her, he would "robe his soul in holiest
purpose as for God himself." His pa had at one time in his life drank
considerable, but he wuz not a drunkard, and he wuz a good bizness man
when the fever carried him off, and his young wife out of the world
the same year. Well, Alan wuz jest as industrious as he could be, and
with his happy future to look forward to and Waitstill's love and
beloved presence to prop up his manhood, everything promised a fair
and happy life for them both; till, like a thunder-cloud out of a
clear sky come that deafening report from Spanish brutality that blew
up the _Maine_ and this nation's peace and tranquility. Dretful deed!
Awful calamity! that sent three hundred of our brave seamen onprepared
to meet their God--without a second's warning. Awful deed that cried
to heaven for pity! But did it bring back these brave fellows sleeping
in Havana harbor to their mothers, wives and sweethearts, to have
thousands more added to the list of the slain?

"Remember the _Maine_!" How these words echoed from pulpit and Senate
and palace and hovel; how they wuz sung in verse, printed in poems,
printed in flaming lines of electric light everywhere! From city to
country, you saw and heard these words, "Remember the _Maine_!"

I wondered then and I wonder now if the spirit of revenge that swep'
through our nation at that time wuz the spirit of the Master.

I d'no nor Josiah don't, whether it wuz right and best to influence
the souls of the young till they burnt at white heat with the spirit
that our Lord said his disciples must avoid, for said he: "Vengeance
is mine, saith the Lord."

Well, it is a deep question, deeper than I've got a line to measure;
and Josiah's line and mine both tied together don't begin to touch the
bottom on't, for we've tried it time and agin. We've argyed aginst
each other about it, and jined on and hitched our arguments together,
and they didn't touch bottom then, nor begin to. As Mrs. Browning said
(a woman I set store by, and always did, I've hearn Thomas J. read
about her so much): "A country's a thing men should die for at need."

Yes, to die for, if its safety is imperilled, that I believe and
Josiah duz, but I have eppisoded about it a sight, I've had to. I
methought how this nation wuz stirred to its deepest depths; how it
seethed and boiled with indignation and wrath because three hundred of
its sons wuz killed by ignorant and vicious means; how it breathed out
vengeance