t, "Strangers,
reckon ye haint gut any of the rale critter, have ye? no corn juice
pison nor nuthin'? reckon I was born dry!" My guide in reply produced
a long flat bottle of about his own size, and passed it with "try that
Kunnel." There was a sound of mighty gurgling long drawn out,
but finally the huge demijohn was reluctantly withdrawn from his
cavernlike mouth with a joyous "Ah, that's the rale stuff, have some
mother? The woman removed the snuff rag from her gums long enough to
drain the dregs, and presto! they beamed upon us like twin suns.

"Strangers," ejaculated this typical Cracker, "this is the dog-gondest
place ter git er drink yer ever seed. Aour caounty went dry last
'lection, and tother day er went to the spensary ter git sum
fire-water er thinkin we mought be sick er sunthin, ther wouldn't
let me hev it 'thout Doc's 'scripshun--went to Doc, wouldn't give me
'scripshun 'thout snake-bite er sunthin--went ter only snake er knowed
on fer a bite, und the dog-goned critter sed all his bites wuz spoke
for three weeks ahed. Dunno what ud er dun if you uns hedn't cum
erlong. Naouw, strangers, you take aour bed, we sleep on floo."

Then he took the "kids" one by one, and set them up with their backs
to the side of the shanty, and we, not daring to beard the lion in his
den by declining, obeyed. The next morning we found ourselves set up
alongside the children on the floor, while the old man and his wife
were snoring on the bed. Verily, "For ways that are dark and tricks
that are vain, the heathen 'Cracker' is peculiar."

CHAPTER XXXII.

LOOKING FORWARD.

When I was writing the last words of the preceding chapter of this
book, and was about to

"Heed my tired pen's entreaty,
And say, oh, friends, _valete_,"

I seemed to be trying to awake from a trance in which I had been the
unwilling instrument, compelled by an intelligence extraneous to
myself to expose to an incredulous public the most sacred scenes and
thoughts of a lifetime.

I had decided to relieve the patience of my readers with the
thirty-first chapter; but when the retrospective kaleidoscope closed,
a vision rose before me so vivid, so real, that I am constrained to
describe it in the hope that the warning may prevent the tragic part
of the dream from becoming a reality.

It is Christmas day in the year of our Lord, 1910; the thunder-cloud,
which for many years had been increasing in blackness, now surcharged
with pent-up lightn