“And up through the cloudless blue overhead I believe an angel looks down smilin’ly and lovin’ly on what has been done, and what is a-doin’ now—­that youth whose tender heart, while he walked with man, wuz so tender and compassionate to the poor, and so wise to help ’em.”

The Governor showed plain in his good-lookin’ face how deeply he felt what I said, and I hastened to add—­

“I wanted to thank him who is gone for this great and noble work; and as he has passed on beyend this world’s praise, or blame, I want to tell you about it, seein’ that you’re at the head of the family.

“I speak,” sez I, “in the name of Jonesville!”

“Whose name?” sez he.

And I sez, “My own native land, Jonesville, nigh to Loontown, seven milds from Zoar.”

“Oh!” sez he.

“Yes,” sez I, “Jonesville wuz proud of his doin’s, and she thinks a sight of California.

“But in one thing she feels bad:  she don’t want California to make so much wine; she wishes you’d stop it.

“She’s proud of your fruit, your flowers, your big trees, and other products, but she wishes you’d stop makin’ so much wine.  Jonesville wouldn’t care if you made a couple of quarts for sickness or jell, but she feels as if she couldn’t bear to see you swing out and make so much.”  Sez I, “Jonesville and I want you to stop makin’ it—­we want you to like dogs.”

And then sez I, in still firmer axents, “It hain’t a-settin’ a good example to the schoolchildren in Palo Alto and the United States.”

He looked real downcasted and sad, some as if he’d never thought on’t in that light before.

He didn’t really promise me, but I presoom to say that he won’t never make another drop.

But his face looked dretful deprested.  I see that he felt it deeply to think I had found fault with him.

But to resoom.  Sez I—­for here my gardeen angel hunched me hard and told me that here wuz a chance to do good—­mebby the Governor could carry out the wishes of him that wuz gone—­sez I, “Another great thing that Jonesville and I approve of wuz Senator Stanford’s bill about lendin’ money.”  Sez I, “There never wuz a better bill brought before America, and if Uncle Sam don’t pass it, he hain’t the old man I think he is.

“For,” sez I, “jest take the case of Jim Widrig alone; that would pay for the trouble of passin’ it.

“He has got a big farm of more’n two hundred acres, but the land is all run down—­he can’t raise nothin’ on it hardly, it needs enrichin’ so; he hain’t no stock, and, as he often sez, ’If I should run in debt for ’em, we should soon be landed in the Poor-House.’  He’s got a wife and seven boys.

“Wall, now if he could only borry 2000 dollars of Uncle Sam, and only pay forty dollars a year for it—­why, they would be jest made.

“They could put on twenty young cows on the place, two good horses, and go right on to success, for Jim is hard-workin’, and Mahala Widrig is one of the best hard-workin’ wimmen in the precincks of Jonesville, and I don’t believe she has got a second dress to her back.”