“To Africa,” sez Cousin John Richard, “or that is what is in my own mind. I don’t know that it would be better than another place, but I think so.” “But, good land!” sez Josiah, lookin’ more wakeful, “think of the cost. Why, it would run the Government in debt to that extent that it never would get over it.” He looked skairt at the idee. But Cousin John didn’t; he wuz calm and serene as he went on: “Thousands and thousands would be able and willing to go on their own account. But if this nation took them all back at its own expense, is it not a lawful debt? Who brought them here in the first place? They did not come of their own accord; no, they were stolen, hunted like beasts of prey amongst their own fields and forests, felled like wild animals, and dragged, bleeding from their wounds, into slave ships to be packed into a living cargo of sweltering agony, and brought off from friends and home and native land for our selfishness’ sake, to add to our wealth. “It seems to me we owe them a debt that we should pay for our own conscience’ sake as a nation.” “But the Government couldn’t afford it; it would cost too much.” Josiah is very close. [Illustration: “THE OLD AND FEEBLE ONES.”] “As I said,” sez Cousin John Richard, “thousands of the more intelligent ones who have property of their own would go at their own expense for the sake of founding free, peaceful homes, where their children could have the advantages of independence, freed from the baleful effects of class antagonism and race prejudices. “Many of the old and feeble ones, and those who were prosperous and well off, would not go at all. And of those who remained, if the Government should transport them and support them there for a year it would not cost a twentieth part so much as to carry on a civil war. “And I tell you war will come, Josiah Allen, if something is not done to avert the storm.” And agin John Richard’s eyes took on that fur-off look, as if he wuz lookin’ at things dretful some distance off. “Amongst the lower classes you can hear muttered curses and half-veiled threats, and you feel their passion and their burning hatred towards the race that gave them the Indian gift of freedom—gave it, and then snatched it out of their hands, and instead of liberty gave them injustice and worse oppression. “And the storm is coming up. Evil spirits are in the atmosphere. Over the better feelings of the white race, dominating them, are the black shapes of contempt and repulsion towards the race once their servants, made their equals by a wordy fiction of their enemies, but still under their feet. “And in their haughty breasts, as of old, only stronger, is the determination to have their own way, to rule this ‘ignorant rabble,’ to circumvent the cowardly will of their Northern foe, who had brought this thing to pass, to still rule them in one way if not in another—rule or ruin.