pies, havin' fetched her pan into the settin' room, when the magestic onward and upward flow of my thought wuz arrested or dammed up, as you may say figuratively speakin', by the tall awkward obstacle of a onwelcome female figger. It wuz Betsy Bobbett Slimpsey who came in with a red and green plaid shawl wropped round her gant form, and a yeller fascinator on her humbly head.

Fascinator! Who wuz fascinated by it? I wuzn't, no indeed! And so lightnin' quick is my mind to ketch holt of any argument illustratin' wimmen's weakness of inteleck to transcribe in my volume, that I methought instantly how that one article of Betsy's attire showed plain the inferiority of her sect that I wuz tryin' to prove to the world. As I glanced at it, my eager soul questioned my active mind, "Did you ever ketch a man wearin' anything on his head with such vain silly names," and my mind thundered back to my listenin' soul, "No! no sir!" The strong brain within the manly head would spurn such a coverin', and tread it into the dust. A man's fascination consists of sunthin' inside his skull, his powerful brain, his invincible will, not in a flimsy woosted affair knit with a tattin' hook. With what hauty coldness would a man spurn it, if his wife tried to put it onto his noble head to wear to meetin' or to a neighbors.

But to resoom. Betsy passed a few triflin' onimportant remarks about the weather, her hens, her husband, etc., but my keen eye pierced through her outward demeanor, which she tried to make nateral, and I see she had a ulterior object in comin' out so early in the mornin'. And soon it broke forth in speech, and she uttered the bold presumptious request that I would let her insert some of her poetry writ before, and after her marriage, in my great forthcomin' volume.For a minute I wuz almost stunted and stumped by the brazen impudence of the idee, that I would let a female have any part however small in that grand work proclaimin' and provin' the superiority of my sect. And havin' a mind so powerful and many sided it can see both sides to once, I methought how onbecomin' it would be in me and how meachin' to let females take part in a work designed to be the ruination of 'em, or that is the ruination of their claims to be equal to the sect I wuz nobly representin'. How could I grant her request without sinkin' down to the low female level? No, I answered her promp in the negative. But she clung to the idee as clost as she ever clung to the various men she had paid attention to until her doom wuz sealed and she had with herculeanium efforts won Simon to be her pardner.

Sez she pleadin'ly, "Josiah Allen, do let me insert some of my 

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