re
very much mistaken. We came over in the Mayflower, and we used to burn
witches for saying that the sun rose in the east and set in the west,
because the sun neither rises nor sets, the earth simply turns on its
axis, and we know, because we are Pure(i)tans." The spokesman of the
party was named (I think I remember his name because it always gave me
the blues when I heard it) Horrors Greeley; and another person by the
name of Charles Sumner, said there ain't any north or south, east or west,
and you shan't say so, either. Now, the other people who lived in the
direction that the water courses run, just raised their bristles and
continued saying that there is a north and there is a south. When those
at the head of the water courses come out furiously mad, to coerce those
in the direction that water courses run, and to make them take it back.
Well, they went to gouging and biting, to pulling and scratching at a
furious rate. One side elected a captain by the name of Jeff Davis,
and known as one-eyed Jeff, and a first lieutenant by the name of Aleck
Stephens, commonly styled Smart Aleck. The other side selected as
captain a son of Nancy Hanks, of Bowling Green, and a son of old Bob
Lincoln, the rail-splitter, and whose name was Abe. Well, after he
was elected captain, they elected as first lieutenant an individual of
doubtful blood by the name of Hannibal Hamlin, being a descendant of the
generation of Ham, the bad son of old Noah, who meant to curse him blue,
but overdid the thing, and cursed him black.

Well, as I said before, they went to fighting, but old Abe's side got
the best of the argument. But in getting the best of the argument they
called in all the people and wise men of other nations of the earth,
and they, too, said that America had no cardinal points, and that the sun
did not rise in the east and set in the west, and that the compass did
not point either north or south.

Well, then, Captain Jeff Davis' side gave it up and quit, and they, too,
went to saying that there is no north, no south, no east, no west.
Well, "us boys" all took a small part in the fracas, and Shep, the
prophet, remarked that the day would come when those who once believed
that the American continent had cardinal points would be ashamed to own
it. That day has arrived. America has no north, no south, no east,
no west; the sun rises over the hills and sets over the mountains,
the compass just points up and down, and we can l