“Peekin through a crack.”
“Here I am a old man. I have worked hard, year in and year out, and have been fool enough to vote a ticket that was enslavin me for thirty years or more. The wealth that I have produced by my hard work has been taken from me by the laws they have made, while the fellers I have voted for have got rich, and say that it is my fault if I am poor. Me and my likes had to be made poor in order that others might be made rich. Its no fault of mine. Ive tried to be honest and scorn dishonesty, and am to-day nearly without a home for bein sich and for votin the strait ticket and not askin what they was doin; while the fellers I have voted for looked on dishonesty as a honor, and have made laws by which the products of my labor has been taken from me and given to themselves and others no more honest. Ime dummed if I know what to do.
“If I leave the party the polerticians and officeseekers will call me a ‘sorehead’ and sich names; if I stay in I am doomed to distress.
“I wish the Republicans would make some of them Populist ideas into a law. Ide—Ide——”
Just then I opened the door all of a suddent, and says:
“Jobe, who air you talkin to?”
“Nobody, nobody,” says he, gittin up and steppin round, quick like.
“Jobe Gaskins,” says I, puttin my hands on my hips and throwin my head back. “Jobe Gaskins, dident I hear you a talkin?”
“No, you dident,” says he, mad like. “I haint spoke a word for hours.”
