We made so much Jackson-racket, rivaling General Lunarista's banging and bursting little howitzer shells, that pretty soon the entire population of the Bomb-Proof believed that like an angry gin-swilling plain-talking angel, Old Man Jackson was due any minute to swoop down in his steam-balloon and deliver us out of the grips of five thousand mean little moonmen. So it became necessary for Major Brown to send Captain Walker down to us, and explain it wasn't so, and futhermore, to explain exactly what was so.

We admired the famous Ranger, restlessly pacing to and fro in the underground gallery, fiddling with a wooden nickle, unhappy to be cooped-up, claustrophobic, nervously discharging smoke from his long-stemmed clay pipe like a Vanderbuilt Line Balloon-Steamer.

He called out, "Cotton Balers of the 7th! I salute your coyote gumption under adversity!" and he saluted us. "Major Brown will see you fellars through this siege. General Taylor asked me to have a little look-see round this here Fort Texas, and I see you all doin' just dandy - even if y'all are hid like prairie dogs from a passin' herd of buffalo. That's good, `cause the General asked me to tell Major Brown that it'd be two-three-four more days before he can get all his chuck wagons loaded up at Archytas Crater, and Fort Polk thar built up as fine and strong as this here one..."

At this unhappy news we all groaned, and some Dough-Boys cried out:

"Where's Jackson?"

" - We want Andy Jackson!"

Sam Walker chuckled at this, and relaxed a little. He hooked his thumbs in his turquoise and silver belt. "Say, what about Old Hickory? He's gone now. But boys, I'll tell y'all. I still hear Gin'l Jackson shouting `All the Moon!' with more grunt and gristle than a corn-fed king bull smellin' filly cow. The whole bull herd smells filly cows, but first they gotta break a fence, and behind that they gotta cross a shallow crick. You could call that thar fence Congress, and you could call that crick the Mare Friggerest. There ain't nothin' gonna stop that king bull from leadin' the herd through that fence and cross that crick! I tell y'all, them filly cows are destined to have calves, calves branded the stars of Old Glory. So you boys just sit tight, knowin' you're doin' Andy's good work for'm. And y'know, you're givin' them scardy cats of Congress conniption fits - like Old Man Adams, that old fossil! - who keeps bangin' that cheap and tawdry manumissionist tambourine," he chuckled over this war that was giving them manumissionists such a ribbing, and we chuckled too. ("Course, to be fair, Adams tried to buy Texas from the Mooners when he was president, just like Jackson, so give the devil his due," he added. "If the Mooners had let go of Texas, there wouldn't be no war now.")

But there was a hissing that broker louder and louder through our chuckling, as Prince-President Franklin Stove puffed out a little white cloud of steam. <<#$@% - With all due alacrity I will now endeavor to plow-in that manure of truth, in order that a crop of good cotton blossoms will restore the modest gown of virtue to the naked - #$@% - brazen - #$@%}- audacity of our Goddess - #$@% - Rrr-oo! - Liberty,>> spake the metal man with eyes a- burning with a grey whippoorwill featherly flutter.

We were all - even Sam Walker - shocked and surprised by this scalding tone that cooked to cinders the bones we were gnawing on, the one that Andy Jackson tossed us. << - # % * @ - The Moon must be the Peninsula of T'eggs-eggs-eggs - # % * @ - T'eggs-as - # % * @ - the P. of T., in order for the consistent logic of Progr'eggs-eggs - # % * @ - Progregg-as - # % * @ - mechanics of Destiny to conclude that the golden shores of Venus are destined to become the west coast of Virginia.>>

"Hold it right thar, my metal amigo!" called Sam Walker, lifting his gnarled paw to shade his sight from the dizzying grey ambiguities of the automaton's glass eyes.

"Only the most yellerbellied stinkbug of a foreign-born stumper on bended knee before a Yankee penny-press could churp such a bluejay cock-a-doodle-noodle of wrigglin' Whiggery! This here Texas crescent has got NUTHIN' to do with wrastlin Venus from the weak little grip of the Mooners, if there's wrastlin' to do. Them is two different animules. Texas, now, she earnt her indy-pendance fair and square, just like the Orrr-riggynal Tharteen Colonies, just a little bit later, not in 1776 but 1836. (Shoot! Has ten years gone so fast...?) Sure, we was a Moon State once, but we parted company fair and square and legal even, cause a scoundral named Lunarstasio Bustamate busted-up the Feddy-ral compact. Matter of fact, it was the Feddy-ral flag of the Moon that Crockett, Bowie, and the Gang fought and died under at the glorious defense of the Alamo. Once Bustamate busted-up the Mooner Consty-tution, well, we Lone Star citizens decided we'd protect our rights by indy- pendance.

