“And as I said before, if God called woman into this work, He will enable her to carry it through. He will protect her from her own weaknesses, and the misapprehensions and hard judgments and injustices of a gain-sayin’ world.
“Yes, the star of hope is risin’ in the sky brighter and brighter, and wise men are even now comin’ to the mother of the new Redeemer, led by the star.”
He sot demute. Silence rained for some time; and finally I spoke out solemnly through the rain:
“Will you do Serepta’s errents? Will you give her her rights? And will you break the Whiskey Ring?”
He said he would love to do the errents, I had convinced him that it would be just and right to do ’em, but the Constitution of the United States stood up firm aginst ’em. As the laws of the United States wuz, he could not make any move toward doin’ either of the errents.
Sez I, “Can’t the laws be changed?”
“Be changed? Change the laws of the United States? Tamper with the glorious Constitution that our fore-fathers left us—an immortal sacred legacy.”
He jumped up on his feet and his second-hand smile fell off. He kinder shook as if he wuz skairt most to death and tremblin’ with horrow. He did it to skair me, I knew, but I knowed I meant well towards the Constitution and our old forefathers; and my principles stiddied me and held me firm and serene. And when he asked me agin in tones full of awe and horrow:
“Can it be that I heard my ear aright? Or did you speak of changin’ the unalterable laws of the United States—tampering with the Constitution?”
“Yes, that is what I said. Hain’t they never been changed?”