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That sour-apple philosopher, by the way, is taking her departure to-morrow. And I'm not half so sorry as I pretend to be. She's made me feel like an intruder in my own home. And she's a soured and venomous old ignoramus, for she sneered openly at my bath-thermometer and defies Poppsy and Pee-Wee to survive the winter without a "comfort."
Then they said they'd postpone execution on condition that I'd kneel down, drink a pint o' whisky, take the oath o' allegiance to Abe Lincoln, and sing 'We'll hang Jeff Davis on a sour-apple tree. "I told 'em I wuz perfectly willin' to take the oath to Abe Lincoln as often as they pleased; that he wuz my man from start to finish; that I wanted Jeff Davis hung the minit we ketched him.
"That blamed old rebel picture oughtn't to be hangin' there, Si," observed Shorty. "Indeed it oughtn't. Jeff ought to be hung to a sour-apple tree, and that glass'd make a nice winder for our house." "Indeed it would," Shorty started to answer, but time was too precious to waste in speech. In an instant he had shoved an old desk up to the wall, mounted it, and handed the picture down to Si.
Do you happen to have heard any thing of him? "Silently Mrs. Tabitha beckoned her to follow, and, leading the way to the orchard, pointed to a sour-apple tree, where Gold Elsie beheld a ghastly sight. By a cord tied tightly about his neck, his jaws distended, his one eye starting from its socket, hung Robber Grim stiff, motionless, dead.
Again I remember riding on his shoulder in the downstairs hall, as he skipped about with me, and of being face to face, on equal terms, with the hall lamp, and of telling Father that when I grew up I was going to be a king, and of Father telling me at once that they hung kings on a sour-apple tree. It was always a sour-apple tree, never a sweet one, used for hangings.
And when John Brown made his raid, Theodore Parker was indicted as an "accessory before the fact." Had he been caught on Virginia soil he would doubtless have been hanged on a sour-apple tree and his soul sent marching on. In his sermons he was brief, pointed, direct and homely in expression. He used the language of the plain people On one occasion he said: "I have more hay down than I can get in.
They were hurrahing for Lincoln and Morton, and shouting for the Union, and some were singing, “We’ll hang Jeff Davis on a sour-apple tree.” Rapidly pushing his way through this mob, he reached the outer edge of the circle. Here groups of men were standing, but they were not hurrahing. Instead, their looks were dark and surly, and it was plain they were not enjoying the proceedings.
But by and by the earnest and honest citizens get tired of this ungodly nonsense and organize a Vigilance Committee, which hangs the more vicious of the pestiferous crowd to a sour-apple tree; and then come good municipal laws, ministers, meeting-houses, and a tolerably sober police in blue coats with brass buttons.
Should Chief Justice Fuller issue an injunction restraining all men from coming within a quarter of a mile of a woman, on penalty of death, we would all place ourselves in contempt in an hour; and should the army try to enforce the order, we would smother Justice Fuller in his wool-sack and hang his effigy on a sour-apple tree.
Gainsborough saw Whitefield and Wesley entreating that we should go to God direct; Howard was letting the sunshine into dark cells; Clarkson, Sharp and Wilberforce had begun their crusade against slavery, and their arms and arguments were to be transferred a hundred years later to William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips and Henry Ward Beecher, who bought "Beecher Bibles" for Old John Brown, Osawatomie Brown, whose body, no longer needed, was hanged on a sour-apple tree while his soul goes marching on.
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