He looked mad as a hen and sez he, "They could manage it if their minds wuz strong enough."
Sez I, "It seems to me it would depend more on the strength of their legs, specially if the pedestal wuz a high one. I never could git up onto it at all if I should go into it without gittin' up on a chair and then on a table. No woman no matter how strong she wuz could git more than two meals a day under the circumstances."
Josiah looked worried and sez, "Well, mebby there has been too much said about it, mebby it would be jest as well to leave pedestals to statters."
And I sez, "It is as well agin. Wimmen couldn't stand it with all they have to do."
And so we ended by bein' real congenial in our two minds and thinkin' considerable alike, which is indeed a comfort to pardners. And we read our chapter in the Bible and had family prayers jest as we do to home. For I would not leave off all the good old habits of my life because my body wuz moved round a little. And we had a good night's rest and sot out in good season the next mornin' for the Exposition.
The next mornin' grandpa Huff said to the breakfast table that he did wish he had someone to read to him that day, everybody wuz goin' to the Fair and he wuz goin' to be left alone. So Blandina, clever creeter that she is, said she would stay and read to him from his favorite volume, Foxe's Book of Martyr's, and also from Lamentations and Job. Billy said his grandpa wuz never happy only when he wuz perfectly miserable. We have all seen such folks.
So Josiah and I sot off alone, and he bein' in good sperits and bein' gin to new and strange projects, proposed that we should take an ortomobile. I didn't favor the idee and said:
"Id'no about it, Josiah, I feel kinder skairful about ortos, I fear that it might prove our last ride."
"But," sez he, "with a good shuffler there hain't any danger."
But I still wuz dubersome and sez, "Mebby it would end by our shufflin' off our mortal coils, as Mr. Shakespeare tells on."