And before half a hour passed away he wuz a-talkin' as pert as you please, a-boastin' of how he would tell it in Jonesville. Sez he, "I wonder what Deacon Henzy will say when I tell him that I rode a bird while I wuz here?" Sez he, "He never rode a crow or a sparrer."
"Nor you, nuther," sez I; "how could you ride a crow?"
"Wall," sez he, "I've rid a ostrich, and the news will cause great excitement in Jonesville, and probable up as fur as Zoar and Loontown."
Then come Solomon's Temple. Josiah and I both felt that that wuz a good scriptural sight, worthy of a deacon and a deaconess, for some say that that is the proper way to address a deacon's wife.
But come to find out, the Temple wuz inside of a house, and you had to pay to go in.
And I sez, "Less pay, Josiah Allen, and go in."
And he said that "it wuzn't scriptural. Solomon's Temple in Bible times never had a house built round it. And he wuzn't a-goin' to encourage folks to go on and build meetin'-housen inside of other housen.
"Why," sez he, "if that idee is encouraged, they will be for buildin' a house round the Jonesville meetin'-house, and we will have to pay to go in."
Sez he, "Less show our colors for the right, Samantha."
The argument wuz a middlin' good one, though I felt that there wuzn't no danger.