"Hain't there never been a cloud in our sky?"

"No, there hain't; not a dumb cloud."

Sez I, sternly, "There has in mine. Your wicked and profane swearin' has
cast many and many a cloud over my sky, and I'd try to curb in my tongue
if I was in your place."

"'Dumb' hain't swearin'," sez he. And then he didn't say nothin' more
till anon, or nearly at that time, he broke out agin, and sez he:

"Never, never did I hear or see such eloquence till to-night I'll have
that girl down to our house to stay a week, if I'm a living Josiah
Allen."

"All right," sez I, cheerfully. "I'd love to have her stay a week or
ten days, and I'll invite her, too, when she comes down to rehearse her
lecture."

Wall we got home middlin' tired, and the subject kinder dropped down,
and Josiah had lots of work come on the next day, and so did I, and
company. And it run along for over a week before she come. And when she
did come, it wuz in a dreadful bad time. It seems as if she couldn't
have come in a much worse time.

It wuz early one mornin', not more than nine o'clock, if it wuz that.
There had come on a cold snap of weather unexpected, and Josiah wuz
a-bringin' in the cook stove from the summer kitchen, when she come.

Josiah Allen is a good man. He is my choice out of a world full of men,