Little wizened
black-eyed fellows clapped their hands, delighting, while their priest
was not by, in the antics of a disreputable churchman; but the bigger
and colder race paid little attention to him.
Various as were the home backgrounds of the lives converging at the
tavern, there were but two topics before that little public while the
cosy fire roared and the banjos rattled. A rumor of coming high water
was running down the Mississippi valley like the wind which is driven
before a rush of rain; and the non-separation party had suffered some
local defeat in the Indiana Territory. The first item of news took
greatest hold on those serious Anglo-Americans who had come from the
Atlantic coast to found estates in this valley. On the contrary, the
peasant tenant gave his mind to politics. It was still an intoxicating
privilege for him to have a say in the government.
"Dese Indiana Territory fellers," piped a grasshopper of a Frenchman,
springing from his chair in excitement, "dey want our slaves, dey want
our Territory,--dey want de hide off our backs.
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