and the dinner a-b'ilin', and I sot there sewin' jest as calm as a
clock, not dreamin' of no trouble, when in came Betsey Bobbet.

I met her with outward calm, and asked her to set down and lay off
her things. She sot down but she said she couldn't lay off her
things. Says she: "I was comin' down past, and I thought I would call
and let you see the last numbah of the _Augah_. There is a piece
in it concernin' the tariff that stirs men's souls. I like it evah so
much."

She handed me the paper folded, so I couldn't see nothin' but a piece
of poetry by Betsey Bobbet. I see what she wanted of me, and so I
dropped my breadths of carpetin' and took hold of it, and began to
read it.

"Read it audible, if you please," says she. "Especially the precious
remahks ovah it; it is such a feast for me to be a-sittin' and heah
it rehearsed by a musical vorce."

Says I, "I s'pose I can rehearse it if it will do you any good," so I
began as follows:

"It is seldom that we present the readers of the _Augur_ (the best
paper for the fireside in Jonesville or the world) with a poem like
the following. It may be, by the assistance of the _Augur_ (only
twelve shillings a year in advance, wood and potatoes taken in
exchange), the name of Betsey Bobbet will yet be carved on the lofty
pinnacle of fame's towering pillow. We think, however, that she could
study such writers as Sylvanus Cobb and Tupper with profit both to
herself and to them.