"I say it hain't," sez he, for he was jest carried away with the lecture, and enthused.
"We have had a happy time together, Josiah Allen, for over twenty years, but has our sea of life always been perfectly smooth?"
"Yes, it has; smooth as glass."
"Hain't there never been a cloud in our sky?"
"No, there hain't; not a dumb cloud."
Sez I, sternly, "There has in mine. Your wicked and profane swearin' has cast many and many a cloud over my sky, and I'd try to curb in my tongue if I was in your place."
"'Dumb' hain't swearin'," sez he. And then he didn't say nothin' more till anon, or nearly at that time, he broke out agin, and sez he:
"Never, never did I hear or see such eloquence till to-night I'll have that girl down to our house to stay a week, if I'm a living Josiah Allen."
"All right," sez I, cheerfully. "I'd love to have her stay a week or ten days, and I'll invite her, too, when she comes down to rehearse her lecture."
Wall we got home middlin' tired, and the subject kinder dropped down, and Josiah had lots of work come on the next day, and so did I, and company. And it run along for over a week before she come. And when she did come, it wuz in a dreadful bad time. It seems as if she couldn't have come in a much worse time.