to my heels. I had said in days gone by that if I ever got holt
of one of them Powers I would give 'em a piece of my mind that they
could patch onto their daily experience, and tremble and wonder at it
for the rest of their days. I had been riled up by these Powers a
number of times, real provoked and out of patience with 'em. But now
when I stood in the presence of one of 'em I felt different from what
I thought I should feel; I pitied 'em like a dog. And I showed it. I
mistrust my liniment looked pale and excited, though not havin' a
lookin' glass present I couldn't tell for certain, but I know my voice
trembled with emotion, for I hearn it myself.

I sez to him how proud and happy I wuz to see him lookin' so well and
holdin' his age to such a remarkable degree, and after a few such
preliminary politenesses had been tended to, I branched out and told
him with my liniment lookin' good and earnest I know, and tears almost
standin' in my eyes, I told him the feelin's I felt for the Powers,
how mad I'd been at 'em in the past, and how them feelin's had turned
into pity, for I knowed just what a ticklish place they wuz in and
how necessary it wuz for 'em to keep a cool head and a wise, religious
heart, and then, sez I, "I d'no as that will save you. You Powers have
got so hard a job to tackle that it don't seem to me you'll ever git
out of it with hull skins if you don't use all the caution a elephant
duz in crossin' a bridge. Go cautious and carefull and reach out and
try every plank before you step on't."

He felt it, I could see he did, he knowed how the ground wuz quakin'
under him and the rest of the Powerses. "And don't," sez I, "don't for
mercy's sake! you Powers git to squabblin' amongst yourselves, for if
you do you might just as well give up first as last, for you are all
lost as sure as fate. Keep your temper above all things," sez I.
"You've got age and experience as well as I have, and it takes such
experienced wise heads to manage such a state of affairs, and I d'no
even then as we can git along without an awful fuss, things are so
muddled up. Mebby you're the very one to go on and try to straighten
out the snarls in the skein of the nation's trials and perplexities,
and I'll do all I can to help you," sez I.

He wuz dretful impressed by my eloquence; he acted for all the world
just as Mr. Astofeller did. He looked at his watch just as if he wuz
anxious to know just the time I said such remarkable things, a