There wasn’t a house for the first seven miles, and after we got there I thought we wouldn’t go in, for we had got to get home to milk, anyway, and we was both as wet as we could be. After I had beset him about the apron we didn’t say hardly a word for as much as thirteen miles or so; but I did speak once, as he leaned forward, with the rain drippin’ offen his bandanna handkerchief onto his blue pantaloons. I says to him in stern tones:
“Is this pleasure, Josiah Allen?”
THE END OF THE EXERTION.
He give the old mare a awful cut, and says he: “I’d like to know what you want to be so agrevatin’ for.”
I didn’t multiply any more words with him, only as we drove up to our door-step, and he helped me out into a mud-puddle, I says to him:
“Mebby you’ll hear to me another time, Josiah Allen.”
And I’ll bet he will. I hain’t afraid to bet a ten cent bill that that man won’t never open his mouth to me again about a pleasure exertion.
