would offer to help me up the suller stairs, and so forth, and watchin'
over what I et, and tellin' me folks of my age ort to be careful, and
not over-eat.

And Josiah asked me to ask her "How she felt about that time?" For she
wuz from three to four years older than I wuz.

But I wouldn't contend with her, and the footstools come kinder handy, I
had jest as lieve have 'em under my feet as not, and ruther. And as for
rich vittles not agreein' with me, and my not over-eatin', I broke that
tip by fallin' right in with her, and not cookin' such good things--that
quelled her down, and gaulded Josiah too.

But, as I said, it riled Josiah the worst of anything to have Lodema
call him father, for he wants to make out that he is kinder young
himself.

And sez he to her one day, about the third week, when she was a-goin'
on about how good and fatherly he looked, and how much he seemed like
a parent to her, and always had, sez he: "I wonder if I seemed like a
father to you when we wuz a-kickin' at each other in the same cradle?"
Sez he: "We both used to nuss out of the same bottle, any way, for
I have heard my mother say so lots of times. There wuzn't ten days'
difference in our ages. You wuz ten days the oldest as I have always
made out."

She screamed right out, "Why, Josiah Allen, where is your conscience to
talk in that way--and your heart?"

"In here, where everybody's is," sez Josiah, strikin' himself with his