Well, arter we had laid there some time we got onto the question of taxes, and I onthoughtedly said:
“Jobe, why couldent there be a law to make interest less and taxes lower?
“What good does it do you and your likes to vote the same party ticket year arter year, when you see they dont do anything to make things easier for you—when you know, or ort a know, that the men what runs your party only work for the money they can git out of the taxes you pay?
“What difference is it to you what party has the offices? Better laws is what you ort a look to.
“What satisfaction is it to you to have the Republicans in, anyhow?”
I hadent that last question out of my mouth until Jobe was up on his knees in the middle of the bed, layin it off with both hands. The moon shinin in through the winder made him look like a ghost, with his long gray whiskers and nothin on but his shirt.
“A strait, influential, leadin Republican officeholder.”
“Satisfaction! satisfaction!” says he, loud and quick. “Betsy Gaskins, for forty odd years Ive been goin to that air court-house and have had to pay my taxes to Dimicrats—copperheads, if you please, rebels!—and do you suppose its no satisfaction for me to go there now and see a Republican in every office? Betsy, it was the happiest day of my life when George Sharp told me that the last office in that air court-house was filled by a Republican. Even the janitor, Betsy, is a Republican. Yes, sir, the janitor is a prominent Republican. Satisfaction! Do you suppose it is no satisfaction for me to go into that court-house and see a influential Republican cleanin them big spittoons and a sweepin of that stone floor? Do you suppose that when I spit in one of them large vessels, or throw a chaw of terbacker in one of them, that it does not give me more satisfaction to know that that terbacker what has been in the mouth of Jobe Gaskins will be handled and wiped out of that spittoon by a prominent, influential Republican than if a copperhead Dimicrat was to do it? Satisfaction! Betsy, you women dont know what real perlitical satisfaction and enjoyment is—thats one reason you haint got sense enough to vote.
“Do you suppose that Ive been a votin the Republican ticket all these years for nothin? No, sir.