"Wal," says I, "I guess my dishwater is hot; it must be pretty near bilin' by this time."
And he took the hint and started off. I see it wouldn't do no good to argue with him that wimmen didn't worship him. For when a feller once gets it into his head that female wimmen are all after him, you might jest as well dispute the wind as argue with him. You can't convince him nor the wind—neither of 'em—so what's the use of wastin' breath on 'em. And I didn't want to spend a extra breath that day anyway, knowin' I had such a hard day's work in front of me, a-finishin' cookin' up provisions for the exertion, and gettin' things done up in the house so I could leave 'em for all day.
We had got to start about the middle of the night; for the lake was fifteen miles from Jonesville, and the old mare's bein' so slow, we had got to start an hour or two ahead of the rest. I told Josiah in the first on't, that I had just as lives set up all night as to be routed out at two o'clock. But he was so animated and happy at the idee of goin' that he looked on the bright side of everything, and he said that we would go to bed before dark, and get as much sleep as we commonly did. So we went to bed the sun an hour high. And I was truly tired enough to lay down, for I had worked dretful hard that day—almost beyond my strength. But we hadn't more'n got settled down into the bed, when we heard a buggy and a single wagon stop at the gate, and I got up and peeked through the window, and I see it was visitors come to spend the evenin.' Elder Bamber and his family, and Deacon Dobbinses' folks.
Josiah vowed that he wouldn't stir one step out of that bed that night. But I argued with him pretty sharp, while I was throwin' on my clothes, and I finally got him started up. I hain't deceitful, but I thought if I got my clothes all on before they came in I wouldn't tell 'em that I had been to bed that time of day. And I did get all dressed up, even to my handkerchief pin. And I guess they had been there as much as ten minutes before I thought that I hadn't took my nightcap off. They looked dreadful curious at me, and I felt awful meachin'. But I jest ketched it off, and never said nothin'. But when Josiah come out of the bedroom with what little hair he has got standin' out in every direction, no two hairs a-layin' the same way, and one of his galluses a-hangin' most to the floor under his best coat, I up and told 'em. I thought mebby they wouldn't stay long. But Deacon Dobbinses' folks seemed to be all waked up on the subject of religion, and they proposed we should turn it into a kind of a conference meetin'; so they never went home till after ten o'clock.
It was 'most eleven when Josiah and me got to bed agin. And then jest as I was gettin' into a drowse, I heered the cat in the buttery, and I got up to let her out. And that roused Josiah up, and he thought he heered the cattle in the garden, and he got up and went out. And there we was a-marchin' round 'most all night.
And if we would get into a nap, Josiah would think it was mornin' and he would start up and go out to look at the clock. He seemed so afraid we would be belated and not get to that exertion in time. And there we was on our feet 'most all night. I lost myself once, for I dreampt that Josiah was a-drowndin', and Deacon Dobbins was on the shore a-prayin' for him. It started me so that I jist ketched hold of Josiah and hollered. It skairt him awfully, and says he, "What does ail you, Samantha? I hain't been asleep before to-night, and now you have rousted me up for good. I wonder what time it is!"
And then he got out of bed again and went and looked at the clock. It was half-past one, and he said he "didn't believe we had better go to sleep again, for fear we would be too late for the exertion, and he wouldn't miss that for nothin'."
"Exertion!" says I, in a awful cold tone. "I should think we had had exertion enough for one spell."
But as bad and wore out as Josiah felt bodily, he was all animated in his mind about what a good time he was a-goin' to have. He acted foolish, and I told him so. I wanted to wear my brown-and-black gingham, and a shaker, but Josiah insisted that I should wear a new lawn dress that he had brought me home as a present, and I had jest got made up. So jest to please him, I put it on, and my best bonnet.
And that man, all I could do and say, would put on a pair of pantaloons I had been a-makin' for Thomas Jefferson. They was gettin' up a milatary company to Jonesville, and these pantaloons was blue, with a red stripe down the sides—a kind of uniform. Josiah took a awful fancy to 'em, and says he: