"But that grain farm-house, what food for hens that would make--such a variety. Why, the hens would jest pour out eggs fed on the ruins of that farm.

"Give me beauty and economy hitched together in one team."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "What food for hens that would make."]

I sithed, and the sithe wuz deep, almost like a groan, and sez I--

"You tire me, Josiah Allen--you tire me almost to death."

"Wall," sez he, "I'm talkin' good horse sense."

Sez I, "I should think it wuz animal sense of some kind--nothin'

spiritual about it and riz up."

"Wall," sez he, "you'll see five hundred folks a-standin' round and praisin' up them seed picters where there is one that gits carried away as you do over Wattses 'Love and Death' and Elihu Vedder's dum picters."

"Wall," sez I, in a tired-out axent, "that don't prove anything, Josiah Allen. The mult.i.tude chose Barrabus to the Divine One.

"Not," sez I reasonably, "that I would want to compare the seed picters and the b.u.t.ter females to a robber.

"They're extremely curious and interestin' to look at, and wonderful in their way as anything in the hull Exposition.

"But," sez I, "there is a height and a depth in the soul that them b.u.t.ter figgers can't touch--no, nor the pop-corn trees can't reach that height with their sorghum branches. It lays fur beyond the switchin'

timothy tail of that seed horse or the wavin' raisen mane of that prune charger. It is a realm," sez I, "that I fear you will never stand in, Josiah Allen."

"No, indeed," sez he; "and I don't want to. I hain't no desires that way."

Again I sithed, and we walked off into another gallery.

Wall, I might write and keep a-writin' from Fourth of July to Christmas Eve, and then git up Christmas mornin' and say truly that the half hadn't been told of what we see there, and so what is the use of tryin'

to relate it in this epistle.

But suffice it to say that we stayed there all day long, and that night we meandered home perfectly wore out, and perfectly riz up in our two minds, or at least I wuz. Josiah's feelin's seemed to be clear f.a.g, jest plain wore out f.a.g.

The nights are always cool in Chicago--that is, if the weather is anyways comfortable durin' the day.

And this night it wuz so cool that a good woollen blanket and bedspread wuz none too much for comfort.

And it wuz with a sithe of contentment that I lay down on my peaceful goose-feather pillow, and drawed the blankets up over my weary frame and sunk to sleep.

I had been to sleep I know not how long when a angry, excited voice wakened me. It said, "Lay down, can't you!"

I hearn it as one in a dream. I couldn't sense where I wuz nor who wuz talkin', when agin I hearn--

"Dum it all! why can't you fall as you ort to?"

Wuz some struggle a-goin' on in my room? The bed wuz in an alcove, and I could not see the place from where the voice proceeded.

I reached my hand out. My worst apprehensions wuz realized. Josiah wuz not there.

Wuz some one a-killin' him, and a-orderin' him to lay still and fall as he ort to?

Wuz such boldness in crime possible?

I raised my head and looked out into the room, and then with a wild shriek I covered up my head. Then I discovered that there wuz only one thin sheet over me.

The sight I had seen had driv' the blood in my veins all back to my heart.

A tall white figger wuz a-standin' before the gla.s.s, draped from head to foot in heavy white drapery.

I'd often turned it over in my mind in hours of ease which I'd ruther have appear to me in the night--a burglar or a ghost.

And now in the tumultous beatin's of my heart I owned up that I would ruther a hundred times it would be a burglar.

Anything seemed to me better than to be alone at night with a ghost.

But anon, as I quaked and trembled under that sheet, the voice spoke agin--

"Samantha, are you awake?" And I sprung up in bed agin, and sez I--

"Josiah Allen, where are you? Oh, save me, Josiah! save me!"

The white figger turned. "Save you from what, Samantha? Is there a mouse under the bed, or is it a spider, or what?"

"Who be you?" sez I, almost incoherently. "Be you a ghost? Oh, Josiah, Josiah!" And I sunk back onto the pillow and busted into tears. The relief wuz too great.

But anon Wonder seized the place that Fear had held in my frame, and dried up the tear-drops, and I sprung up agin and sez--

"What be you a-doin', Josiah Allen, rigged up as you be in the middle of the night, with the lights all a-burnin'?"

For every gas jet in the room was a-blazin' high.

Sez he, "I am posin' for a statute, Samantha."

And come to look closter, I see he had took off the blanket and bedspread and had swathed 'em round his form some like a toga.

And I see it wuz them that he wuz apostrofizin' and orderin' to lay down in folds and fall graceful.

And somehow the idee of his takin' the bedclothes offen me seemed to mad me about as much as his foolishness and vanity did.

And sez I, "Do you take off them bedclothes offen you, and put 'em back agin, and come to bed!"

But he didn't heed me, he went on with his vain doin's and actin'.

"I am impersonatin' Apollo!" sez he, a-layin' his head onto one side and a-lookin' at me over his shoulder in a kind of a languishin' way.

Sez he, a-liftin' his heel, and holdin' it up a little ways, "I did think I would be Mercury, but I hadn't any wing handy for my off heel. I would be strikin' as Mercury," sez he, "but I think I would be at my best as Apollo. What do you think I had better be, Samantha?"