“Oh, you don't understand, Samantha! the wires hain't pulled in that way. You don't pull 'em with your hands, you pull 'em with your minds.”
“Oh, wall!” says I, brightenin' up. “You are all right in that case: you won't pull hard enough to hurt you any.”
I knew the size and strength of his mind, jest as well as if I had took it out of his head, and weighed it on the steelyards. It was not over and above large. I knew it; and he knew that I knew it, because I have had to sometimes, in the cause of Right, remind him of it. But he knows that my love for him towers up like a dromedary, and moves off through life as stately as she duz—the dromedary. Josiah was my choice out of a world full of men. I love Josiah Allen. But to resoom and continue on.
Josiah says, “Which side had I better go on, Samantha?” Says he, kinder puttin' his head on one side, and lookin' shrewdly up at the stove-pipe, “Would you run as a Stalwart, or a Half-breed?”
Says I, “I guess you would run more like a lame hen than a Stalwart or a Half-breed; or,” says I, “it would depend on what breeds they wuz. If they wus half snails, and half Times in the primers, maybe you could get ahead of 'em.”
“I should think, Samantha Allen, in such a time as this, you would act like a rational bein'. I'll be hanged if I know what side to go on to get elected!”
Says I, “Josiah Allen, hain't you got any principle? Don't you know what side you are on?”
“Why, yes, I s'pose I know as near as men in gineral. I'm a Democrat in times of peace. But it is human nater, to want to be on the side that beats.”
I sithed, and murmured instinctively, “George Washington!”
“George Granny!” says he.