tapped a butnut tree and see it run blue ink) Uncle Sime jined in with Samantha's idees, and objected to my hullsale insertion that it wuz the bounden duty of every human bein' to marry.

"As I read it over to him, expectin' to be interrupted by a warm hand grasp of sympathy and lovin' praise of my idees, I see a dark shadder pass over his linement and he wiggled round oneasy in his chair and finally he said:

"'That won't do, Josiah! You've got to change that or you'll git lots of the Jonesvillians down on you,' sez he. 'There are a good many bacheldors round here, and their feelin's will feel hurt.'

"Sez I in a sombry dissapinted axent, 'I guess I can handle the subject so's not to hurt their feelin's.'

"'Id'no,' sez he, 'lots on 'em might have married if they'd wanted to, and there are three or four grass widowers too, or mebby I should say hay widowers, for they're pretty old for grass.' And Simon continued feelin'ly:

"'This book of yourn, Josiah, is as dear to me as if it sprung like a sharp simeter from my own brain, and I can't bear to see you make any statement in it that will be called a slur on our sect.'

"Strange as it wuz I hadn't thought on that side of the subject till Simon pinted it out to me, my barn chores and fambly cares are so wearin' on me that it had slipped my mind, though probable I should thought on't of my own accord when I had time. But I see the minute my attention wuz drawed to it that I must meller the chapter down for the good of my own sect. And after Simon went home (he had come to borry a auger) I meditated on the other side, what you might call the off side of the argument and I see different from what I had seen. And I brung up convincin' incidents and let 'em run through my mind.

"Firstly, I see I wuz hittin' my dear friend Simon, hittin' him hard, for he wuz a bacheldor, though he thought too much on me to mention his own wownded feelin's. But when I realized what I had done it fairly stunned me, for it wuz like kickin' my own shins with a hard cowhide boot to hit Simon. And I see that take it with all the grass and hay widowers, and what you might call plain bacheldors, there wuz a good many male Jonesvillians who would had reason to feel riled up, and I wuzn't one to cast no slurs onto my own sect.

"Id'no why a number of them bacheldors hadn't married, for they wuz well off and might have married if they'd wanted to. I guess it wuz jest because they 

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