But I am a eppisodin’, and to resoom. Miss Garlock wanted to borry my hull suit down to shoes and stockin’s for Eben’s mother, who lived with her. She herself wuz a goin’ to borry Miss Slimpsey’s dress—she that wuz Betsey Bobbets—it wuz trimmed more and more foamin’ lookin’. But she wanted my black fan for herself, and my mournin’ handkerchief pin, it bein’ a very showy one. Ury had gin it to me, and I never had mourned in it but once, and then not over two hours, at a church social, for I felt it wuz too dressy for me. But Miss Garlock had seen it on that occasion and admired it. And then, after I had told her she could have all these things in welcome, she kinder took me out to one side and asked me “if I had jest as lives lend her a Bible for a few days. She thought like as not the minister would call to talk with Eben’s mother, and she felt that she should be mortified if he should call for a Bible, for they had all run out of Bibles,” she said. “The last one they had by ’em had jest been chawed up by a pup Eben wuz a raisin’; she had ketched him a worryin’ it out under the back stoop. She said he had chawed it all up but a part o’ the Old Testament, and he wuz a worryin’ and gnawin’ Maleky when she got it away from him.” Wall, I told her she could have the Bible, and she asked me to have the things done up by the time they got back from Miss Slimpsey’s, and I told her I would, and I did. Wall, if you’d believe it, I had hardly got them things done up in a bundle and laid ’em on the table ready for Miss Garlock, when that blessed man, John Richard, commenced agin right where he left off, and sez he, a repeatin’ his last words as calmly as if there had been no Garlock eppisode. “It was a great blunder, a sad thing for the white race and the black race.” “Wall, what would you have done?” sez Josiah. “I don’t know,” sez Cousin John sadly—“I don’t know; perhaps mistakes were inevitable. The question was so great and momentous, and the danger and the difficulties seemed so impenetrable on every side.” “Lincoln did the best he could,” sez Josiah sturdily; “and I know it.” “And so do I know it,” sez Cousin John. “That wise, great heart could not make any other mistake only a mistake of judgment, and he was sorely tried to know what was best to do. The burden weighed down upon him so, I fancy he was glad to lay it down in any way. “The times were so dark that any measure adopted for safety was only groping towards the light, only catching at the first rope of safety that seemed to lower itself through the heavy clouds of war. “The heavy eyes and true hearts watching through those black hours will never be forgotten by this republic.