of the seats, and John
Armstrong across the aisle, after he got on. And John says, "Wal, how
about that boy down that a way? Whar does he live?"

"Who?" says I.

"That boy you was runnin' away to see. Tom Sawyer, warn't it?"

And Mr. Miller said, "If he's at home, we'll see him--but he's away a
lot."

"He lives in St. Louis?" says John.

"No," says Mr. Miller, "but not far from there. That's right, ain't it,
Mitchie?"

Mitch says, "It's not very far, just up the river maybe a hundred miles,
at Hannibal."

"Are you goin' up thar?" says John.

"No," says my pa, "we expect to see him in St. Louis."

Then John says: "You had a big court this time with that murder trial
and all." Pa says, "Yes." "It does beat the world about the murders and
things around here. More'n what there used to be, 'pears to me."

Then Mr. Miller began to talk about the Civil War and he said: "It's a
bad thing for the country and will be for a long time. We got rid of
slavery, but we took on a lot of bad things while doin' it. You see it
killed off so many real Americans, the old stock, and in a few years
with all these foreigners brought in to work at the mines and mills, the
blood'll get mixed. And ideas about America will get mixed; and the
country will forget what it was, and what it was meant to be; and
they'll pass new laws to take care of changes. And pretty soon you won't
know the country. During the war we had to part with liberties to carry
on the war; and pretty soon we'll part with liberties in order to manage
these new stocks. And there's a lot of corruption in the country, people
gettin' rich off'n the tariff, and that'll make trouble."

John Armstrong was a Republican, and he didn't agree with Mr. Miller;
but my pa says, "We'll elect Cleveland this fall and then we'll save the
country."

My pa and Mr. Miller was both Democrats, but John was a Republican and
they had the best of him, bein' two to one. But John says, "Why, they
tell me that Cleveland wears a 6-7/8 hat and a eighteen collar and can
drink more whisky than Joe Pink."

"Well," says my pa, "if you elect Harrison, who'll be President--will he
be President or will Blaine? It will be Blaine, and why didn't you
nominate him and be done with it? It's because you dassent"--Then he
began to sing:

"In Washington City, oh, what a great pity,
There'll be no Harrison there."

Then we kind of changed seats around and Mr. Miller and my pa began to
talk toge