plain as a man and a deacon what you mean."

"Well, I'm tellin' you, hain't I, fast as I can? I've found out by my
own deep research (the tin trunk wuzn't more'n a foot deep but I didn't
throw the trunk in his face), I've discovered this remarkable fact that
this farm the very year of the Louisana Purchase came into the Allen
family by purchase. My great-great-grandfather, Hatevil Allen, bought it
of Ohbejoyful Gowdey, and the papers wuz signed the very day the other
momentous purchase wuz made.

"There wuz fourteen children in the family of old Hatevil, jest as many
as there is States in the purchase they are celebratin' to St. Louis.

"And another wonderful fact old Hatevil Allen paid jest the same amount
for this farm that our Government paid for the Louisiana Purchase."

"Do you mean to tell me, Josiah, that Hatevil Allen paid fifteen
millions for this farm. Will you tell me that? You, a member of the
meetin' house and a deacon?"

"Well, what you might call the same, it is the same figgers with the six
orts left out. Great-granther Allen paid fifteen dollars for this piece
of land, it wuz all woods then."

"Another of these most remarkable series of incidents that have ever
took place on this continent, Thomas Jefferson wuz a main actor in the
Louisana Purchase. He has left this spear some years ago, and who, who
is the father of Thomas Jefferson to-day?"

I didn't say nothin', for I wuz engrossed in my knittin', I wuz jest