PICTURES IN THE BOOK.

Page.
1The Pleasant Supper (full page)[(Frontispiece)]
2I and Josiah[19]
3Refreshments (tail piece)[20]
4Tirzah Ann[23]
5Betsey Bobbet[27]
6Readin’ Poetry[33]
7Looking for a Victim (tail piece)[37]
8Preparin’ for a Picture[39]
9The Picture[45]
10The Surprise Party (full page)[53]
11Delicious (tail piece)[57]
12The Quiltin’ Party (full page)[77]
13Scandalized (tail piece)[84]
14An Accident[101]
15Josiah Bein’ Cheerful[105]
16Keepin’ the Sick Quiet[109]
17A full Quire[123]
18The Ear Ring Pedler (full page)[141]
19Disgust (tail piece)[144]
20The Serenaders (full page)[150]
21Mewsin’ (tail piece)[156]
22The Fourth of July Celebration (full page)[162]
23What happened at the Dinner (full page)[170]
24Countin’ the Cost (full page)[175]
25Simon Slimpsey[182]
26Simon Overwhelmed[187]
27Prof. Gusher[195]
28Livin’ on Gospel[204]
29The Enemy Attacked[210]
30The Elder on the Alert[213]
31Betsey seeks Relief[219]
32A Strong Attachment (tail piece)[221]
33Female Delicacy[224]
34No Time to Vote[226]
35Dreadful Short of Time[227]
36No Time to Study Laws[228]
37A Woman’s Rights (full page)[234]
38Primary Meetings and Results (full page)[241]
39A Victory (tail piece)[256]
40Visit to Jonesville (full page)[263]
41Gone (tail piece)[271]
42The Smilin’ Stranger (full page)[278]
43“Let us have Peace” (full page)[284]
44On the Street[305]
45Hard at Work (full page)[317]
46Betsey’s Prayer[334]
47On a Lecturin’ Tower (full page)[339]
48How Would You Like It?[342]
49Female Statesmanship[345]
50Don’t Take Barter[350]
51Dolly Varden[354]
52A Harrowin’ Scene[358]
53Interview with Horace (full page)[369]
54Fillin’ Woman’s Spear under Difficulties (full page)[395]
55At Home[402]
56Mr. Bobbet Tells News (full page)[407]

MARRIED TO JOSIAH ALLEN.

If anybody had told me when I was first born that I would marry to a widower, I should have been mad at ’em. I lived up to this idee quite a number of years, how many, is nobody’s business, that I will contend for. I laughed at the idee of love in my blindness of eye. But the first minute I sot my grey eye onto Josiah Allen I knew my fate. My heart was a pray to feelin’s it had heretofore been a stranger to.

Sez I to myself “Is this love?” I couldn’t answer, I was too agitated.

Josiah told me afterwards that he felt jest exactly the same, only, when his heart wildly put the question to him, “Is it love you feel for Samantha Smith?” he havin’ experience in the same, answered, “Yes, it is love.”

I married Josiah Allen (in mother’s parlor, on the fourteenth day of June, in a bran new silk dress with a long boddis waist) from pure love. Though why I loved him, I know not. I looked at his mild face beamin’ on me from above his black silk stock, which kep’ his head kinder stiff, and asked myself this question, “Why do you love him?” I reckolected then, and I have recalled it to his mind several times sense in our little differences of opinion, which occur in the happiest families—that I had had offers from men, handsomer than him, with more intelect than him, with more riches than him, with less children than him. Why didn’t I love these various men? I knew not. I can only repeat in the immortal and almost deathless lines of the poet, “Love will go where it is sent.”

Yes, Josiah Allen was my fate, and when I laid my light silk glove in his’en (they was almost of a color, a kind of cinnemen broun) before the alter, or that is before Elder Wesley Minkley, I did it with the purest and tenderest emotions of love.