hn's reply was enthusiastic. "Why, it strikes me as positively
mephitic."

"Mr. March, thass what it is! Thass the ve'y word! Now, shell me an' you
fulfil the scripter--'The white man o' the mountains an' the Etheropium
o' the valleys shell jine they han's an' the po' man's axe shell be
grime'?' Ain't them words sweet? Ain't they jess pufficly syruptitious?
My country, 'tis of thee! Oh, Mr. March, ef you knowed how much
patri'tism I got!--You hear them Suez fellehs say this is a white man's
country an' cayn't eveh be a rich man's country till it is a white
man's----"

"See here, now; I tell you for the last time, if you value your life
you'd better make less noise."

"Yass, seh. Lawd, I cayn't talk; I'm that thusty I'm a-spitt'n'
cotton!--No, seh! White man ain't eveh goin' to lif hisseff up by
holdin' niggeh down, an' that's the pyo chaotic truth; now, ain't it?"

"Best way is to hang the nigger up."

"Aw, Mr. March, you a-jokin'! You know I espress the truth. Ef you wants
to make a rich country, you ain't got to make it a white man's country,
naw a black man's country, naw yit mix the races an' make it n yaller
man's country, much less a yaller woman's; no, seh! But the whole
effulgence is jess this: you got to make it a po' man's country! Now,
you accentuate yo' reflections on that, seh!--Seh?"

"I say that's exactly what Widewood is."

"No, seh! no, seh! I means a country what's good faw a po' man, an'
Widewood cayn't even be that 'ithout school-houses, seh! But thass what
me an' you can make it, Mr. March. Why, thass the hence an' the whence
that my constituents an' coefficients calls me School-house Leggett.
Some men cusses me that I has mix' the races in school. Well, supposin'
I has--a little; I'se mix' myseff. You cayn't neveh mix 'em hafe so fas'
in school as they mixes 'em out o' school. Yit thass not in the
accawdeons o' my new policy. Mr. March, I'm faw the specie o' schools we
kin git an' keep----"

John laughed again. "Oh, yes, you're sure to keep all the specie you
get."

Mr. Leggett giggled. "Aw! I means that _kine_ o' school. An' jiss now
that happ'm to be sep'ate schools. I neveh was hawgish like myfrien'
Gyarnit. Gyarnit's faw Rosemont an' State aid _toe_ Rosemont, an' faw
nothin' else an' nobody else, fus', las', an' everlastin'. Thass jess
why his projeckin' don't neveh eventuate, an' which it neveh will whilse
I'm there to _pre_ventuate! Whoever hear him say, 'Mr. School-house
Leggett,