"Oh, a week or so!"

"A week!" sez I; "Josiah Allen, where is your conscience? if you have
got a conscience."

"In the same old place," sez he, kinder hittin' himself in the pit of
his stomach.

"Wall, I should think as much," sez I.

And Lodema sez, sez she: "A man that won't tell things is of all
creeters that walks the earth the most disagreeable. And I should think
the girls, Maggie and Tirzah Ann, would want to stay to home and clean
house such a day as this is. And I should think a Elder would want to
stay to home so's to be on hand in case of anybody happenin' to be
exercised in their minds, and wantin to talk to him on religious
subjects. And if I wuz a Elder's wife, I should stay to home with him;
I should think it wuz my duty and my privilege. And if I wuz a married
woman, I would have enough baked up in the house all the time, so's not
to be afraid of company."

But I didn't answer back. I jest sot away my frames, and went out and
stirred up a cake; I had one kind by me, besides cookies and jell tarts.

But I felt real worked up to think I hadn't heard. Wall, I hadn't more'n
got that cake fairly into the oven when the children come, and Elder
Minkley and his wife. And I thought they looked queer, and I thought the
Elder begun to tell me somethin', and I thought I see Josiah wink at
him. But I wouldn't want to take my oath whether he wunk or not, but I
_thought_ he wunk.