e down to hunt
him up. 'What on airth, father, you doin'?' she cried, as she saw his
knees knocking together, and his teeth chattering with the cold. 'I've
gut the cuss,' he shouted, 'and I'll hold him here till he freezes to
death.'

"You'll hold your employers out in the cold, will you? Well, who'll
freeze to death first if you stop the factories? The owners who have
plenty of money, or you who are dependent upon the work they give you
for every cent you get? General Butler who lives in a palace, and
drives a kingly equipage tries to frighten you by painting the
bugaboo; 'the rich growing richer, and the poor growing poorer,' that
soon a half-dozen plutocrats will have all the money there is in the
world, and then the rest of the people will all starve. It reminds me
of the old farmer who set up such an outrageous looking scarecrow in
his field that the crows not only let his present corn alone, but they
actually brought back in their terrible fright all the corn they had
stolen in the previous ten years. Are we craven crows to be scared by
such windy effigies?"

Thus having caught their attention by light weight stories, I gave
them broadsides of facts and arguments until I won the greatest
political fight of my life. We won a famous victory; the workers,
as usual, were soon forgotten; the elected exulted in their brief
authority; the defeated at once began log-rolling for the next
election, and so the office hunting strife goes on forever. After this
I resumed the work of my crusade against ignorance and bad literature,
having had my pockets well filled by those who are always eager to
trade money for fame.

Our home was three miles from the railroad station, and the wintry
winds with deep snows made the frequent journeys to and fro over
the bleak, uncomfortable country roads, extremely cold and often
hazardous.

I had endured for years these alternate freezing and roasting rides
for the pleasure of living near the old folks; but now the numerous
colds and coughs resulting from the exposure drove me to move nearer
to the depot, and we bought a large three-story house with barn and
fourteen acres of land on High Street in the city of N----.

We rejuvenated our old castle with paint, new boiler and paper,
letting loose upon our devoted heads numerous fevers and other
diseases which generations had stored up on the walls, all eager for
new victims. Strange it is, that all bad things are so contagious and
so lon