ate with 'em, Samantha."

And then, bein' almost at my wits' end, I dropped the general
miscellaneous way I had used, and begun to bring up little separate
instances of the injustices of the Law. And I see he begun to be
impressed.

How true it is that, from the Bible down to Josiah Allen's Wife, you
have to talk in stories in order to impress the masses! You have to hold
up the hammer of a personal incident to drive home the nail of Truth and
have it clench and hold fast.

But mine wuz some different--mine wuz facts, every one of 'em.

I could have brung them to that man and laid 'em down in front of him
from that time, almost half past ten a.m., and kep stiddy at it till ten
p.m., and then not know that I had took any from the heap, so high and
lofty is the stack of injustices and wrongs committed in the name of the
Law and shielded by its mantilly.

But I had only brung up two, jest two of 'em; not the most flagrant
ones either, but the first ones that come into my mind, jest as it is
when you go to a pile of potatoes to git some for dinner, you take the
first ones you come to, knowin' there is fur bigger ones in the pile.

But them potatoes smashed up with cream and butter are jest as
satisfyin' as if they wuz bigger.

So these little truthful incidents laid down in front of my pardner
convinced him; so they wuz jest as good for me to use as if I had picked
out bigger and more flagranter ones.

I first brung up before him the case of the good little Christian
school-teacher who had toiled for years at her hard work and laid up a
little money, and finally married a sick young feller more'n half out of
pity, for he hadn't a cent of money, and had the consumption, and took
good care of him till he died.

And wantin' to humor him, she let him make his will, though he didn't so
much as own the sheet of paper he wrote on, or the ink or the pen.

And after his death she found he had willed away their onborn child, and
when it wuz a few months old, and her love had sent out its strong
shoots, and wropped the little life completely round, his brother she
had never seen come on from his distant home and took that baby right
out of its mother's arms, and bore it off, accordin' to law.

I looked curiously at him as I concluded this true tale, but he murmured
almost mechanically--

"I want to mingle with 'em, Samantha; I feel that I want to be intimate
with 'em."

But his axent wuz weak, weak as a cat, and I felt