satisfied with what's told us an' not
lookin' into nothin' for ourselves. We've got the Philippines now an'
we've got Hawaii an' we've got the niggers an' we've got ever so many
other things. We've got the Mormons down to one wife as a general thing
an' the Italians comin' in by the thousands an' more old soldiers bein'
born every year an' the fifth generation of Revolutionary orphans out
filin' their pensions--an' we owe 'em all to the Republicans. Elijah
says we owe 'em a lot else, too, but I think that's enough in all
conscience. Elijah says too it costs a third more to live than it did
ten years ago an' he knows that for a fact, an' you an' I know that,
too, Mrs. Lathrop. Coal's gone up an' everythin' else. I tell you I got
kind of blue, thinkin' about it after I went to bed last night an' it
took me a long time to remember as Elijah was maybe more upset over not
bein' able to go an' see 'Liza Em'ly on account of the rain, than
anythin' else; but then too, Mr. Shores is very much cast down over the
country, only I must admit as it's more 'n likely as he ain't really
half as mournful over the Democrats as he is over his wife; an' then
there's Judge Fitch as is always mad over politics an' we all know that
that's just 'cause he's always been called 'judge' ever since he was
born, an' nobody ain't never made him judge of nothin' bigger 'n us yet.
I guess if he was sure as our paper could get him elected to congress
he'd cheer up pretty quick, but he told me yesterday as Elijah did n't
know how to conduct a campaign to his order of thinkin'. He don't like
that cut of Elijah's being David to the city papers bein' Goliath. He
says a cut to do him any good had ought to have him in it somewhere an'
I don't know but what he's right.

"But, Mrs. Lathrop, we are mighty bad off an' that's a fact, but still I
will say this much an' that is that as far as my observation 's
extended folks as complains openly of anythin' is always findin' fault
with the thing because there's some secret thing as they can't find
fault openly with, like Elijah an' the rain, an' Mr. Shores an' his
wife. The world's great for takin' its private miseries out publicly in
some other direction, an' my own feelin' is as the Democrats is a great
comfort to every one as the Republicans can't very conveniently give
nothin' to these days. If the president was to suddenly make Sam Duruy a
minister to somewhere there'd be a great change of opinion as to
politics