"Wal, wal! who said you wouldn't?" he snapped out.
But it were on him. Oh, how the rain poured down! Josiah, havin' nothin' but a handkerchief on his head, felt it more than I did. I had took a apron to put on a-gettin' dinner, and I tried to make him let me pin it on his head. But says he, firmly:
"I hain't proud and haughty, Samantha, but I do feel above ridin' out with a pink apron on for a hat."
"Wal, then," says I, "get as wet as sop, if you had ruther."
I didn't say no more, but there we jest sot and suffered. The rain poured down; the wind howled at us; the old mare went slow; the rheumatiz laid holt of both of us; and the thought of the new bonnet and dress was a-wearin' on Josiah, I knew.
There wasn't a house for the first seven miles, and after we got there I thought we wouldn't go in, for we had got to get home to milk anyway, and we was both as wet as we could be. After I had beset him about the apron, we didn't say hardly a word for as much as thirteen miles or so; but I did speak once, as he leaned forward, with the rain drippin' offen his bandanna handkerchief onto his blue pantaloons. I says to him in stern tones:
"Is this pleasure, Josiah Allen?"
He give the old mare a awful cut and says he: "I'd like to know what you want to be so aggravatin' for?"
I didn't multiply any more words with him, only as we drove up to our doorstep, and he helped me out into a mud-puddle, I says to him:
"Mebbe you'll hear to me another time, Josiah Allen."