“Of course there is some fightin’ everywhere. Uncle Nate hearn of a new fight last night, over to Loontown. We get holt of everything. And I don’t believe there is any trouble down South, and if there is, they will get along well enough if they are left alone, if there hain’t too much said.” [Illustration: UNCLE NATE GOWDEY.] Sez John Richard, “I have lived in the South for years, and I know what I am talking about. And I say that you Northern people, and in fact all the nation, are like folks sitting on the outside of a volcano, laughing and talking in your gay indifference, and thinking the whole nation is in safety, when the flames and the lava torrents of destruction are liable to burst out at any time and overwhelm this land in ruin.” And then agin, though I hate to set it down—then agin did my pardner give vent to them dangerous and quarrelsome sentiments before I could reach him with a wink or any other precautionary measures. That rash man said agin: “Oh shaw!” And I see, devoted Christian as John Richard wuz, the words gaulded him almost more than he could endure, and he broke out in almost heated axents, and his keen dark eye a flashin’, and says he: “I tell you the storm is brewing! I have watched it coming up and spreading over the land, and unless it is averted, destruction awaits this people.” His tone wuz a very preachin’ one, very, and I felt considerable impressed by it; but Josiah Allen spoke up pert as a peacock, and sez he: “Why don’t the Southern folks behave themselves, then?” And sez John Richard: “Do you blame the Southern white folks exclusively?” “Yes,” sez Josiah, in them same pert axents; “yes, of course I do.” “Then that shows how short-sighted you are, how blind!” “I can see as well as you can!” sez Josiah, all wrought up—“I don’t have to wear goggles.” Oh, how mortified, how mortified I felt! John Richard did wear blue goggles when he wuz travellin’. But what a breach of manners to twit a visiter of such a thing! Twit ’em of goggles, blue ones too! I felt as if I should sink. But I didn’t know Cousin John Richard Allen. He hadn’t give up ease and comfort and the joys of a fireside, for principle’s sake, for nuthin’. No personal allusions could touch him. The goggles fell onto him harmlessly, and fell off agin. He didn’t notice ’em no more’n if they hadn’t been throwed. And he went on growin’ more and more sort o’ lifted up and inspired-lookin’, and a not mindin’ what or who wuz round him. And sez he: “I tell you again the storm is rising; I hear its mutterings in the distance, and it is coming nearer and nearer all the time.” Josiah kinder craned his neck and looked out of the winder in a sort of a brisk way. He misunderstood him a purpose, and acted as if John Richard meant a common thunder-storm. But Cousin John Richard never minded him, bein’ took up and intent on what his own mind wuz a lookin’ at onbeknown to us—