“I hear you are talkin’ about buyin’ a musical instrument,” says he.
“No,” says I, “we are goin’ to buy a organ.”
“Well,” says he, “I want to advise you, not that I have any interest in it at all, only I don’t want to see you so imposed upon. It fairly makes me mad to see a Methodist imposed upon; I lean towards that perswasion myself. Organs are liable to fall to pieces any minute. There haint no dependence on ’em at all, the insides of ’em are liable to break out at any time. If you have any regard for your own welfare and safety, you will buy a piano. Not that I have any interest in advising you, only my devotion to the cause of Right; pianos never wear out.”
“Where should we git one?” says I, for I didn’t want Josiah to throw away his property.
“Well,” says he, “as it happens, I guess I have got one out here in the wagon. I believe I threw one into the bottom of the wagon this mornin’, as I was a comin’ down by here on business. I am glad now I did, for it always makes me feel ugly to see a Methodist imposed upon.”
Josiah came into the house in a few minutes, and I told him about it, and says I:
“How lucky it is Josiah, that we found out about organs before it was too late.”
But Josiah asked the price, and said he wasn’t goin’ to pay out no 300 dollars, for he wasn’t able. But the man asked if we was willin’ to have it brought into the house for a spell—we could do as we was a mind to about buyin’ it; and of course we couldn’t refuse, so Josiah most broke his back a liftin’ it in, and they set it up in the parlor, and after dinner the man went away.
Josiah bathed his back with linement, for he had strained it bad a liftin’ that piano, and I had jest got back to my washin’ again (I had had to put it away to git dinner) when I heerd a knockin’ again to the front door, and I pulled down my dress sleeves and went and opened it, and there stood a tall, slim feller; and the kitchen bein’ all cluttered up I opened the parlor door and asked him in there, and the minute he catched sight of that piano, he jest lifted up both hands, and says he:
“You haint got one of them here!”