Wall, I wuz so kinder beat out that night, that, as poets say, “I sought my couch” to once, a good-lookin’ oak bedstead, with a teester cloth overhead, and some curtains hangin’ down on each side.
The weariness I had gone through with that day, mixed in with the powders Mr. Morpheus keeps by him, brung on a sleep almost imegiately and to once. And I wuz sweetly a-dreamin’ of seein’ the Jonesville steeple a-pintin’ up through a ile paintin’ of cows and calves. Philury wuz a-peacefully milkin’ one of the cows, while Ury, a-settin’ on the steeple with a pail of skim milk, wuz a-tryin’ to bagon one of the calves to him, but a Madonna with a long beard poked at the calf with a sceptre and made it kick.
It wuz a sweet, tender dream of home, tinged slightly with the surroundin’s we had been surrounded by on our tower.
But anon as the Madonna and Philury changed into two gorgeous altar pieces, and Ury leaned near the calf and fed it out of a stained-glass winder—
Even at that very minute a sharp scream cut through the silence of night, like the ragged thrust of a bread knife through a loaf of light bread.
Once, twice, three times, did that cry ring out, and then I heard the sounds of rapid footsteps, and anon the door busted open, and my pardner rushed in and slammed it shet and clicked the bolt to.
And then he sunk down in his chair and almost buried his face in his hands.
I riz up on my piller, and sez I in agitated axents—
“What is the matter, Josiah?”
Sez he from out from under his hand, “I’ve done it now!”