"I `magine if Andy Jackson had tossed the Immortal Consty-tution out the White House window without even a howdy-do to Congress, I bet them Hartford Conventioneerin' States woulda left the Union right quick. That's just what Texas did, she liberated herself from the Moon, and now it's only fair we liberate the rest of the Moon, and civilize her while we's at it. Now, Andy Jackson, he always defended the Consty-tution as he understood it, and if he ever misunderstood a little clause, or a tiny phrase, well, it was for the sake of the Common Man, which is why I, for one, will not tolerate anyone sayin' anythin' dirty `bout Andy Jackson!"

We cheered!

"May I say somethin', Captain?" called Sarah.

Sam Walker gallantly bowed, sweeping off his hat.

Sarah rolled up the sleeves of her dress, and raised her long arms. "Boys! Some of you know me better'n others, but you all know me, and know that I love the Cotton Balers, and know how proud of y'all I am. But do you know why? `Cause, boys, thar's work to be done. And we Cotton Balers is the ones who got to do it! See, now, boys:we lives in times of Big Doin's. Destiny lies all sorta hunched over, like a bullfrog ready to pounce on a purty dragonfly. I say, heck! Let's pounce, while the pouncin's good! `Cause if'n we don't, some mean old snappin' turtle will snap up that dragonfly, you know they will, they want to do it, those nasty Old World snappin' turtles, and they WILL do it, too, `less'n we pounce first. So I say, let's pounce, while the pouncin's good! - That's all," she curtsied, then asked, "Lemme have a puff a'yer pipe, thar, Sam," and puff-puff-puffed away like a Lowell shirt-manufactury.

"Bull's-eye!" agreed Sam Walker, smashing his hat back on. "The Moon is jest sittin' and waitin' to be snatched up. She's a plum on our thumb, boys! They're backward and weak and full of Injuns. That's why them Great Deimos agents is plottin' and schemin' to steal Venus - she\'d5s easy pickin's, like visitin' a widow with seven purty daughters. All the bandy-legged aristy-crats of Mars say they get Venus `cause the Lunars owe them so much gold; I tell y'all, not just John Bull wants it, nope, they all do - why, even the Martian Tsar's got a fort on that golden orb (though I hear tell he sold it to a sly Yankee). I tell y'all, not one of us - not even Old Man Adams wants a monarch putting any more colonies anywhere in our Inner Spheres."

Sarah gave him back his pipe and he sucked on the long clay stem, thinking. He added, "I say, if we love one of that widow's purty daughters, heck and tarnation, let's marry her! That widow can't take care of seven daughters alone! That widow's too weak and sick and crazy in the head! She needs from a kind, civilized gentleman, one that goes by the name of Yankee Doodle!"

We tossed our kepis, jumped up and cheered wildly:

We cheered and cheered, as the shells burst nastily above. Sam Walker stood proudly, smiling and nodding, his hand in his coat like Napoleon; Sarah lifted her straw hat and turned a jig, slapping her ankles, jingling her jewelry, dropping an ace of hearts from her apron as she howled, "Woo-woo-woo!" like a lobo.

P. P. F. S. tried to speak, but Sarah told him, "Hush-up a minute, will you, Perfessor? Sam ain't finished."

From his stove pipe, black smoke started puffing blacker and smokier.

"You do un'erstand," smiled the Ranger, pointing his pipe like a Colt repeater. He made guppy faces blowing happy smoke rings at us. As the smoke rings wobbled outward, they interlocked in a murky chain.

"Say, I see a sperit..." said Sarah, in a hushed, feverish tone, her eyes a-fire. "What's that sperit? (I ain't talkin' `bout corn-sperits, neither)...No, sir...That's - why, yes! - the Sperit of Seventy-Six!"

" - No Sarah!" cried Sam Walker. "It's the Sperit of Tharty-Six!"

Again we cheered wildly. Sarah lead us into "Yankee Doodle went to town, a-rid'nin' on a po-ny - ," bobbing up and down to the beat of the song. "Stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaro-ni!" A Music sitting nearby picked up his glockenspiel and tinkled out the tune. We all had a good old Yankee-Doodling time, keeping it up until -

Until the automaton had raised enough boiler-pressure. Like 4th of July fireworks, a great hiss of steam and a lurid lit cloud of coke smoke advertised in dramatic fashion the loud, shrill words, words both unwelcome and unpleasant, concerning a most dreaded SUBJECT...

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