“On their heads?” says I enquirin’ly.
“No,” says he, “their hearts. All the girls have probable had more or less hopes that I would invite ’em—make a choice of ’em. But when the blow was struck, when I had passed ’em by and invited some other, some happier woman, how would them slighted ones feel? How do you s’pose they would enjoy the day, seein’ me with another woman, and they droopin’ round without me? That is the reason, Josiah Allen’s wife, that I dassen’t go. It hain’t the keepin’ of my horse through the day that stops me. For I could carry a quart of oats and a little jag of hay in the bottom of the buggy. If I had concluded to pick out a girl and go, I had got it all fixed out in my mind how I would manage. I had thought it over, while I was ondecided, and duty was a strugglin’ with me. But I was made to see where the right way for me lay, and I am goin’ to foller it. Joe Purday is goin’ to have my horse, and give me seven shillin’s for the use of it and its keepin’. He come to hire it just before I made up my mind that I hadn’t ort to go.
“Of course it is a cross to me. But I am willin’ to bear crosses for the fair sect. Why,” says he, a comin’ out in a open, generous way, “I would be willin’, if necessary for the general good of the fair sect—I would be willin’ to sacrifice ten cents for ’em, or pretty nigh that, I wish so well to ’em. I hain’t that enemy to ’em that they think I am. I can’t marry ’em all, Heaven knows I can’t, but I wish ’em well.”
“Wall,” says I, “I guess my dish-water is hot; it must be pretty near bilin’ by this time.”
And he took the hint and started off. I see it wouldn’t do no good to argue with him, that wimmen didn’t worship him. For when a feller once gets it into his head that female wimmen are all after him, you might jest as well dispute the wind as argue with him. You can’t convince him nor the wind—neither of ’em—so what’s the use of wastin’ breath on ’em. And I didn’t want to spend a extra breath that day, anyway, knowin’ I had such a hard day’s work in front of me, a finishin’ cookin’ up provisions for the exertion, and gettin’ things done up in the house so I could leave ’em for all day.
We had got to start about the middle of the night, for the lake was 15 miles from Jonesville, and the old mare bein’ so slow, we had got to start an hour or two ahead of the rest. I told Josiah in the first on’t, that I had jest as lives set up all night, as to be routed out at two o’clock. But he was so animated and happy at the idee of goin’ that he looked on the bright side of everything, and he said that we would go to bed before dark, and get as much sleep as we commonly did. So we went to bed the sun an hour high. And I was truly tired enough to lay down, for I had worked dretful hard that day, almost beyond my strength. But we hadn’t more’n got settled down into the bed, when we heard a buggy and a single wagon stop at the gate, and I got up and peeked through the window, and I see it was visitors come to spend the evenin’. Elder Bamber and his family, and Deacon Dobbins’es folks.
ROUTED OUT.
Josiah vowed that he wouldn’t stir one step out of that bed that night. But I argued with him pretty sharp, while I was throwin’ on my clothes, and I finally got him started up. I hain’t deceitful, but I thought if I got my clothes all on, before they came in, I wouldn’t tell ’em that I had been to bed that time of day. And I did get all dressed up, even to my handkerchief pin. And I guess they had been there as much as ten minutes before I thought that I hadn’t took my night-cap off. They looked dretful curious at me, and I felt awful meachin’. But I jest ketched it off, and never said nothin’. But when Josiah come out of the bedroom with what little hair he has got standin’ out in every direction, no two hairs a layin’ the same way, and one of his galluses a hangin’ most to the floor under his best coat, I up and told ’em. I thought mebby they wouldn’t stay long. But Deacon Dobbins’es folks seemed to be all waked up on the subject of religion, and they proposed we should turn it into a kind of a conference meetin’; so they never went home till after ten o’clock.
