Says he, “That buggy was high-toned enough for father, and for grandfather, and it ort to be for us.”
Says I, “It is dangerous Josiah Allen and you know it. Have you forgot,” says I, “how sister Minkley went right down through the bottom the other day when you was a helpin’ her in?” Says I, “It skairt you Josiah Allen, and you know it; the minute you leggo of her, to have her go right down through the bottom, and set down on the ex. It was enough to start anybody.”
“Well, what business has a woman to weigh more’n a ton? I’ve mended it.”
Says I, “Truly in the matter of heft Josiah Allen, let everybody be fully perswaded in their own mind. And she don’t weigh near a ton, she don’t weigh more’n three hundred and fifty.”
“The buggy was good enough for father and grandfather,” he kep’ a arguin’.
“But,” says I in reasonable axents, “them two old men never sot out on towers of Principle. They never sot out as Promiscous Advisors in the cause of Right; if they had, they would have wanted to feel free and promiscous in their minds. They wouldn’t have wanted to feel liable in the loftiest moments of their high mission, to break through and come down acrost a ex. They would have felt that a top buggy was none too high-toned to bear ’em onwards.”
Says he, “It will make talk, Samantha. The neighbors will think we are too loose-principled, and hauty.”
Says I, “The neighbors say now we are too tight to git a new one. I had jest as lives be called too loose, as too tight. And you know,”—says I in reasonable tones, “you know Josiah Allen, that we have got to be called sunthin’ by ’em, anyway. We have got money out at interest, and we are goin’ down the hill of life, and if we can go down any easier in a top buggy, I don’t see why we shouldn’t have it to go in.”
So finally after considerable urgin’, I got Josiah headed towards Jonesville after a top buggy. And I and the Widder Doodle kep’ watch to the winder all day, expectin’ to see the new buggy a comin’ home with Josiah; but he come back at night empty-handed but all worked up with another new idee, and says he:
“What do you say Samantha to buyin’ a phantom,—a pony phantom. The man says they are easier ridin’, easier to get into, and he thought you would like it better than a top buggy. And he said they was all the fashion too.”