-- and she owned up to me, that she had laid out to marry
somebody to elevate her. Some one with a grand pure mission in
life.

And I spoke right up and sez, "Why bread is jest as pure and
innocent as anything can be, you won't find anything wicked about
good yeast bread, nor," sez I, cordially, "in milk risin', if it
is made proper."

But she said she preferred a occupation that wuz risin', and
noble, and that made a man necessary and helpful to the masses.

And I sez agin -- "Good land! the masses have got to eat. And I
guess you starve the masses a spell and they'll think that good
bread is as necessary and helpful to 'em as anything can be. And
as fer its bein' a risin' occupation, why," sez I, "it is stiddy
risen' -- risin' in the mornin,' and risin' at night, and all
night, both hop and milk emptin's. Why," sez I, "I never see a
occupation so risin' as his'n is, both milk and hop." But she
wouldn't seem to give in and encourage him much only by spells.

And then Abram didn't take the right way with her. I see he wuz
a goin' just the wrong way to win a woman's love. For his love,
his great honest love for her made him abject, he groveled at her
feet, loved to grovel.

I told him, for he confided in me from the first on't and
bewailed her coldness to me, I told him to sprout up and act as
if he had some will of his own and some independent life of his
own. Sez I, "Any woman that sees a man a layin' around under her