“Oh, his platform seemed to be chiefly that he was out to save the common people from the eternal disgrace of voting for a man like Dwight. He certainly piled it on thick and heavy. It would have made Carson's own mother slink away in shame. Carson, Wiggin said, had loved niggers since he was knee high to a duck, and had always contended that a negro owned by the aristocracy of the South was ahead of the white, razor-back stock in the mountains who had never had that advantage. Carson was up in arms against the White Caps that had come to Darley and whipped those lazy coons, and was going to prosecute every man in the bunch to the full extent of the United States law. If he got into the Legislature he intended to pass laws to make it a penitentiary offence for a white man to shove a black buck off the sidewalk. 'But he's not going to take his seat in the Capitol of Georgia,' Wiggins said, with a yell--'if Carson Dwight went to Atlanta it would _not_ be on a free pass.' And, boys, that crowd yelled till the dry leaves overhead clapped an encore. The men yelled and the women and children yelled.” “He's a contemptible puppy!” Dwight said, angrily. “Yes, but he's a slick politician among men of that sort,” said Tingle. “He certainly knows how to talk and stir up strife.” “And I suppose you sat there like a bump on a log, and listened to all that without opening your mouth!” Keith Gordon spoke up from his bed, where he lay in his bath-robe smoking over the remains of the breakfast Skelt had brought from the hotel on a big black tray. “Well, I _did_--get up,” Tingle answered, with a manly flush. “Oh, you _did!_” Garner leaned forward with interest. “Well, I'm glad you happened to be on hand, for your paper has considerable influence over there.” “Yes, I got up. I waved my hands up and down like a buzzard rising, to keep the crowd still till I could think of something to say; but, Carson, old man, you know what an idiot I used to be in college debates. I could get through fairly well on anything they would let me write down and read off, but it was the impromptu thing that always rattled me. I was as mad as hell when I rose, but all those staring eyes calmed me wonderfully. I reckon I stood there fully half a minute swallowing--” “You damned fool!” Garner exclaimed, in high disgust. “Yes, that's exactly what I was,” Tingle admitted. “I stood there gasping like a catfish enjoying his first excursion in open air. It was deathly still. I've heard it said that dying men notice the smallest things about them. I remember I saw the horses and mules haltered out under the trees with their hay and fodder under their noses--the dinner-baskets all in a cluster at the spring guarded by a negro woman. Then what do you think? Old Jeff Condon spoke up. “'Lead us in prayer, brother,' he said, in reverential tones, and since I was born I never heard so much laughing.”