The Deacon wuz edifyin' in conversation, and he thought, and said,
"that my mind was the heftiest one that he had ever met, and he
had met hundreds and hundreds of 'em." He meant it, you could see
that, he meant every word he said. And it wuz kind of comfortin'
to hear the Deacon say so, for I respected the Deacon, and I knew
he meant just what he said.

He said, and believed, though it haint so, but the Deacon believed
it, "that I looked younger than I did the day I wuz married."

I told him "I didn't feel so young."

"Wall," he said, "then my looks deceived me, for I looked as
young, if not younger."

Deacon Balch is a good, kind, Christian man.

His conversation was very edifyin', and he looked kinder good, and
warm-hearted at me out of his eyes, which wuz blue, some the color
of my Josiah's. But alas! I felt that though some comforted and
edified by his talk, still, my heart was not there, not there in
that double buggy with 2 seats, but wuz afur off with my pardner.
I felt that Josiah Allen wuz a carryin' my heart with him wherever
he wuz a goin'. Curious, haint it? Now you may set and smile,
and talk, and seem to be enjoyin' yourself first-rate, with
agreeable personages all around you, and you do enjoy yourself
with that part of your nater. But with it all, down deep under
the laughs, and the bright words, the comfort you get out of the
answerin' laughs, the gay talk, under it all is the steady
consciousness that the real self is fur away, the heart, the soul