Bein' jest married, I had a good deal of influence over him; and he promised me sacred, to never, never, as long as he lived and breathed, try to write another line of poetry agin. We was married in the spring, and these 2 lines was as follers:—
“How happified this spring appears—
More happier than I ever knew springs to be, shears.”
And I asked him what he put the “shears” in for, and he said he did it to rhyme. And then was the time, then and there, that I made him promise on the Old Testament, never to try to write a line of poetry agin. And I felt that he could not do himself and me the bitter wrong to try it agin, and still I trembled.
And right while I was tremblin', he returned, and silently laid “The Gimlet” in my lap, and sot down, and nearly buried his face in his hands. And the very first piece on which the eye of my spectacle rested, was this: “Josiah Allen on a Path-Master.”
And I dropped the paper in my lap, and says I,—
“What have you been doing now, Josiah Allen? Have you been a fightin'? What path-master have you been on?”
“I hain't been on any,” says he sadly, out from under his hand. “I headed it so, to have a strong, takin' title. You know they 'pinted me path-master some time ago.”
