I had good vittles, and a sight of 'em. The basket wouldn't hold 'em all. So Josiah had to put a bottle of red rhaspberry jell into the pocket of his dress coat, and lots of other little things, such as spoons, and knives, and forks, in his pantaloons and breast pockets. He looked like Captain Kidd, armed up to the teeth, and I told him so. But, good land, he would have carried a knife in his mouth if I had asked him, he felt so neat about goin', and boasted so, on what a splendid exertion it was going to be.
We got to the lake about eight o'clock, being about the first ones there; but they kep' a comin', and before 10 o'clock we all got there. There was about 20 old fools of us, when we got all collected together. And about 10 o'clock we sot sail for the island. Josiah havin' felt so animated and tickled about the exertion, was worked up awfully when, just after we had got well out onto the lake, the wind took his hat off and blew it away. He had made up his mind to look so pretty that day, and be so dressed up, that it worked him up awfully. And then the sun beat down onto him: and if he had had any hair onto his head it would have seemed more shady. But I did the best I could by him; I stood by him, and pinned on his red bandanna handkerchief onto his head. But as I was a fixin' it on, I see there was something more than mortification that ailed him. The lake was rough, and the boat rocked, and I see he was beginning to be awful sick. He looked deathly. Pretty soon I felt bad too. Oh, the wretchedness of that time! I have enjoyed poor health considerable in my life, but never did I enjoy so much sickness, in so short a time, as I did on that pleasure exertion to the island. I suppose our bein' up all night a'most made it worse. When we reached the island we was both weak as cats.
I set right down on a stun, and held my head for a spell, for it did seem as if it would split open. After awhile I staggered up onto my feet, and finally I got so I could walk straight, and sense things a little. Then I began to take the things out of my dinner basket. The butter had all melted, so we had to dip it out with a spoon. And a lot of water had swashed over the side of the boat, so my pies, and tarts, and delicate cake, and cookies, looked awful mixed up, but no worse than the rest of the company's did. But we did the best we could, and begun to make preparations to eat, for the man that owned the boat said he knew it would rain before night, by the way the sun scalded. There wasn't a man or a woman there but what the perspiration jest poured down their faces. We was a haggered and melancholy lookin' set. There was a piece of woods a little ways off, but it was up quite a rise of ground, and there wasn't one of us but what had the rheumatiz, more or less. We made up a fire on the sand, though it seemed as if it was hot enough to steep the tea and coffee as it was.
After we got the fire started, I histed a umberell, and sat down under it, and fanned myself hard, for I was afraid of a sunstroke.
Wal, I guess I had sat there ten minutes or more, when all of a sudden I thought, Where is Josiah? I hadn't seen him since we had got there. I riz right up and asked the company, almost wildly, "If they had seen my companion, Josiah?" They said "No, they hadn't." But Celestine Wilkins' little girl, who had come with her grandpa and grandma Gowdey, spoke up, and says she, "I seen him a goin' off towards the woods; he acted dreadfully strange, too, he seemed to be a walkin' off sideways."
"Had the sufferin's we had undergone made him delirious?" says I to myself; and then I started off on the run towards the woods, and old Miss Bobbet, and Miss Gowdey, and Sister Minkley, and Deacon Dobbins' wife, all rushed after me. Oh, the agony of them 2 or 3 minutes, my mind so distracted with forebodin's, and the perspiration a pourin' down. But, all of a sudden, on the edge of the woods we found him. Miss Gowdey weighed 100 pounds less than me; had got a little ahead of me. He sat backed up against a tree in a awful cramped position, with his left leg under him. He looked dretful uncomfortable, but when Miss Gowdey hollered out: "Oh, here you be; we have been skairt about you; what is the matter?" he smiled a dretful sick smile, and says he: "Oh, I thought I would come out here and meditate a spell. It was always a real treat to me to meditate."
Jest then I came up, a pantin' for breath, and as the women all turned to face me, Josiah scowled at me, and shook his fist at them 4 wimmen, and made the most mysterious motions with his hands towards 'em. But the minute they turned 'round he smiled in a sickish way, and pretended to go to whistlin'.
Says I, "What is the matter, Josiah Allen? What are you off here for?"
"I am a meditatin', Samantha."
The wimmen happened to be a lookin' the other way for a minute, and he looked at me as if he would take my head off, and made the strangest motions towards 'em; but the minute they looked at him he would pretend to smile that deathly smile.