I sithed agin, and kep' sithin'.
Says I, “It is bad enough, Josiah Allen, to have you talk about runnin' for senator, and pullin' wires, and etcetery. But, oh, oh! my agony to think my partner is destitute of principle.”
“I have got as much as most political men, and you'll find it out so, Samantha.”
My groans touched his heart—that man loves me.
“I am goin' to work as they all do. But wimmen hain't no heads for business, and I always said so. They don't look out for the profits of things, as men do.”
I didn't say nothin' only my sithes, but they spoke volumes to any one who understood their language. But anon, or mebby before,—I hadn't kep' any particular account of time, but I think it wus about anon,—when another thought struck me so, right in my breast, that it most knocked me over. It hanted me all the rest of that day: and all that night I lay awake and worried, and I'd sithe, and sposen the case; and then I'd turn over, and sposen the case, and sithe.
Sposen he would be elected—I didn't really think he would, but I couldn't for my life help sposen. Sposen he would have to go to Washington. I knew strange things took place in politics. Strange men run, and run fur: some on 'em run clear to Washington. Mebby he would. Oh! how I groaned at the idee!
I thought of the awfulness of that place as I had heard it described upon to me; and then I thought of the weakness of men, and their liability to be led astray. I thought of the powerful blasts of temptation that blowed through them broad streets, and the small size of my pardner, and the light weight of his bones and principles.
And I felt, if things wuz as they had been depictered to me, he would (in a moral sense) be lifted right up, and blowed away—bones, principles, and all. And I trembled.
At last the idee knocked so firm aginst the door of my heart, that I had to let it in. That I must, I must go to Washington, as a forerunner of Josiah. I must go ahead of him, and look round, and see if my Josiah could pass through with no smell of fire on his overcoat—if there wuz any possibility of it. If there wuz, why, I should stand still, and let things take their course. But if my worst apprehensions wuz realized, if I see that it was a place where my pardner would lose all the modest worth and winnin' qualities that first endeared him to me—why, I would come home, and throw all my powerful influence and weight into the scales, and turn 'em round.