On a soap-box in Abe Jones's corner grocery, Grandfather argued politics with Old Man Stubbs and the rest of the boys.
"I've voted the straight Republican ticket all my life," he would say, proudly, when the fray was at its height, "and, by George! I'll not make a darned old fool o' myself by turning coat now. Pesky few Democrats ever I see who—"
Here Old Man Stubbs would rise from the cracker-barrel.
"If I understand you correctly, sir, you have called me a darned old fool."
"Not at all, Stubbs," Grandfather would reply, soothingly. "Not by a jugful. Now you're a Democrat—"
"And proud of it, sir," Old Man Stubbs would break in.
"You're a Democrat, Stubbs, and as such you are not responsible; but if I was to turn Democrat, Stubbs, I'd be a darned old fool."
And in the roar that followed, Old Man Stubbs would subside to the cracker-barrel and smoke furiously. Then Grandfather would say:
"Stubbs, do you remember old Mose Gray?" That was to clear the battle-field of the political carnage, so to speak—so that Old Man Stubbs would forget his grievance and walk home with Grandfather peaceably when the grocery closed for the night.
If it was winter-time, and the snowdrifts were too deep for grandfathers and little boys, you sat before the fireplace, Grandfather in his arm-chair, you flat on the rug, your face between your hands, gazing into the flames.