a widow, you have seen trouble. But you will be happy. The
mild, bald gentleman will make you happy. He will lead you to
the altar in spite of the light-complected woman with the blue
bat on."

Ardelia Tutt had on a blue hat, the idee! But I let her go on.
Thinkses I, "I have paid my money and now it stands me in hand to
get the worth on't." So she comferted me up with the hope of
gettin' my Josiah for quite a spell.

Gettin' my pardner! Gettin' the father of my childern, and the
grandparent of my grandchildren! Jest think on't, will you?

But then she branched off and told me things that wuz truly
wonderful. Where and how she got 'em wuz and is a mistery to me.
True things, and strange.

Why it seemed same as if them tall pines, that wuz a whisperin'
together over the Encampment wuz a peerin' over into my past, and
a whisperin' it down to her. Or, in some way or other, the truth
wuz a bein' filtered down to her comprehension through some
avenue beyond our sense or sight.

It is a curious thing, so I think, and so Josiah thinks. We
talked it over after I came out, and we wuz a wanderin' on about
the Encampment. I told him some of the wonderful things she had
told me and he didn't believe it. "For," sez he, "I'll be hanged
if I can understand and I won't believe anything that I can't
understand!"