We had got to start about the middle of the night, for the lake was fifteen miles from Jonesville, and the old horse bein' so slow, we had got to start a hour or two ahead of the rest. I told Josiah that I had jest 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. But we hadn't more'n got settled down into the bed, when we heard a buggy and a single wagon stop to the gate, and I got up and peeked through the window, and I see it was visitors come to spend the evenin'—Elder Wesley Minkly and his family, and Deacon Dobbins' 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 night-cap off. They looked dretful curious at me, and I felt awful meachin'. But I jest ketched it off, and never said nothin'. But when Josiah came out of the bedroom, with what little hair he has got standin' out in every direction, no two hairs a layin' the same way, I up and told 'em. I thought mebby they wouldn't stay long. But Deacon Dobbins' 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 o'clock when Josiah and me got to bed agin. And then jest as I was gettin' into a drowse, I heard the cat in the buttery, and I got up to let her out. And that rousted Josiah up, and he thought he heard 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. I lost myself once, for I dreampt that Josiah was a droundin', and Deacon Dobbins was on the shore a prayin' for him. It started me so, that I jest 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 out 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 I got up at 2 o'clock, and made a cup of tea as strong as I could, for we both felt beat out, worse than if we had watched in sickness.
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 got just 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 wear a pair of pantaloons I had been a makin' for Thomas Jefferson. They was gettin' up a military company in Thomas J.'s school, and these pantaloons was white with a blue stripe down the sides, a kind of uniform. Josiah took a awful fancy to 'em; and, says he,
"I will wear 'em, Samantha; they look so dressy."
Says I, "They hain't hardly done. I was goin' to stitch that blue stripe on the left leg on again. They haint finished as they ought to be, and I would not wear 'em. It looks vain in you."
Says he, "I will wear 'em, Samantha. I will be dressed up for once."
I didn't contend with him. Thinks I, we are makin' fools of ourselves by goin' at all, and if he wants to make a little bigger fool of himself, I won't stand in his light. And then I had got some machine oil onto 'em, so I felt that I had got to wash 'em any way, before Thomas J. took 'em to school. So he put 'em on.