That is a good syrup, very, though mebby I hadn’t ort to say it. It is one that I made up out of my own head, and is a success. Yeller dock, and dandelion roots, and spignut, steeped up strong, and sweetened with honey. I sent it to him to once, with some spignut roots by mail; I wuz afraid he couldn’t get ’em in the South. And in my letter I asked him out of politeness, as it were, how he wuz a gettin’ along colporterin’, and if things looked any brighter to him in the South. And such a answer as I got—_such_ a letter! why, it wuz a sermon almost. Jest as skairful, jest as earnest, and jest as flowery as the talk he had talked to us when he wuz with us. Why, it fairly sent the cold chills over me as I read it. But it madded Josiah. He wuz mad as a hen to hear it, and he said agin that he believed Cousin John Richard (Josiah knew he wuz jest as good as gold, and he wouldn’t brook a word from anybody else agin him), but he said he believed he wuz a losin’ his faculties. He didn’t believe a word on’t. He didn’t believe there wuz any danger nor any trouble; if folks would only let the South alone and mind their own bizness, it would get along well enough. But some folks had always got to be a putterin’ around, and a meddlin’, and he shouldn’t wonder a mite if John Richard wuz a doin’ jest such a work as that. And I sez mildly, “Sometimes things _have_ to be meddled with in order to get ahead any.” “Wall,” sez he, “don’t you know how, if there is any trouble in a family, the meddlers and interferers are the ones that do the most mischief?” “But,” sez I, “teachin’ religion and distributin’ tracts and spellin’ books hadn’t ort to do any hurt.” “Wall, I d’no,” sez Josiah. “I d’no what kind of tracts he is a circulatin’, mebby they are inflamitory. If they are offen a piece with some of his talk here, I should think the South would ride him out.” And so Josiah went on a runnin’ John Richard’s work and belief down to the lowest notch; and I wuz glad enough when Deacon Henzy come in on a errant, for I wuz indeed in hopes that this would change the subject. But my hopes, as all earthly expectations are liable to be, wuz blasted. For Josiah went right on with his inflamed speeches and his unbelief about any danger a threatenin’ the nation from the South. And I truly found myself in the condition of the one mentioned in Scripture (only different sex and circumstances), where it sez the last state of that man wuz worse than the first. For while my pardner’s talk had consisted mostly of the sin of unbelief, Deacon Henzy’s remarks wuz full of a bitter hatred and horstility towards the ex-slaveholders of the Southern States. He truly had no bowels of compassion for ’em, not one. He come from radical abolitionist stock on both sides, and wuz brung up under the constant throwin’ of stuns, throwed by parents and grandparents at them they considered greater sinners than themselves.