Sez he, "You don't want to buy here; you can do as well agin in Jonesville tradin' off your butter and eggs, and probable git a chromo throwed in."
I didn't argy, but I bought a string of beads for Tirzah Ann and a pipe for Thomas J., the wood of which growed on the Mount of Olives, so the man said.
I told Josiah they would prize 'em high havin' come from Jerusalem.
And he said, "They never see Jerusalem," he said they wuz growed over in New Jersey, and when I asked him how he knew, he said he re_cog_nized the berries and the grain of the wood.
But he couldn't no such thing, and I presoom the man told considerable truth. And we see Rabbis, Turkish cavalry, common people livin' in the queer little housen jest as they did in Jerusalem, and the priests goin' through their religious ceremonies jest the same. And we went through the Citadel and the different public buildin's.
There wuz lots of wimmen and girls on the streets, some on 'em sellin' posies for charity, I bought two little bunches, one on 'em I put in Josiah's buttonhole, though he objected and said it would probable make talk for a man of his age and dignity to be trimmed with flowers.
They wuz real pretty girls, with white veils on over their dark hair, their lustrous eyes lookin' out at us as they might have looked at the Postles.
And there wuz cunnin' little donkeys that anybody could ride if they wanted to, and camels with gorgeous trappings kneelin' down ready for folks to mount and be carried 'round the streets. Josiah stood ready to pay the ten cents apiece to give us the pleasure of a ride.
But I declined the treat. I sez, "We don't ride the old mair hoss back to home, and I don't hanker after bein' histed up onto a camel's hump, or to see you in that perilous poster."
He said he'd love to tell the bretheren we'd rid 'em, but seein' I wuz sot agin it he gin up.