_E
pluribus unum_, forever and forever!"
"Yours ain't just the same as mine," says the feller, grimly spittin'.
"No," says Ag, "I reckon he spread it around. He didn't know this was
the nearest ford on Squaw Creek, and we might likely come together."
And then arose a cussin', not loud, but with a full head of steam--it
would make ordinary loud seem like the insides of a whisper--and a rush
for horses.
"Peace, friends, peace!" says Aggy, standin' up his hull height and
with his noble chest fillin' his black coat; his black whiskers
expandin' in pride--a hootin', tootin' son-of-a-gun to look at. And
when he said "peace," the earth shook.
The crowd stopped. "Think!" says Aggy. "Attempt the impossible!
Think! Remember that paralytic is on a parlour car, flying swiftly
toward the setting sun. I see the picture of that lonely railroad
train whooping ties across the prairie. What is the use of throwing
yourselves into a violent perspiration in a mad chase of a thing that
no longer exists? The paralytic is no more; thy Faith Hath Made Him
Whole." Aggy sank his voice to a beautiful whisper.
"Well, you got stuck yourself," pipes up old Grandpa Hope. "He, he,
he, he shelled you too!"
"I admit it," says Ag, "and yet it is not quite what it seems. I
borrowed Slit-Eyed Jenkins's two gilded nickels to get in this game. I
further admit that the Government never should have left the word
'cents' off these nickels, to tempt poor but not bigoted men; further,
I'll say that if Jenkins had brightened them up he might have passed
them for $3.
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