"On what subject?" I asked.
"There's only one subject," he said,—"life." And his face was radiant with a really beautiful smile, warmed with his rich humor. I began to say that I would prepare something, but he would not let me finish my sentence.
"Prepare!" he exclaimed. "Why prepare? Just speak what's in your heart."
He was always like that. Once, a good while after, in one of his campaigns, he called me on the telephone one evening just at dinner time, and said:
"I want you to go to Ironville and speak to-*night."
I was tired, and, as I dislike to confess, somewhat reluctant,—I had always to battle so for a little time to write,—so that I hesitated, asked questions, told him, as usual, that I had no speech prepared.
"But you know it is written," he said, "that 'in that hour it shall be given you what ye shall say.'"
I could assure him that the prophecy had somewhat failed in my case, and that what was given me to say was not always worth listening to when it was said; and then I inquired:
"What kind of crowd will be there?"
"Oh, a good crowd!" he said.
"But what kind of people?"
"What kind of people?" he asked in a tone of great and genuine surprise. "What kind of people? Why, there's only one kind of people—just people, just folks."
I went of course, and I went as well to Golden Rule Park and to Golden Rule Hall, and there was
