“No, it _hain't_ his time,” said Mrs. Parsons, unrolling her bonnet like a switchman's flag and waving it to and fro. “I started to tell you about Carson Dwight. He can't help bein' born in a rich family any more'n I could in a pore one, but I'm here to tell you that since I had the moral backbone to aid that nigger to git away I've thanked God a thousand times that I did that much to help genuine justice along. I could listen to forty million men like this candidate expound his views and it wouldn't alter me one smidgen in the belief that Carson Dwight has acted only as a true Christian would. He knew that nigger. He had known him, I'm told, from childhood up. He knew the sort of black stock the boy sprung from, an' the white family he was trained in, an' he simply didn't believe he was guilty of that crime. Believing that, thar wasn't but one honest thing for him to do, and that was to fight for the pore thing's rights. He knew that most of the racket agin the boy was got up by t'other candidate, and he set about to save the pore, beggin' darky's neck from the halter or his body from the burning brush-heap. Did he do it at a sacrifice? Huh, answer me that! Where did you ever see another politician on the eve of his election that would take up such a' issue as that, infuriating nearly every person who had promised to vote for him? Where will you find a young man with enough stamina to stand on a horse-block over the heads of hundreds of howling demons, and with one wound from a pistol on his brow, darin' 'em to shoot ag'in and holdin' on like a bull-dog to the pore cowerin' wreck at his feet?” There was applause, slight at first, but increasing. There were, too, under Mrs. Parson's eye many softening faces, and into them she continued to throw her heart-felt appeal. “You've been told this morning that Carson Dwight makes fun of us country people. I'll admit I saw him do it once, but it was _only_ once. He made fun of a mountain chap over at Darley one circus day. The fellow had insulted a nice country gal, and Carson Dwight made a _lot_ of fun of him. He hammered the dirty scamp's face till it looked like a ripe tomato that the rats had been gnawin'.” At this point there was laughter loud and prolonged. “Now, listen,” the speaker went on. “I want you to hear something, and I don't want you ever to forget it. I got it straight from a truthful man who was there. The night you mountain men gathered from all sides like the rising of the dead on Judgment Day, and got ready to march to Darley to take that boy out of jail, the news reached Carson Dwight just an hour or so before the appointed time. He got a few friends together and told them if they cared for him to make one more effort to stop the trouble.