are: if we are, not much mistaken, he is their mouthpiece. Get, an eel
into court. There is only one man in town who can hold an eel, and he
isn't on the jury. Mr. Price will talk plentifully, in his nasal way; but
he won't tell you anything.

Mr. Price has been nominated to fill Deacon Lysander Richardson's shoes
in the following manner: One day in the late autumn a man in a coonskin
cap stops beside Mr. Price's woodpile, where Mr. Price has been chopping
wood, pausing occasionally to stare off through the purple haze at the
south shoulder of Coniston Mountain.

"How be you, Jethro?" says Mr. Price, nasally.

"D-Democrats are talkin' some of namin' you Moderator next meetin'," says
the man in the coonskin cap.

"Want to know!" ejaculates Mr. Price, dropping the axe and straightening
up in amazement. For Mr. Price's ambition soared no higher, and he had
made no secret of it. "Wal! Whar'd you hear that, Jethro?"

"H-heerd it round--some. D-Democrat--hain't you--Democrat?"

"Always callate to be."

"J-Jacksonian Democrat?"

"Guess I be."

Silence for a while, that Mr. Price may feel the gavel in his hand, which
he does.