“If you sing another verse in that way, I’ll part with you,” says I, “what do you mean Josiah Allen?”
Says he, lookin’ doun on me with the persperation a pourin’ down his face,
“I am a singin’ base.”
Says I, “Do you set down and behave yourself, she has pitched it too low, it hain’t base, Josiah.”
Says he, “I know better Samantha, it is base, I guess I know base when I hear it.”
But I still held him by the vest, determined that he shouldn’t start off again, if I could hender it, and jest at that minute the duett begun agin, and Sophronia Gowdey took advantage of Betsey’s indignation and suprise, and took the part right out of her mouth, and struck in with the Editer of the Augur—she is kinder after him too, and she broke out with the curiousest variations you ever heard. The warblin’s and quaverin’s and shakin’s, she put in was the curiousest of any thing I ever heard. And thankful was I that it took up Josiah’s attention so, that he sunk down on his seat, and listened to ’em with breathless awe, and never offered to put in his note at all.
I waited till they got through singin’ and then I whispered to him, and says I,
“Now do you keep still for the rest of this meetin’ Josiah Allen.”
Says he, “As long as I call myself a man, I will have the privilege of singin’ base.”