"'So my grandfather goes out on deck where the lady is still sobbin'
an' hangin' on the captain's neck like the loop of a rope, an'
apol'gizes. Then the lady takes a brace, accepts them contritions,
an' puts it up for her part that she can see my grandfather's a
shore-enough gent an' a son of chivalry; an' with that the riot
winds up plumb pleasant all 'round.'
"'If I may come romancin' in yere,' says Doc Peets, sort o' breakin'
into the play at this p'int, 'with a interruption, I wants to say
that I regyards this as a very pretty narratif, an' requests the
drinks onct to the Colonel's grandfather.' We drinks accordin', an'
the Colonel resoomes.
"'My grandfather comes back from this yere expedition down the Ohio
a most voylent Jackson man. An' he's troo to his faith as a adherent
to Jackson through times when the Clay folks gets that intemp'rate
they hunts 'em with dogs. The old gent was wont, as I su'gests, to
regale my childish y'ears with the story of what he suffers, He
tells how he goes pirootin' off among the farmers in the back
counties; sleepin' on husk beds, till the bed-ropes cuts plumb
through an' marks out a checker-board on his frame that would stay
for months. Once he's sleepin' in a loft, an' all of a sudden about
daybreak the old gent hears a squall that mighty near locoes him,
it's so clost an' turrible. He boils out on the floor an' begins to
claw on his duds, allowin', bein' he's only half awake that a-way,
that it's a passel of them murderin' Clay Whigs who's come to crawl
his hump for shore. But she's a false alarm. It's only a Dom'nick
rooster who's been perched all night on my grandfather's wrist where
his arm sticks outen bed, an' who's done crowed a whole lot, as is
his habit when he glints the comin' day. It's them sort o' things
that sends a shudder through you, an' shows what that old patriot
suffers for his faith.
"'But my grandfather keeps on prevailin' along in them views ontil
he jest conquers his county an' carries her for Jackson. Shore! he
has trouble at the polls, an' trouble in the conventions. But he
persists; an' he's that domineerin' an' dogmatic they at last not
only gives him his way, but comes rackin' along with him. In the
last convention, he nacherally herds things into a corner, an'
thar's only forty votes ag'in him at the finish. My grandfather
allers says when relatin' of it to me long afterwards:
"'"An' grandson Willyum, five gallons more of rum would have made
that convention yoonanimous.
"'But what he'ps the old gent most towards the last, is a j'int
debate he has with Spence Witherspoon, which begins with
reecrim'nations an' winds up with the guns. Also, it leaves this
yere aggravatin' Witherspoon less a whole lot.
"'"Wasn't you-all for nullification, an' ain't you now for Jackson
an' the union?" asks this yere insultin' Witherspoon. "Didn't you
make a Calhoun speech over on Mink Run two years ago, an' ain't you
at this barbecue, to-day, consoomin' burgoo an' shoutin' for Old
Hickory?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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