Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor Volume I
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 jest got 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 put on a pair of pantaloons I had been a-makin' for Thomas Jefferson. They was gettin' up a milatary company to Jonesville, and these pantaloons was blue, with a red 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 red stripe on the left leg on again. They ain't finished as they ort 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 by wearin' them blue pantaloons, 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, anyway, before Thomas J. took 'em to wear. So he put 'em on.

   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 rossberry 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 to, he felt so neat about goin', and boasted so on what a splendid exertion it was goin' to be.

   We got to the lake about eight o'clock, for the old mare went slow. We was about the first ones there, but they kep' a-comin', and before ten o'clock we all got there.

   The young folks made up their minds they would stay and eat their dinner in a grove on the mainland. But the majority of the old folks thought it was best to go and set our tables where we laid out to in the first place. Josiah seemed to be the most rampant of 
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