preferrin to squander it upon bread and clothes for the
children,--twict, I say, I wuz pulled into the servis, and twict I wuz
forced to desert to the Dimocrisy uv the south, rather than fite agin
em. When finally the thumb uv my left hand wuz acksidentally shot off,
owin to my foot becomin entangled into the lock uv my gun, wich thumb
wuz also accidentally across the muzzle thereof, and I wuz no longer
liable to military dooty and cood bid Provost Marshels defiance, I only
steered clear uv Scylla to go bumpin onto Charybdis. I coodent let
Dimocrisy alone, and the eggins--the ridin upon rails--the takin uv the
oath--but why shood I harrow up the public buzzum? I stood it all till
one nite I wuz pulled out uv bed, compelled to kneel onto my bare knees
in the cold snow, the extremity uv my under garment, wich modesty
forbids me to menshun the name uv it, fluttrin in a Janooary wind, and
by a crowd uv laffin soljers compelled to take the oath and drink a pint
uv raw, undilooted water! That feather broke the back uv the camel. The
oath give me inflamashen uv the brane and the water inflamashen uv the
stumick, and for six long weeks I lay, a wreck uv my former self. Ez I
arose from that bed and saw in a glass the remains uv my pensive beauty,
I vowed to wage a unceasin war on the party wich caused sich havoc, and
I hev kept my oath.

I hev bin in the Apossel biznis more extensively than any man sence the
time uv Paul. First I established a church uv Democrats in a little
oasis I diskivered in the ablishn state uv Ohio, to wit, at Wingert's
Corners, where ther wuz four groceries, but nary church or skool-house
within four miles, and whose populashen wuz unanimously Dimocratic, the
grocery keepers hevin mortgages on all the land around em--but alars! I
wuz forced to leeve it after the election of Linkin in 1864. Noo Gersey
bein the only state North wich wuz onsquelched, to her I fled, and at
Saint's Rest (wich is in Noo Gersey) I erected another tabernacle. There