"I hate to see folks so dumb conceeted! Now I don't spose that man has got any hosses much faster than the old mair."

"'Wing's!' Shaw! I don't believe no such thing - a livery on wings. I don't believe a word on't. And you wouldn't ketch me on one on 'em, if they had!"

"'Yet Sing!"' sez he, a lookin' accost the street into a laundry house. "What do I care if you do sing? 'Taint of much account if you do any way. I sing sometimes, I yet sing," says he.

"Sing," sez I in neerly witherin' tone. "I'd love to hear you sing, I haint yet and I've lived with you agoin' on 30 years."

"Wall, if you haint heerd me, it is because you are deef," sez he.

But that is jest the way he kep' on, a hurryin' me along, and a talkin' fast to try to get the price of that picture out of my head. Anon, and sometimes oftener, we would come to the word in big letters on signs, or on the fence, or the sides of barns, "Pray." And sometimes it would read, "Pray for my wife!" And Josiah every time he came to the words would stop and reflect on 'em.

"`Pray!' What business is it of yourn, whether I pray or not?

`Pray for my wife!' That haint none of your business."

Sez he, a shakin' his fist at the fence, "'Taint likely I should have a wife without prayin' for her. She needs it bad enough,"

sez he once, as he stood lookin' at it.

I gin him a strange look, and he sez, "You wouldn't like it, would you, if I didn't pray for you?"

"No," sez I, "and truly as you say, the woman who is your wife needs prayer, she needs help, morn half the time she duz."

He looked kinder dissatisfied at the way I turned it, but he sez, "'Plumbin' done here!'"

"I'd love to know where they are goin' to plum. I don't see no sign of plum trees, nor no stick to knock 'em off with." And agin he sez, "You would make a great 'fuss, Samantha, if I should say what is painted up right there on that cross piece. You would say I wuz a swearin'."

Sez I coldly, (or as cold as I could with my blood heated by the voyalence and rapidity of the walk he had been a leadin' me,) "There is a Van in front of it. Van Dam haint swearin'."

"You would say it wuz if I used it," sez he reproachfully. "If I should fall down on the ice, or stub my toe, and trip up on the meetin' house steps, and I should happen to mention the name of that street about the same time, you would say I wuz a swearin'."

I did not reply to him; I wouldn't. And ag'in he hurried me on'ards by some good lookin' bildin's, and trees, and tavrens, and cottages, and etc., etc., and we come to Caroline street, and Jane, and Matilda, and lots of wimmen's names.

And Josiah sez, "I'll bet the man that named them streets wuz love sick!"

But he wuzn't no such thing. It was a father that owned the land, and laid out the streets, and named 'em for his daughters. Good old creeter! I wuzn't goin' to have him run at this late day, and run down his own streets too.

But ag'in Josiah hurried me on'ards. And bimeby we found ourselves a standin' in front of a kind of a lonesome lookin'

house, big and square, with tall pillows in front. It wuz a standin' back as if it wuz a kinder a drawin' back from company, in a square yard all dark and shady with tall trees. And it all looked kinder dusky, and solemn like. And a bystander a standin'

by told us that it wuz "ha'nted."

Josiah pawed at it, and shawed at the idee of a gost.

But I sez, "There! that is the only thing Saratoga lacked to make her perfectly interestin', and that is a gost!"

But agin Josiah pawed at the idee, and sez, "There never wuz such a thing as a gost! and never will be." And sez he, "what an extraordenary idiot anybody must be to believe in any sech thing."

And ag'in he looked very skernful and high-headed, and once ag'in he shawed.

And I kep' pretty middlin' calm and serene and asked the bystander, when the gost ha'nted, and where?

And he said, it opened doors and blowed out lights mostly, and trampled up stairs.

"Openin', and blowin', and tramplin'," sez I dreamily.

"Yes," sez the man, "that's what it duz."

And agin Josiah shawed loud. And agin I kep' calm, and sez I, "I'd give a cent to see it." And sez I, "Do you suppose it would blow out and trample if we should go in?"

But Josiah grasped holt of my arm and sez, "'Taint safe! my dear Samantha! don't le's go near the house."

"Why? " sez I coldly, "you say there haint no sech thing as a gost, what are you afraid on?"

His teeth wuz fairly chatterin'. "Oh! there might be spiders there, or mice, it haint best to go."

I turned silently round and started on, for my companion's looks was pitiful in the extreme. But I merely observed this, as we wended onwards, "I have always noticed this, Josiah Allen, that them that shaw the most at sech things, are the ones whose teeth chatter when they come a nigh 'em, showin' plain that the shawers are really the ones that believe in 'em."

"My teeth chattered," sez he, "because my gooms ache."

"Well," sez I, "the leest said the soonest mended." And we went on fast ag'in by big houses and little, and boardin' houses, and boardin' houses, and boardin' houses, and tavrens, and tavrens, and he kept me a walkin' till my feet wuz most blistered.

I see what his aim wuz; I had recognized it all the hull time.

But as we went up the stairway into our room, perfectly tuckered out, both on us, I sez to him, in weary axents, "That picture wuz cheap enough, for the money, wuzn't it?"

He groaned aloud. And sech is my love for that man, that the minute I heard that groan I immegetly added, "Though I hadn't no idee of buyin' it, Josiah."

Immegetly he smiled warmly, and wuz very affectionate in his demeener to me for as much as two hours and a half. Sech is the might of human love.

His hurryin' me over them swelterin' and blisterin' streets, and showin' me all the beauty and glory of the world, and his conversation had no effect, skercely on my mind. But what them hours of frenzied effert could not accomplish, that one still, small groan did. I love that man. I almost worship him, and he me, vise versey, and the same.

We found that Ardelia Tutt had been to see us in our absence. She had been into our room I see, for she had dropped one of her mits there. And the chambermaid said she had been in and waited for us quite a spell - the young man a waitin' below on the piazza, so I s'posed.

I expect Ardelia wanted to show him off to us and I myself wuz quite anxus to see him, feelin' worried and oncomfertable about Abram Gee and wantin' to see if this young chap wuz anywhere nigh as good as Abram.

Well about a hour after we came back, Josiah missed his gla.s.ses he reads with. And we looked all over the house for 'em, and under the bed, and on the ceilin', and through our trunks and bandboxes, and all our pockets, and in the Bible, and Josiah's boots, and everywhere. And finely, after givin' 'em up as lost, the idee come to us that they might possibly have ketched on the fringe of Ardelia's shawl, and so rode home with her on it.

So we sent one of the office-boys home with her mit and asked her if she had seen Josiah's gla.s.ses. And word come back by the boy that she hadn't seen 'em, and she sent word to me to look on my pardner's head for 'em, and sure enough there we found 'em, right on his foretop, to both of our surprises.

She sent also by the boy a poem she had wrote that afternoon, and sent word how sorry she wuz I wuzn't to home to see Mr. Flamburg.

But I see him only a day or two after that, and I didn't like his looks a mite.

But he said, and stuck to it, that his father owned a large bank, that he wuz a banker, and a doin' a heavy business.

Wall, that raised him dretfully in Ardelia's eyes; she owned up to me that it did. She owned to me that she lead always thought she would love to be a Banker's Bride. She thought it sounded rich.

She said, "banker sounded so different from baker."

I sez to her coolly, that "it wuz only a difference of one letter, and I never wuz much of a one to put the letter N above any of the others, or to be haughty on havin' it added to, or diminished from my name."

But she kep' on a goin' with him. She told me it wuz real romanticle the way he got aquanted with her. He see her onbeknown to her one day, when she wuz a writin' a poem on one of the benches in the park.

"A Poem on a Bench!"