"'Most like I was about thirteen years old when the Confederacy declar's herse'f a nation, elects Jeff Davis President, an' fronts up for trouble. For myse'f I concedes now, though I sort o' smothers my feelin's on that p'int at the time, seein' we-all could look right over into the state of Ohio, said state bein' heatedly inimical to rebellion an' pawin' for trouble an' rappin' its horns ag'in the trees at the mere idee; for myse'f, I say, I now concedes that I was heart an' soul with the South in them onhappy ruptures. I breathed an' lived with but one ambition, which is to tear this devoted country in two in the middle an' leave the fragments that a- way, in opposite fields. My father, stern, ca'm, c'llected, don't share the voylence of my sentiments. He took the middle ag'in the ends for his. The attitoode of our state is that of nootrality, an' my father declar'd for nootrality likewise. My grandfather is dead at the time, so his examples lost to us; but my father, sort o' projectin' 'round for p'sition, decides it would be onfair in him to throw the weight of his valor to either side, so he stands a pat hand on that embroglio, declines kyards, an' as I states is nootral. Which I know he's nootral by one thing: "'"Willyum," he'd say that a-way when he'd notice me organizin' to go down to the village; "Willyum," he'd say. "if anybody asks you what you be, an' speshul if any of them Yankees asks you, you tell 'em that you're Union, but you remember you're secesh." "'The Sterett fam'ly, ondoubted, is the smartest fam'ly in the South. My brother Jeff, who is five years older than me, gives proofs of this, partic'lar. It's Jeff who invents that enterprise in fishin', which for idleness, profit an' pastime, ain't never been equalled since the flood, called "Juggin' for Cats." It's Jeff, too, once when he ups an' jines the church, an' is tharafter preyed on with the fact that the church owes two hundred dollars, and that it looks like nobody cares a two-bit piece about it except jest him, who hires a merry-go-round--one of these yere contraptions with wooden hosses, an' a hewgag playin' toones in the center--from Cincinnati, sets her up on the Green in front of the church, makes the ante ten cents, an' pays off the church debt in two months with the revenoos tharof. "'As I sits yere, a relatin' of them exploits,' an' Colonel Sterett tips the canteen for another hooker, 'as I sits yere, gents, all free an' sociable with what's, bar none, the finest body of gents that ever yanks a cork or drains a bottle, I've seen the nobility of Kaintucky--the Bloo Grass Vere-de-Veres--ride up on a blood hoss, hitch the critter to the fence, an' throw away a fortune buckin' Jeff's merry-go-round with them wooden steeds. It's as I says: that sanctooary is plumb out of debt an' on velvet--has a bank roll big enough to stopper a 2-gallon jug with--in eight weeks from the time Jeff onfurls his lay-out an' opens up his game.'