Why, my reason almost tottered on its throne under my recent best
head-dress, when I hearn him speak the name. Christopher Columbus a
tellin' me about Isabelle--

I declare I wuz that wrought up that I expected every minute to hear him
tell me somethin' about Ferdinand; but I do believe that I should have
broke down under that.

But it wuz all explained out to me afterwards by another relation that
come onto us onexpected shortly afterwards.

It seemed that Uncle Ezra and Aunt Tryphenia, after they went to Maine,
moved into a sort of a new place, where it wuz dretful lonesome.

They lost every book they had, owin' to a axident on their journey,
and the only book their nighest neighbor had wuz the life of Queen
Isabelle.

[Illustration: They lost every book they had, owin' to a axident on
their journey.]

And so Aunt Tryphenia for years wuz, as you may say, jest saturated with
that book. And she named her two children, born durin' that time of
saturation, Christopher Columbus and Isabelle. And I presoom if she had
had another, she would have named it King Ferdinand. Though I hain't
sure of this--you can't be postive certain of any such thing as this.
Besides it might have been born a girl onbeknown to her.

But I know that she never washed them children with anything but Casteel