“How can you laugh at such a shameful sight, Aleck Howell? I’m sure it’s something to cry over, rather than to laugh at––a spectacle like that! A free American citizen hustled away from the polls in that disgraceful fashion!”
“But, Charlie,” said Uncle Aleck, “you’ll admit that it was funny to see the Woburn man hoisted over that cabin. Besides, I don’t believe he has any right to vote here; do you?”
“He would have been allowed to vote fast enough if he had had the sort of ballot that those fellows want to go into the box. They looked at his ballot, and as soon as they saw what it was, they threw him over the cabin.”
The Polls at Libertyville. the Woburn Man is “Hoisted” Over the Cabin.
Just then, John Clark came back from the ravine into which he had slid from the roof of the log-house, looking very much crestfallen. He explained that he had met some pro-slavery men on the road that morning, and they had told him he could vote, if he chose, and they had furnished him with the necessary ballot.
“They took in my clothes at a glance,” said Clark, “and they seemed to suppose that a man with butternut homespun was true-blue; so they didn’t ask any questions. I got a free-State ballot from another man and was a-goin’ to plump it in; but they were too smart for me, and over I went. No, don’t you worry; I ain’t a-goin’ up there to try it ag’in,” he said, angrily, to an insolent horseman, who, riding up, told him not to venture near the polls again if he “did not want to be kicked out like a dog.”
“Come on, neighbor; let’s be goin’,” he said to Uncle Aleck. “I’ve had enough voting for to-day. Let’s light out of this town.” Then the men, taking up their ox-goads, drove out of town. They had had their first sight of the struggle for freedom.