bare feet on the wet ground and her pretty eyes lookin' pitifully
into our'n. She wanted to sell 'em awfully, I could see. And I
should have bought the hull of 'em immegitly, my feelin's was
sech, but onfortionably I had left my port-money in my other
pocket, and Josiah said he had left his (mebby he had). But Miss
Flamm would have bought 'em in a minute, I knew, the child's face
looked so mournful and appealin'; she would have bought 'em, but
she wuz so engrossed by the dog; she wuz a holdin' him up in
front of her a admirin' and carressin' of him, so's she never
ketched sight of the lame child.

No body, not the best natured creeter in the world, can see
through a dog when it is held clost up to the eye, closer than
anything else.

Wall, we drove down to what they called Vichy Spring and there on
a pretty pond clost to the springhouse, we see a boat with a
bycycle on it, and a boy a ridin' it. The boat wuz rigged out to
look like a swan with its wings a comin' up each side of the boy.
And down on the water, a sailin' along closely and silently wuz
another swan, a shadow swan, a follerin' it right along. It wuz
a fair seen.

And Josiah sez to me, "He should ride that boat before he left
Saratoga; he said that wuz a undertakin' that a man might be
proud to accomplish."

Sez I, "Josiah Allen, don't you do anything of the kind."

"I MUST, Samantha," sez he. And then he got all animated about