“Wall,” sez he, a lookin’ real candid and sincere as he said it, “the fact is, you know the corpse and I never agreed with each other, and everybody knows it; and I don’t want to act as if I wuz a mournin’ too much. I hate deceit,” sez he. “Wall,” sez I, “if that is how you feel you can take the coat in welcome.” And Josiah sez, “Yes, of course you can have it.” And Eben took off his glossy new black overcoat and put on Josiah’s old shabby brown one and sot off. And I don’t know how he and his wife settled it, and I don’t much care. Wall, if you’ll believe it, Eben hadn’t much more’n got into his buggy at the gate when Cousin John Richard began agin, took up his remarks jest where he had laid ’em down. I don’t spoze he sensed Eben’s comin’ in hardly any. I spoze it wuz some as if a fly should light on the nose of a Fourth of July oritor, it would be brushed off without noticin’ it, and the oration would go right on. Sez John Richard, “All the religion and education in the world cannot make the two races unite harmoniously and become one people, with kindred tastes and united hearts and interests.” Sez I agin, speakin’ mechanically, “You think the foot is too big for the shoe?” “Yes, exactly,” sez he. “The shoe is a good sound one, but the foot is too big; it won’t go into it.” “But,” sez I, “as Josiah remarked to you, wouldn’t it cost awfully?” “Will it cost any less ten years from now? The colored population of the South increases at the rate of five hundred every twenty-four hours. “By the most careful estimates it has been found that in less than twenty years the black race will out-number the whites to the number of a million. What will be done then? Will the white man leave this country to make room for the negro? It is plain that there will not be room for both.” And I murmured almost entirely onbeknown to myself, “No, I don’t spoze he would.” “No, indeed,” sez Cousin John Richard. “The Anglo-Saxon will not leave this country, his inheritance, for the sake of peace or to make room for another race; then what will be done? I hear the voice of the Lord,” sez John Richard solemnly, “I hear His voice saying, ‘Let my people go.’” The silence seemed solemn; it seemed some like the pauses that come in a protracted meetin’ between two powerful speakers. I felt queer. But I did speak up almost entirely onbeknown to myself, and sez I, “Could they take care of themselves in a colony of their own? Do they know enough?”