And I dont.
Well, my tellin of Bill Bowers that ere dream is causin me no ends of trouble. Ime jist worried and hounded about by this and that one, to have me tell em about that dream, until I hardly git time to breathe.
Bill Bowers he jist went, and from the time he left our house until now he has been a tellin of my dream to every one he meets. And it seems he is a keepin a tellin it, the way people has been flockin here and keep a flockin. Jake Cribbs, and Joe Born, and Curt Hill, and Bill Loyd, and Jim Rankin and Mag his wife, and the Minnings, and the Bateses, and the Hances, and goodness only knows who all has been here to know more about my dream! And how I come to have it; and what Ime a goin to do about it; and why I dont git it published; and why I dont send it to Congress; and why I dont do this and do that!
And some of em say they have it goin that the law is made—that Bill Bowers told Tom Osborne, and Tom Osborne told Doc Hendershot, and Doc Hendershot told Lucy Joss, and Lucy Joss told somebody else, that Betsy Gaskins said there was sich a law passed, and they come from fur and near to know what paper I read it in? or how I heerd it? or if Ime certain I had it? &c. &c., and a thousand and one other things, until Ime sick and tired of it.
Last night they even waked me up at the dead hour of midnite—Ellic Shank and Lew Zimmerman and Dan Hochstetter did—to hear me tell em more about it. And Jobe he’s nearly destracted. The poor man is jist run as hard as I be, though he had nothin to do with dreamin of that dream, onless his not a sleepin with me that nite caused it.
“They waked me up at the dead hour of midnite.”
What to do to git rid of all this questionin and answerin, this comin and a goin, I dont know. If they would go to readin, and thinkin, and a reasonin with themselves, they might have some dreams of their own—yes, have dreams with their eyes open. If these very people, men and women, who are worryin the life out of me, would go to readin of papers whose mouths haint shut by the public printin they git or hope to git; if they would go to readin papers that haint got some polertician’s hand around their throat—I say if these very people would read papers whose editures haint afraid to speak the truth when they see it; haint afraid to condem the wrong wherever they find it—I say, if they would read sich papers and sich books, they would dream dreams they never dreamed of dreamin before. I think they would begin to see that the Dimicrat pays the same rate of tax as the Republican pays, and vicey versy.
They would see that, no matter what is the polerticks of the office-holder, the voter has to pay the taxes out of which the feller draws a salary.
They would see that by reducin or increasin salaries their taxes are made high or low, as the case may be.