me on. I don't say as your never
disagreein' ain't sometimes wearin', but there _are_ days as I feel I'd
enjoy a little discussion an' then Elijah an' I discuss on those days
till it seems like I can't live to get to you an' do it all alone by
myself. Elijah's a very young man but he's a man after all an' there's
somethin' about a man as makes him not able to see any side of anythin'
except his own side. Now it don't make any difference what we talk
about I _always_ take the other side, an' I will in confidence remark as
the South fightin' Grant had a easy job compared to me tryin' to get
Elijah to see any side but his own. Elijah's a very pig-headed young man
an' I declare I don't know I'm sure what ailed him last night--seemed as
if he was up a tree about somethin' as made him just wild over the
Democratic party. I must say--an' I said it to his face, too--as to my
order of thinkin' takin' sides about the Democrats nowadays is like
takin' sides with Pharaoh after the Red Sea had swallowed him an' all
his chariots up forever, but Elijah never gives up to no man, an' he
said, not so, the Democrats was still ready to be the salvation of the
country if only Bryan would give 'em a chance. He says they 've been
handicapped so far an' it's very tryin' for any party to have to choose
between a donkey an' a tiger for its picture of itself, for no sensible
person likes to have to ride on either, an' no politics could _ever_
make a success of a donkey for a mascot, whether you judge him from his
ears or his heels. I had it in my mind to say somethin' then about
turnin' around an' takin' a fresh start with a fresh animal as a
sensible person would find it nothin' but a joy to ride, but Elijah,
like all newspapers, rips a thing up the back an' then shows you how you
can't do better than to sew up the tear an' go on wearin' it again, so
after he'd skinned the donkey an' the tiger both alive, so to speak, he
went on to say as never's a long game an' him laughs best who keeps
sober longest an' altogether his own feelin' was as America 'll soon
perceive her only hope lays in electin' a new Democratic party. I just
broke in then an' told him it looked to me as if the natural run of
mankind would n't let Grover Cleveland skip eight years an' then try it
again more 'n six times more, an' that if the Republicans keep it up as
they have awhile longer no money won't be able to get 'em out 'cause
they'll have all the money there is in the cou