Sez I, "A woman can't tell a story straight to save her life—but has to put in so many exaggerations and stretch out facts so you couldn't reconize 'em when she gits 'em pulled out to the length she pulls 'em. They don't seem to have any idee of plain straightforward truthfulness such as my sect has. As long as they've seen men appearin' before 'em, tellin' the exact truth from day to day, and from year to year, they can't or won't foller his example.
"That trait of theirn," sez I, "is bad enough in the home and social circle, for there their men folks can head 'em off, and cover things up and make excuses for 'em, and tell the story straight. But if it wuz carried into public life where their men folks couldn't reach 'em, and quell 'em down, and ameliorate the effects on it, where would this nation be? It would be looked down on and shawed at by Foreign Powers as a nation of exaggerators and false witnessors, and it ort to be.
"Wimmen can't seem to learn to tell the truth and 'nothin' but the truth,' and that is the reason, Samantha," sez I, "that that clause wuz put in the law books; it wuz designed to try to skair female witnesses, and drive 'em into tellin' the truth. But it hain't done it."
I wuz gittin' real eloquent and riz up, for nothin' pleases a man more than to teach his wimmen folks great truths and enlighten 'em about laws. But Samantha had to bring me down from the hite I wuz on, in the aggravatin' way females have. And as it turned out I wuz kinder sorry I had dwelt on that trait of females that particular time, for she said in the irritatin' way wimmen have of bringin' up facts at times when there hain't no use of bringin' 'em up and when it is inconvenient for 'em to be brung.
Sez she, "I would talk about exaggeration in females, and men's love for exact truth, after what took place in this settin' room only last evenin'."
I didn't reply to her for there are times when silent disapproval is better than argument. I knowed what she meant, and I knowed she wanted to spile my argument, in the ornary way females have, so, as I say, I treated them words with silent contemp and went out to the barn. But I spoze I may as well tell you how it wuz, for if I don't she may tell it and make it out worse than it wuz. Condelick Henzy come over here last night after supper to borry my neck-yoke and Dr. Meezik from Zoar, where he used to live, went to see Condelick on bizness, and his wife told him he wuz here so he stopped here on his way home (I mistrust Condelick owes him though he didn't dun him before us).
They're both on 'em good natered easy-goin' men, and love to talk and tell stories. And I brung up a basin of good sick-no-furder apples, and they set and et apples and talked and talked. They both on 'em love to brag about what they've seen and hearn and naterally both on 'em want to tell the biggest story about it. Onfortinately Samantha wuz in the room to work on a new insane bed-quilt. And of course she has to find fault and cricketcise what they said and won't make allowances for high sperits.
Sez Dr. Meezik, "When I wuz a young man my folks lived on a farm that run along one side on a creek. And one day I wuz down on the creek lot hoein' corn and a bear come down on the ice from the big woods, and I rushed right out on the ice and killed that bear with my hoe."
Sez Condelick, "That's nothin' to what I did at about the same time. I lived on that same creek though furder south; it wuz dretful rich land. And I raised a cabbage there that wuz so big I hollered out the stem on't and made a boat of it, and used it to ferry me acrost that very stream of water."