Why, John Richard’s talk wuz such, he looked on things so different from what I ever had, he put such new and strange idees into my head that I can truly say that he skairt me most to death. I sot demute; I didn’t even think to look to see how my pardner wuz affected by the startlin’ views he wuz promulgatin’. I dropped stitches, I seamed where I hadn’t ought to seam; I wuz extremely nerved up and agitated, and he went on a talkin’ more stranger and startlinger than ever, if possible. “And still these wise men sit and hardly lift their wise eyes. _But when the storm bursts_,” sez Cousin John Richard, in a louder voice than he had used, and more threatenin’ like and prophetic—“when the storm bursts, methinks these wise men will look up, will get up if there is enough left of them to stand after the shock and the violence of the tempest has torn and dashed over them. For the clouds _will_ fill with vengeance, the storm _will_ burst if something is not done soon to avert the fury of its course. “Now, this nation can solve this great question peacefully if it will.” And I sez in agitated axents: “How?” I wuz fearful wrought up. I never had mistrusted there wuz such a state of things anywhere; it come all onbeknown onto me, and sort o’ paralyzed my faculties. I had forgot by this time, if you’ll believe it, whether I wuz a knittin’ or a tattin’. Why, I shouldn’t have been surprised if somebody had spoke up and said I wuz a shearin’ a sheep or pickin’ a goose. I shouldn’t have sensed it, as I know of, I wuz so dumbfoundered and lost and by the side of myself. Sez I, “How?” And sez he, “Let the colored race go into a home and a country of their own. Let them leave the people and the influences that paralyze and hinder their best efforts. Let them leave a race that they burden and hamper and oppress, for injustice reacts worse upon the victor than upon the victim. The two races cannot live together harmoniously; they have tried the experiment for hundreds of years, and failed.” I murmured almost mechanically: “Won’t religion and education make ’em harmoniouser?” But before John Richard could answer my question, Eben Garlock come in for the mournin’ bundle, and I gin it to him. He said he couldn’t set down, but still he didn’t seem ready to go. Everybody has such visitors that don’t want to go and don’t want to stay, and you have to use head work to get ’em started either way. Eben is different from his wife; he is more sincere and open-hearted, and hain’t so affected. He speaks out more than she duz, and finally he told us what wuz on his mind. I see he had on a good new black overcoat, and the case wuz he wanted to swop with Josiah for the day of the funeral, and take his old London brown overcoat. And I sez, “For the land’s sake! Why?”