people, and in fact all the nation, are like folks sitting on the outside of a volcano, laughing and talking in your gay indifference, and thinking the whole nation is in safety, when the flames and the lava torrents of destruction are liable to burst out at any time and overwhelm this land in ruin.”
And then agin, though I hate to set it down—then agin did my pardner give vent to them dangerous and quarrelsome sentiments before I could reach him with a wink or any other precautionary measures. That rash man said agin:
“Oh shaw!”
And I see, devoted Christian as John Richard wuz, the words gaulded him almost more than he could endure, and he broke out in almost heated axents, and his keen dark eye a flashin’, and says he:
“I tell you the storm is brewing! I have watched it coming up and spreading over the land, and unless it is averted, destruction awaits this people.”
His tone wuz a very preachin’ one, very, and I felt considerable impressed by it; but Josiah Allen spoke up pert as a peacock, and sez he:
“Why don’t the Southern folks behave themselves, then?”
And sez John Richard:
“Do you blame the Southern white folks exclusively?”