"You knows i niver did like these ere politiks, for all the expereiance i've had in um tells me they nethir brings meat nor pays the store bills. I see they bin making ever so much on you yinder in New York; but that ant nothin', when a body has debts to pay, and childirn to shoe and larn. I know, and you know i know, that when you was young you had capacity (talent they call it) enuff to get to Congriss; and thats why i tried so to get you there, and sold all the ducks and chickens, and strained, you know, ever so many ways to help you up in the world; but now i see there's not a whit a use int, for i've a come convinsed that them politiks makes an honest man a rogue, and sends his soul to the devil, and his family to the town-house. I like to see you made so much of, for i have the nateral feelins of a wife, and if, as you used to say, i didn't know much of filosofy, why i have some sense, and want you to come straight home, and see to your poor family, for it takes all we can get for binding shoes to buy bread. But what i want to tell you is three days after you left on the Two Marys, Sheriff Warner come with a rit, and carried away the three pigs, and Warner has bin donnin me life out for that old store bill, and Draner says he wont wait another day for the rent, and Aldrich says you owe him ten dollars borrowed money, which you had better pay afore you make so much noise in New York. But what i want to tell you is, that i lent what little money you left to Captain Ben Larnard, who says he can't pay it back right away, but will when his wife gits home, though Captain Spelt's wife says she's run off with another man. And there's that trifle due when you went away to Jefferson Bigelow the butcher, he keeps a lookin in and giving me the startles, and saying how Squire Benson lives at the corner. Now as you love your poor wife and children come home, and let politiks alone, and provide for your children like a good christian and an honest man, which I have heard it said a politishon cant be. And this is the prayer of your true and affeckshonite wife POLLY POTTER." "A bombshell from my wife Polly, sure enough!" ejaculated the general; "but she is a sensible woman, and with learning would have made her mark in the world. A man must not look back though, but renew his demonstrations against misfortune, and then if he succeed let him thank his energy. And yet it is true, as my wife Polly says, my politics have brought me in but little meat, and my children have often times gone scantily clad, whereas they might have had plenty if I'd stuck to the bench. However, a point approached, is a point gained, and now that my hand is almost upon a mission, which will repay for all my disappointments, it will not do to walk back into the house and shut the door."