and made the most mysterious motions of his hands toward '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."

   Says I, "Do you come down and jine the company this minute, Josiah Allen. You was in a awful takin' to come with 'em, and what will they think to see you act so?"

   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 toward 'em; but the minute they looked at him he would pretend to smile—that deathly smile.

   Says I, "Come, Josiah Allen, we're goin' to get dinner right away, for we are afraid it will rain."

   "Oh, wal," says he, "a little rain, more or less, hain't a-goin' to hender a man from meditatin'."

   I was wore out, and says I, "Do you stop meditatin' this minute, Josiah Allen!"

   Says he, "I won't stop, Samantha. I let you have your way a good deal of the time; but when I take it into my head to meditate, you hain't a-goin' to break it up."

   Jest at that minute they called to me from the shore to come that minute to find some of my dishes. And we had to start off. But oh! the gloom of my mind that was added to the lameness of my body. Them strange motions and looks of Josiah wore on me. Had the sufferin's of the night, added to the trials of the day, made him crazy? I thought more'n as likely

   as not I had got a luny on my hands for the rest of my days.

   And then, oh, how the sun did scald down onto me, and the wind took the smoke so into my face that there wasn't hardly a dry eye in my head. And then a perfect swarm of yellow wasps lit down onto our vittles as quick as we laid 'em down, so you couldn't touch a thing without runnin' a chance to be stung. Oh, the agony of that time! the distress of that pleasure exertion! But I kep' to work, and when we had got dinner most ready I went back to call Josiah again. Old Miss Bobbet said she would go with me, for she thought she see a wild turnip in the woods there, and her Shakespeare had a awful cold, and she would try to dig one to give him. So we started up the hill again. He sot in the same position, all 

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