“The idee,” sez he, “of that boy, that I have took care on ever sence he wuz a child, took care on him in health, and nussed him, and doctored him when he wuz sick” (lobelia and a little catnip wuz every mite of medicine he ever give him, and a little paregoric, so I have been _told_)—“the idee of that boy a leavin’ me—a rizin’ up and a sayin’ as pert as a piper, ‘If you don’t want to hire me, let me go.’” “Wall, which did you do, Deacon?” sez I. “Why, I hired the dumb upstart! I couldn’t get along without his work, and he knew it.” “‘The laborer,’ Deacon Henzy,” sez I, solemn, “‘is worthy of his hire.’” “Wall, didn’t I lay out to pay him? I laid out this very fall to get him a pair of pantaloons and a vest and a cravat. I laid out to pay him richly. And he had better a trusted to me, who have been a perfect father and gardeen to him, than to have riz up and demanded his pay. But,” sez he, “there is no use of talkin’ about it now, it only excites me and onmans me, and I come in merely to borry a augur and have a little neighborly visit.” And then wantin’, I spoze, to take his mind offen his own troubles, he sort o’ launched off agin onto his favorite theme of runnin’ down the Southerners. “The Southern people,” sez he, “are a mass of overbearin’, tyrannical slave-drivers, selfish, without principles or consciences, crackin’ their whips over the blacks, drivin’ ’em to work, refusin’ ’em any justice.” “Why,” sez I, “the slaves are liberated, Deacon Henzy.” “Wall, why be they?” sez he. “It wuzn’t from any good-will on the part of the bloated aristocracy of the South. They liberated ’em because they _had_ to. Why didn’t they free ’em because it wuz right to free ’em? because it wuz right and just to the slaves? because it wuz a wicked sin that cried up to the heavens to make ’em labor, and not pay ’em for it?” Why, he went on in fearful axents of wrath and skorn about it, and finally bein’ so wrought up, he said, “that them that upholded ’em wuz as bad as they wuz.” Why, we had never dreamed of upholdin’ ’em, nor thought on’t; but he felt so. He threw stuns fearful at the South, and at Josiah and me because we didn’t jine in with him and rip and tear as he did. [Illustration: DEACON HENZY. ] And them stuns kinder hurt me after a while; and so, when he asked me for the seventh time: “Why didn’t they free their slaves before they wuz obleeged to?” Then I sez, “It wuz probable for the same reason that you didn’t liberate Zekiel—mostly selfishness!” “What! what did you say?” He could not believe his ear; he craned his neck, he turned the other ear. He wuz browbeat and stunted; and agin he sez: “_What_ did you say?” And I sez agin, calm as cream, but sharp and keen as a simiter, “I said it wuz selfishness, Deacon, and the power of old custom—jest the reasons why you didn’t free Zekiel.” His linement fell more’n a inch. Like the Queen of Sheba before Solomon (only different sex) he had no spirit left in him.