e were late and had difficulty in
squeezing inside the room. Uncle Solon, as everybody called him, stood
at the teacher's desk, and was talking in his quaint, homely way: a lean
man in farmer's garb, with a kind of Abraham Lincoln face, honest but
humorous, droll yet practical; a face afterwards well known from Maine
to Iowa.

"We farmers are bearin' the brunt of the hard times," Uncle Solon said.
"'Tain't fair. Them rich fellers in New York, and them rich railroad men
that's running things at Washington have got us down. 'Tis time we got
up and did something about it. 'Tis time them chaps down there heard the
tramp o' the farmers' cowhide boots, comin' to inquire into this. And
they'll soon hear 'em. They'll soon hear the tramp o' them old cowhides
from Maine to Texas.

"Over in our town we have got a big stone mortar. It will hold a bushel
of corn. When the first settlers came there and planted a crop, they
hadn't any gristmill. So they got together and made that 'ere mortar out
of a block of granite. They pecked that big, deep hole in it with a
hammer and hand-drill. That hole is more'n two feet deep, but they
pecked it out, and then made a big stone pestle nearly as heavy as a man
could lift, to pound their corn.

"They used to haul that mortar and pestle round from one log house to
another, and pounded all their corn-meal in it.

"Now d'ye know what I would do if I was President? I'd get out that old
stone mortar and pestle, and I'd put all the hard money in this country
in it, all the rich man's hard money, and I'd pound it all up fine. I'd
make meal on't!"

"And what would you do with the meal?" some one cried.

Uncle Solon banged his fist on the desk. "I'd make greenbacks on't!" he
shouted, and then there was great applause.

That solution of the financial problem sounded simple enough; and yet it
was not quite so clear as it might be.

Uncle Solon went on to picture what a bright day would dawn if only the
national government would be reasonable and issue plenty of greenbacks;
and when he had finished his speech, he invited every one who was in
doubt, or had anything on his mind, to ask questions.

"Ask me everything you want to!" he cried. "Ask me about anything that's
troublin' your mind, and I'll answer if I can, and the best I can."

There was something about Uncle Solon which naturally invited
confidence, and for fully half an hour the people asked questions, to
all of which he replied after hi