Wall, their extra good meal had sot up Josiah and Bizer to a wonderful extent (they had drunk coffee too strong for 'em by half, and I knew it), and them two men wanted to go back into the Cairo Street. Bizer and Selinda had never seen it, and all the way there Josiah seemed to be on the lookout to do sunthin' heroic and surprisin' to Bizer.

And jest after we got there, we did see as strange a sight as I ever see. It wuz a Eastern Fakir, as they called him. He wuz performin' one of his strange sights right there before our face and eyes.

A big crowd wuz gathered round him of human bein's in all strange costumes, and camels and their drivers, and dromedaries, and donkeys, and everything else under the sun. But this man stood calm under the sights and ear-piercin' yells and jabbers.

And in some way, I d'no how, nor Josiah don't, he wuz a-holdin' another j.a.pan or Turkey--anyway, one of them foreign men--suspended right up in the air.

I see it, and Josiah see it, and Bizerses folks. Eight eyes from Jonesville looked at it, to say nothin' of the a.s.sembled crowd.

He wuzn't restin' on nothin' at all, so fur as we could see. What material wrought out of the Occult World wuz piled up under him I d'no.

There might have been a sofa and two cushions wrought out of another fabric different from what we know anything about, and that don't make any show aginst the summer sky.

And then, agin, it might be that Josiah wuz right.

He sez, "It's easy enough to do that. He casts a mist before our eyes, and we have to see jest what he wanted us to."

"Wall," sez I, "if I had to do one of 'em to entertain the Missionary Society at Jonesville, I d'no but I had jest as soon hist Submit Tewksbury up in the air, and suspend her there in our parlor, as to cast mists before the eyes of the Jonesvillians and make 'em see her there when she wuz a-settin' on the sofa. Either one on 'em is queer--queer as a dog."

"Wall," sez he, "you don't want to go into any sech a job. You'll kill Submit, anyway, experimentin' on her."

And I sez, "You needn't worry; I hain't a-goin' to try to branch out into no sech doin's." Sez I, "I wuz usin' Submit as a metafor."

Wall, the Fakir after a while asked the queer-lookin' crowd gathered round him for money to try more experiments with.

And wantin' to branch out and outdo Bizer, and make himself a hero, Josiah planked out a five-dollar bill.

And then the man asked Josiah to look in his hat, and there inside the band he found the money, or so it seemed.

And then he told me to look in my pocket, and there wuz five silver dollars to all appearance.

I felt real well about it, and wuz about to put 'em into my portmoney, thinkin' that they wuz my lawful prey, seein' they had fell onto me through my pardner's weakness, when lo and behold! they wuzn't there.

I felt real stunted, and kinder sot back.

"Slight of hand," sez Josiah to me and Bizer. "Don't be afraid, I'll make it all right." And he reached out his hand to git the money back.

The man handed the money back, or so we spozed, and vanished in the crowd.

And Josiah, when he went to look in his hand, found some pink and white paper. He hollered round and acted for quite a spell, but the man wuz gone for good, and Josiah's money with him. Wall, Josiah wuz almost broken-hearted over the loss of his money; he felt awful browbeat and s.m.u.t, and acted so.

And then it wuz Bizer's time to show off and act. Nothin' to do but what Selinda had got to ride a camel.

She hung back and acted 'fraid. She hain't a bit well, for all she is so fat. She has real dizzy spells sometimes, and is that cowardly that she'd be 'fraid to ride a cow, let alone one of them tall, humbly monsters. But nothin' to do but what Bizer would have his way.

He did it jest to go ahead of us, and I knew it, for I put my foot right down in the first on't.

Josiah would a paid out the money willin'ly ruther than had Bizer go ahead of him.

Bizer said he wanted to give Selinda all the enjoyment he could while on her tower, she had been shet up so much, and hadn't had the pleasures she ort to had.

I knew his motives and Selinda's feelin's, but couldn't break it up, for Selinda had always follered Elder Minkley's orders strict, that he gin her at the altar--

"Wives, obey your husbands."

She didn't rebel outward, but she whispered to me in pitiful axents--

"I hate to ride that creeter--oh, how I hate to! But you know my principles," sez she; "you know I always said that wives ort to obey their pardners."

And I sez, "When pardners and common sense conflict, I foller common sense every time. Howsumever," sez I, "if you want to air them principles of yourn, you won't be apt to find a more lofty place to exhibit 'em."

And I glanced up the gray precipitous sides of that camel, and she looked up 'em, too, with fear and tremblin', but begun to gird her lions, figgeratively speakin', to obey Bizer and embark.

She has always boasted to me and the other neighborin' wimmen that she has never disobeyed her husband once; and I sez to her cheerfully, "Wall, I have, and expect to agin, if the Lord spares my life."

And so Miss Bobbet told her, and Miss Gowdy, and Miss Peed.i.c.k, and all the rest. She acted so high-headed about it, that we said it some to take down her pride, and some on principle.

We believed there wuz reason in all things, and none of us wimmen felt that we would stand

"On a burnin' deck, Whence all but we had fled,"

and burn up, even if our pardners had ordered us to. We wuz law-abidin', every one on us, but we felt there wuz times where law ended and common sense begun.

But Selinda argued, I well remember, that if Bizer had ordered her to stay on that deck, she should stay and be sot fire to.

And she praised up little Casey Bianky warmly, while we thought and said that Casey acted like a fool, and felt that Mr. Bianky would much ruther had him run and save himself than to burn up; anyway, old Miss Bianky would, and I believe his pa would.

Men are good-hearted creeters the biggest heft of the time, but failable in judgment sometimes, jest like female wimmen.

But Selinda wuz firm in her belief.

And here this day in Chicago she gin one of the most remarkable proofs of it ever seen in this country.

So while Selinda trembled like a popple leaf, and her false teeth rattled over her dry tongue (besides the camel, she wuz 'fraid as death of the Turkey that driv it, and he did look fierce), the camel knelt down, and the almost swoonin' Selinda was histed up onto his back by the proud and haughty Bizer, and the strange-lookin' Turkey.

She had no more than got seated when the driver give a skairful yell, and the camel give a fearful lunge, and straightened up on its feet, and Selinda's bunnet fell back onto her neck, and lay there through the hull of the enterprise, and her gray hair floated back onchecked, for she da.s.sent let her hands go a minit to fix it.

It wuz a mournin' bunnet and veil, but black gittin' soiled so easy, she had put on a bright green alpaca dress she had, thinkin' that she wouldn't see n.o.body she knew; and she wore some old yeller mitts for the same reason, and some low, shabby-lookin' shoes, and some white stockin's.

And her weight bein' two hundred and forty, she showed off vivid aginst the settin' sun.

Selinda is a meek woman and obedient, but she cries easy. You have got to take good traits and bad ones in folks. She can't help it. She always cries in cla.s.s meetin', or anywhere--has cried time and agin a-tellin'

how she would be trompled on and lay down and have her head chopped off if Bizer told her to.

And of course it couldn't be expected she would go through this fearful experience without sheddin' tears. No; before she had been up there two minits she begun to cry.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Before she had been up there two minits she begun to cry.]

She always makes up pitiful faces when she weeps. It has been talked on a sight in Jonesville, some sayin' she might help it, and some contendin' that she couldn't; but she skairs children frequent.