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Bles was thinking He sat in the back of the hall, tense, alert, nervous As the speaker progressed a white man came in and sat down beside him He was spectacled, with bushy eyebrows and a sleepy look But he did not sleep He was very observant
"Who's speaking?" he asked Bles, and Bles told him Then he inquired about one or two other persons Bles could not infor to devote considerable ti for a spring, and no sooner had the speaker, with a really fine apostrophe to independence and reason in voting, sat down, than Bles was on his feet, walking forward His for, his voice deep and musical, and his earnestness terribly evident He hardly waited for recognition frohtly astonished president, but fairly burst into speech
"I aan earnestly, "and I know the Deovern, oppression, and helplessness of the sodden black , he reminded them of the history of slavery Finally, he pointed to Lincoln's picture and to Sumner's and mentioned other white friends
"And, entleman spoke of Senator Smith and blahtly, but I do know his sister well"
Dropping to si to school; and if his audience felt that great depth of e, address, it was not simply because of what he did say, but because, too, of the unspoken story that lay too deep for words He spoke for nearly an hour, and when he stopped, for ainto a ind of applause They shouted, clapped, and waved while he sat in blank amazeain and again The spectacled white s
"Who is he?" he asked Stillings told him The man noted the naht, and Teerswell beside her fumed She was not easily moved, but that speech had moved her If he could thus stir men and not be hiht he was erous If his intense belief happened to be popular, all right; but if not? She frowned He orth watching, she concluded; quite worth watching, and perhaps worth guiding