Page:He Knew Lincoln and Other Billy Brown Stories.djvu/87

 nuthin' on but his shirt, and when he see my eyes was open he sings out, 'I tell you, Judge, this country can't last much longer half-slave and half-free.' Bin thinkin' all night far's I know."

Now, sir, that was much as three years before Mr. Lincoln said them self-same words in a speech right in this town. Seems to me I can hear him now singin' it out shrill and far-soundin'. "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all the one thing or all the other." Them's his very words. It made me cold when I heard 'em. If we wa'n't goin' to git on half-slave and half-free like we'd always done, what was goin' to happen?

He hitched on another idee to this one about our becomin' all slave or all free,