Man could get it any straighter than that?"
Bob was seeing a great light. He nodded.
"They've changed the rules of the game!" said California John
impressively, "and now they want to go back thirty year and hold these
fellows to account for what they did under the old rules. It don't look
to me like it's fair."
He thought a moment.
"I suppose," he remarked reflectively, going off on one of his strange
tangents, and lapsing once more into his customary picturesque speech,
"that these old boys that burned those Salem witches was pretty well
thought of in Salem--deacons in the church, and all such; p'ticular
elect, and held up to the kids for high moral examples? had the plumb
universal approval in those torchlight efforts of theirn?"
"So I believe," said Bob.
"Well," drawled California John, stretching his lank frame, "suppose one
of those old bucks had lived to now--of course, he couldn't, but suppose
he did--and was enjoying himself and being a good citizen. And suppose
some day the sheriff touched him on the shoulder and says: 'Old boy,
we're rounding up all the murderers. I've just got Saleratus Bill for
scragging Franklin.
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