u
sneer at your own country, you defile the sacred ground! What are
you, by the Almighty, who attack your native land in this, her hour of
peril!"

"Peril to my native land!" laughed Crailey. "From Santa Anna?"

"The General's right, sir," exclaimed the elder Chenoweth indignantly,
and most of the listeners appeared to agree with him. "It's a poor time
to abuse the President when he's called for volunteers and our country
is in danger, sir!"

"Who is in danger?" answered Crailey, lifting his hand to still the
clamor of approbation that arose. "Is Polk in danger? Or Congress? But
that would be too much to hope! Do you expect to see the Greasers in
Washington? No, you idiots, you don't! Yet there'll be plenty of men to
suffer and die; and the first should be those who thrust this war on
us and poor little Mexico; but it won't be they; the men who'll do the
fighting and dying will be the country boys and the like of us from the
towns, while Mr. Polk sits planning at the White House how he can get
elected again. I wish Tom were here, confound you! You listen to him
because he always has the facts and I'm just an embroiderer, you think.
What's become of the gaudy campaign cry you were all wearing your
lungs out with a few months ago? 'Fifty-four-forty or fight!' Bah! Polk
twisted the lion's tail with that until after election. Then he saw he
had to make you forget it, or fight England and be ruined, so he forces
war on Mexico, and the country does forget it. That's it: he asks three
regiments of volunteers from this State to die of fevers and get shot,
so that he can steal another country and make his own elect him again.
And you ask me to drink the health of the politician who sits at home
and sends his fellowmen to die to fix his rotten jobs for him?" Crailey
had persuaded himself into such earnestness, that the depth of his own
feeling almost choked him, but he finished roundly in his beautiful,
strong voice: "I'll drink for the good punch's sake--but that
health?--I'll see General Trumble in heaven before I'll drink it!"

There rose at once a roar of anger and disapproval, and Crailey became a
mere storm centre amid the upraised hands gestulating madly at him as he
stood, smiling again, upon his chair.

"This comes of living with Tom Vanrevel!" shouted the General furiously.
"This is his damned Abolition teaching! You're only his echo; you spend
half your life playing at being Vanrevel!"

"Where is Vanrevel?" said