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of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain't the wust. They said

he could vote, when he was at home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I,

what is the country a-coming to? It was 'lection day, and I was just about

to go and vote, myself, if I warn't too drunk to get there; but when

they told me there was a State in this country where they'd let that

nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I'll never vote agin. Them's the very

words I said; they all heard me; and the country may rot for all me --

I'll never vote agin as long as I live. And to see the cool way of that

nigger -- why, he wouldn't a give me the road if I hadn't shoved him out

o' the way. I says to the people, why ain't this nigger put up at auction

and sold? -- that's what I want to know. And what do you reckon they

said? Why, they said he couldn't be sold till he'd been in the State six

months, and he hadn't been there that long yet. There, now -- that's a

specimen. They call that a govment that can't sell a free nigger till he's

been in the State six months. Here's a govment that calls itself a govment,

and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a govment, and yet's got

to set stock-still for six whole months before it can take ahold of a prowling,

thieving, infernal, white-shirted free nigger, and--"

Pap was agoing on so, he never noticed where his old limber legs was

taking him to, so he went head over heels over the tub of salt pork, and

barked both shins, and the rest of his speech was all the hottest kind of

language -- mostly hove at the nigger and the govment, though he give the

tub some, too, all along, here and there. He hopped around the cabin

considerable, first on one leg and then on the other, holding first one shin

and then the other one, and at last he let out with his left foot all of a

sudden and fetched the tub a rattling kick. But it warn't good judgment,

because that was the boot that had a couple of his toes leaking out of the

front end of it; so now he raised a howl that fairly made a body's hair

raise, and down he went in the dirt, and rolled there, and held his toes;

and the cussing he done then laid over anything he had ever done previous.

He said so his own self, afterwards. He had heard old Sowberry Hagan

in his best days, and he said it laid over him, too; but I reckon that was

sort of piling it on, maybe. ssssssssss

ssssssssss

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