t he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a
silver-headed cane--the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the state.
And what do you think? They said he was a p'fessor in a college, and
could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that
ain't the wust. They said he could _vote_ when he was at home. Well,
that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was
'lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn't
too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a state in
this country where they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says
I'll never vote ag'in. Them's the very words I said; they all heard
me; and the country may rot for all me--I'll never vote ag'in as long
as I live. And to see the cool way of that nigger--why, he wouldn't
'a' give me the road if I hadn't shoved him out o' the way. I says to
the people, why ain't this nigger put up at auction and sold?--that's
what I want to know. And what do you reckon they said? Why, they said
he couldn't be sold till he'd been in the state six months, and he
hadn't been there that long yet. There, now--that's a specimen. They
call that a govment that can't sell a free nigger till he's been in
the state six months. Here's a govment that calls itself a govment,
and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a govment, and yet's got
to set stock-still for six whole months before it can take a-hold of a
prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free nigger, and--"

Pap was a-going on so he never noticed where his old limber legs was
taking him to, so he went head over heels over the tub of salt pork
and barked both shins, and the rest of his speech was all the hottest
kind of language--mostly hove at the nigger and the govment, though he
give the tub some, too, all along, here and there. He hopped around
the cabin considerable, first on one leg and then on the other,
holding first one shin and then the other one, and at last he let out
with his left foot all of a sudden and fetched the tub a rattling
kick. But it warn't good judgment, because that was the boot that had
a couple of his toes leaking out of the front end of it; so now he
raised a howl that fairly made a body's hair raise, and down he went
in the dirt, and rolled there, and held his toes; and the cussing he
done then laid over anything he had ever done previous. He said so his
own self afterwards. He had heard old Sowberry Hagan in his best days,
and he s