“No danger o’ Texas Jack’s hurting _me_. He won’t chaw his own arms,” shouted the Deacon, triumphantly. “I’m fo’ defending the State and the white man’s rights; South Car’linans shall rule South Car’lina,” and he reeled about the room, swinging his limp arms, and shouting, “Hurrah for South Car’lina! Hurrah for the old Pal-met-to State!” “Come, come father,” said his son, “let me help you to bed. You talk like a crazy man.” With the assistance of Mrs. A., the Deacon was soon where his lips were safely guarded by slumber. “It is a pity you hadn’t let father join the Good Templers with me, but may be he wouldn’t ha’ stuck to the pledge,” said the boy, sadly, as he bade his mother good night. Near eleven o’clock the next morning, with nerves unstrung, head sore, and stomach disordered, and altogether in an irritable condition of mind and body, Deacon Atwood sauntered out into one of his mother’s fields, where a large mulatto man was mending a somewhat dilapidated rail-fence. The hands of the farmer, were keeping time to a succession of old plantation “spirituals” which rolled from his capacious chest like the sound of a trumpet. “O, believer, go ring that be—l—l.” * * * * * “Don’t you think I’m gwoine to ring that beautiful bel—l—l?” * * * * * “This winter’ll soon be ovah.” * * * * * “When the bride-grooms comes.” * * * * * “We’ll march through the valley in that field.” “Yo’ seem to be mighty happy this morning, Jesse,” growled the Deacon. “Well, Deacon, why shouldn’t I be happy? I’m well, and my wife is well, and my children is well, and we’re all about our business, and the children in school a learning, and God Almighty is saving my soul, and raining his spirit into my soul, and raining this beautiful sunshine down unto the cawn (corn) and the cotton, to make ’em grow, and why shouldn’t I sing? Why, brother Atwood, I feel like I’d like to ring that beautiful bell so loud that all the folks in the worl’’d hear it; a proclaiming that the Lord Jesus’ll save every poor sinnah that’ll let him,” and the dark face shone with the spirit-beams that glowed within. The Deacon winced under the churchly title of brotherhood, and what he thought a covert reproof, but yielding to the power of a stronger and more rational nature than his own, he did not remark upon it, though fondly imagining that he felt himself vastly the superior. “It is well enough to be happy if yo’ can, I reckon,” said he, snappishly, “but I don’t feel so. I confess I’m thinking more about politics now-a-days than about religion.” “That’s no wonder then that yo’ a’n’t happy. It don’t pay to get away from the Laud into politics—brings trouble.” “Oh, a plague on yo’r preaching! We must attend to politics sometime: we can’t leave it to yo’ niggers all the time. The Democratic Party has got to beat next fall, or we’ll all be ruined together.”