“They said there wuzn’t nothin’ like it. And I said, “Like as not.” I believed ’em. And then the woman said, “This long room we wuz a standin’ in,” for we had gone back into the house, durin’ our interview, this long room wuz all warm and light for ’em to come into and get warm, and she said as many as 600 in a night would come in there and have supper there.
And then she showed us the model of a Toboggen, all sculped out, with a man and a woman on it. The girl wuz ahead sort a drawin’ the Toboggen, as you may say, and her lover. (I know he wuz, from his looks.) He wuz behind her, with his face right clost to her shoulder.
And I’ll bet that when they started down that gleamin’ slide, they felt as if they 2 wuz alone under the stars and the heavens, and wuz a glidin’ down into a dazzlin’ way of glory. You could see it in their faces. I liked their faces real well.
But the sight on ’em made Josiah Allen crazier’n ever to go too, and he sez, “I feel as if I must Toboggen, Samantha!”
Sez I, “Be calm! Josiah, you can’t slide down hill in July.”
“How do you know?” sez he, “I’m bound to enquire.” And he asked the woman if they ever Toboggened in the summer.
“No, never!” sez she.
And I sez, “You see it can’t be done.”
“She never see it tried,” sez he. “How can you tell what you can do without tryin’?” sez he lookin’ shrewdly, and longingly, up the slide. I trembled, for I knew not what the next move of his would be. But I bethought me of a powerful weepon I had by me. And I sez, “The driver will ask pay for every minute we are here.”
