I see the Kernel felt very bad, an ef he couldn't talk nor tell stories, I didn't know wat on arth might happen. I was afeered he would get so full that sumthin like the dropsy would set in. An sure enuf, that nite not a word did he speak, nor a story did he tell. The consekence was, he began to swell an bloat like a mad porkepine. I see at once that I must turn doctor agin, or there was no tellin how soon he might kick the bucket. He was growin wus fast, actually beginnin to look _blue_. So ses I, "Kernel, there's no help for it; you must be tapped!" "Tapped!" ses he, "Majer, tapped! There warn't enything ever _tapped_ in my house that lasted more that a week. Oh no! I ain't reddy to die yet." I see the "rulin pashin was strong in deth," jest as the poet's say; but as soon as I got a joke out of him, I knew that he would survive. So thinks I to myself, I'll see ef I can fetch him to by another joke; so ses I, "Kernel, suppose 'tappin' should kill you, you would go to a _world of spirits_!" Wen I said this, he jumped rite up out of his chair, laughin, an takin me by the hand, ses he, "Majer, you are the best frend I've got. Wen I'm sick you doctor me, an wen I'm down spereted you jest joke me rite out of the dumps." Ses he, "Majer, I've a good mind to make you Commander-in-Cheef of the Army." "No, no," ses I, "Kernel, don't do that, for I should think you had sumthin agin me, an wanted to hand me over to the Abolishinists to be punished!" The Kernel and I have also been bizzy sence I wrote you last in getting up the next message. He has been ritin his ideas on little slips of paper about two inches wide, as they have happened to pop in his head, an then submitten 'em to me to sort of polish up. The Kernel ses that ritin a message is a good deal like gettin out timber for a barn in the woods. Fust, you want the sills, then the posts, then the girders, then the plates, an finally the rafters. We ain't got the sills fairly hewed out and squared yit. The truth is, the Kernel is kinder worried as to how exactly to lay the foundashin. Wilson, who is now here, ses the sills must be of Abolishin timber, and no mistake. I telled the Kernel that sich stuff was the poorest kind of bass-wood, an wouldn't stand nohow. Then he thought of puttin in a mixture of Abolishin timber an sum constitutional saw-logs, but I telled him that that would make it so cross-grained that it wouldn't bear eny weight at all, an by the time we got the rafters on it would all smash down in a pile. "Wal," ses he, "Majer, I must do sumthin to keep my party together. I must contrive sum sort of a mixture that won't look too much Abolishin, an yet that won't drive off the old, genewine friends of freedom." "Wal," ses I, "I don't think your party kin hold together much longer, enyhow. It seems to me it is mity nigh now fallen to pieces, an it won't take much longer to knock it into so menny pieces that you can't no more putty 'em together than you can find the tail of a rainbow."