air, as if he was a liftin’ ’em out of black mud. He lifted ’em 45right up, and they stood out in front of his arms, some like wings; and, as he stood lookin’ round the audience, in this commandin’ and imposin’ position, he repeated the words in a more lofty and majestic tone: 45 A THRILLIN’ MOMENT. “I clear my coat-skirts of the hull matter. You see me clear ’em. None of the bloody ruin can be laid onto my coat-skirts.” It was a thrillin’ moment. It had a terribly depressin’ effect on a great many lovers of justice and wimmen’s votin’, who was present. They see the dangers hedgin’ in the enterprise, as they never see ’em before. They see the power of the foe they was fightin’ ag’inst, and trembled and quailed before him. But though I realized well what was a goin’ on before me, though I knew what a deadly blow he was a givin’ to the cause, I held firm, and kep’ a cool mean, and never thought for half a moment of givin’ up my shield. 46And then I knew it wasn’t so much his words—although they was witherin’—as his lofty majesty of bearin’, that influenced the almost breathless audience. He stood in that commandin’ posture, I have described, for I should judge, nearly one moment and a half, and then he repeated the words: 46 “For I say unto you,”—and here he dropped his coat-skirts suddenly, and struck himself in the breast a sudden and violent blow with his thumb,—the fingers all standin’ out straight, like the bones of a fan—“for I say unto you; and if these are the last words you shall ever hear from my humble but perfectly honorable mouth,—remember, Jonesville and the world, that I died a sayin’, beware of the female pole.” I never in my hull life heerd a pole sound so faint and sickly as that pole did. It dwindled away almost to nothin’, and he kinder shet his eyes up and sallied away, as if he was a goin to die off himself. It skairt some of the wimmen most to death, it was so impressive; but I knew it was all the effect of high trainin’; I knew he would come to in a minute, and he did. Pretty soon he kinder repeated the words, in a sickly tone: “Remember, I died a sayin’: beware of the female pole. Beware! beware!!” And oh, how skairt them wimmen was again; for he straightened right up and yelled out them 47two bewares, like a couple of claps of thunder; and his eyes kep’ a growin’ bigger and bigger, and his voice
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