"Wall," says Beriah, goin' to the door, "I don't know, Mr. Brown. It
don't look just right; I swan it don't! I can tell you better in the
morning. I hope 'twill be fair, too, 'cause I was cal'lating to get
a day off and borrer your horse and buggy and go over to the Ostable
camp-meeting. It's the big day over there," he says.

Now, I knew of course, that he meant he was going to take the widder
with him, but Peter spoke up and says he:

"Sorry, Beriah, but you're too late. Eben asked me for the horse and
buggy this morning. I told him he could have the open buggy; the other
one's being repaired, and I wouldn't lend the new surrey to the Grand
Panjandrum himself. Eben's going to take the fair Emma for a ride," he
says. "Beriah, I'm afraid our beloved Cobb is, in the innocence of his
youth, being roped in by the sophisticated damsel in the shoo-fly hat,"
says he.

Me and Jonadab hadn't had time to tell Peter how matters stood betwixt
the prophets, or most likely he wouldn't have said that. It hit Beriah
like a snowslide off a barn roof. I found out afterwards that the widder
had more'n half promised to go with HIM. He slumped down in his chair
as if his mainmast was carried away, and he didn't even rise to blow
for the rest of the time we was in the shanty. Just set there, looking
fishy-eyed at the floor.

Next morning I met Eben prancing around in his Sunday clothes and with a
necktie on that would make a rainbow look like a mourning badge.

"Hello!" says I. "You seem to be pretty chipper. You ain't going to
start for that fifteen-mile ride through the woods to Ostable, be you?