“What occasion would a Syren have to yell in sech a blood-curdlin’ way, Josiah Allen?”
“Wall,” sez he, put to his wits’ end, “mebby her hair is all snarled up by the wind and salt water, and in yankin’ out the snarls, it hurts her so that she yells.”
I see the common sense of this, for the first night I had used soap and salt water my hair stood out like quills on my head, and it almost killed me to comb it out. “But,” sez I, “Syrens are used to wind storms and salt water. I don’t spoze their hair is like other folkses.”
Agin come that fearful, agonizin’ yell.
Agin Josiah sez—“While we are a-bandyin’ words back and forth, I am losin’ the sight,” and agin he made for the door.
But I follered him and ketched holt of the tossels.
He paused to once. He feared they would be injured.
Sez I, “Come back to bed; how it would look in the Jonesville paper to hear that Josiah Allen had been lured overboard by a Syren, for they always try to drown men, Josiah!” sez I.
“Oh, shaw!” sez he; “they never had me to deal with. I should stand still and argy with her—I always convince the more opposite sect,” sez he, lookin’ vain.
But I see the allusion to drowndin’ made him hesitate, and sez he—