“Eli can’t ’low sleepin’ dogs ter lie. He ain’t got no ’scrimination. He dunno who ter sot the law onter, nor who ter muzzle it fur. Thar’s old Jer’miah Miles jes’ drawed a pistol ter skeer some o’ them bad boys out’n his watermillion patch, an’ Eli, passin’ by, druv the boys out’n the patch, an’ then ups an’ ’rests the old man fur kerryin’ concealed weepons. Thar’s fourteen o’ the Miles kinsfolks kem hyar ter vote ter-day.” If the officer had done amiss, his punishment seemed likely to be greater than he could bear. Like most people brought into propinquity with the law, Eli Strobe sought to furnish a precedent rather than a justification. “Waal,” he argued, barely lifting his eyelids, “Sam Blake”—his predecessor in office—“would hev done the same.” “Shucks!” exclaimed the other. “I kin jes’ hear Sam Blake a-hollerin’ ter them boys, ‘Git out’n this million patch, or I’ll be the death o’ ye! I’ll jail ye ’fore night.’” Then dropping his rough voice to dulcet courtesy, “‘Mister Miles, got enny o’ them fine cantaloupes ter spare fur my saddle-bags?’ I say, arrest old Miles fur kerryin’ concealed weepons! Sam Blake would jes’ hev begged a few cantaloupes, that’s all, an’ never seen no pistol.” Teck Jepson could ill adapt his intolerant and domineering spirit to the prospect of defeat, even when the cause was not his own. He had made to-day perhaps the greatest sacrifice to his affection of which he was capable, bending his pride to beg of the community favor for another which he could never have been brought to ask for himself. He was weary of it all, and depressed, and the continual collision, in which he must restrain himself rather than constrain others, irked him. If, among the narratives upon which he loved to brood, he had ever heard of aught so modern as the romances of the Middle Ages, the idea of a knight sallying forth in search of noble adventure and deeds of prowess, whereby he might prove himself worthy of the fair, would have commended itself as cheap and easy in comparison to his devoirs to earn the gratitude of the candidate’s daughter. There are times that come to all of us when the trivial incidents of the world pall, when the presence of crowds weighs upon the spirit, when existence seems petty and sordid, and we look back to some period of solitude, rich with quiet thought or chosen and cherished labor, with a suddenly awakened sense that then we were clothed in our true identity; in that interval we verily lived rather than merely exercised the respiratory organs, and went about in the outer disguise that wears our name and is recognized of men.