you come home?" inquired Mrs. Goble. "I told you plain as I could speak
it that there wasn't a drop of anything to eat in the house; an' here's
the young ones been a-howlin' for grub the whole day long."

"Land sakes, if I didn't forget all about it," said Goble regretfully.
"But how on earth am I goin' to get grub when I aint got no money to pay
for it? Our committee didn't give me no money to-day kase I didn't have
nothing to tell 'em. 'Pears like all the traitors keep mighty glum when
I'm around. See two or three of 'em talkin' together, an' they shet up
the minute I begin to sidle up to 'em."

"You aint wuth shucks to work for that committee," replied his wife
impatiently. "If I was a man an' had the job, I'd tell 'em something
every hour in the day."

"How could you when there wasn't nothing to tell, I'd like to know?"

"I'd find plenty, I bet you. You haven't disremembered how them
babolitionists an' the free niggers used to talk, about the time John
Brown was makin' that raid of his'n, have you?"

"'Course I aint; but them's old stories now. They've kept mighty still
tongues in their heads sense that time."

"No odds if they have. They was Union then, an' they're that same way of
thinkin' now; an' the talk that would have hung 'em then, if our folks
hadn't been jest the peaceablest people in the world, would get 'em into
trouble now if it was brung up agin 'em."

"An' would you tell them stories all over agin if you was me?" exclaimed
Bud Goble.

"I wouldn't do nothing else."

"Jest as if they happened yisterday?"

"Toby sure. You want money, don't you? an' that there committee of yourn
won't give you none 'ceptin' you can tell 'em sunthin', will they?"

"Now, that's an idee," exclaimed Mr. Goble, gazing admiringly at his
wife. "I never onct thought of that way of doin'."

"You never think of nothing till I tell you what to do," said Mrs. Goble
sharply. "You've had no end of good jobs that you could have made money
on if you'd only worked 'em right, but you won't listen to what I tell
you. I don't reckon you see how you could make money two ways outen the
job you've got now, do you? You might go to all the Union folks, niggers
_an_' whites, an' tell 'em that if they don't give you some clothes for
your fambly to wear, an' grub for 'em to eat, you will have that there
committee of yourn after 'em, mightn't you?"

"So I could," exclaimed Bud gleefully. "But I'll tell 'em I want money
for keepin' st