I see he wuz deeply rousted up for 2 cents is as high as he
usually goes in betted. I see he felt deep and I didn't blame
him. Why," sez he, "jest imagine, Samantha, a hull letter wrote
like that! how I'd love to send one back to Uncle Nate Gowdey.

"How Uncle Nate's eyes would open, and he wouldn't want no
spectacles nor nothin' to read it with, would he? I wonder if I
could do it," sez he, a beginnin' to be all rousted up.

But I sez, "Be calm," for so deep is my mind that I grasped the
difficuties of the undertaken' at once. "How could yon send it,
Josiah Allen? Where would you get a envelop? How could you get
it into the mail bag?" Sez I, "When anybody would send a letter
wrote like that, they would want to write it on sheets of
lightnin', and fold it up in the envelopin' clouds of the skies,
and it should be received by a kneelin' and reverent soul. Who is
Uncle Nate that he should get it? He has not a reverent Soul and
he has also rheumatiz in his legs."

And then I thought, so quick and active is my mind when it gets to
startin' off on a tower, I thought of what I had hearn a few days
before, of how the secret had been learnt by somebody who lived
right there in the village, of floatin' letters up at sea from one
ship to another, sigualin' out in letters of flame -

"Help! I'm a sinkin'!" or "Danger ahead! Look out!"

And I thought what it must be to stand on a dusky night on a lone
deck and see up on the broad, dark; lonesome sky above, a sudden