good meal. No, I felt that my tried and true weepon wuz fur
away, and this wuz my last hope.

But as I thought these thoughts with almost a heatlightnin'
rapidety, I see a change in his liniment. It did not look so
thick and dark; it began to look more natural and clear.

And sez he in the same old way I have heerd him say it so many
times, "Dumb it all! What duz she want to write poetry on me
for? It is time to go home." And so sayin', he almost tore us
from the seen.

I gin Ardelia that night 2 yards of lute-string ribbon, a light
pink, and didn't begrech it. But I have never dast, not in his
most placid and serene moments - I have never dast, to say the
word "Mermaid' to him.

Truly there is something that the boldest female pardner dassent
do. Mermaids is one of the things I don' dast to bring up. No!
no, fur be it from me to say "Mermaid" to Josiah Allen.




XII.

A DRIVE TO SARATOGA LAKE.


Josiah and me took a short drive this afternoon, he hirin' a