I

   , at

    my

   age, would skurcely care to sleep under one so gay. And she wouldn't have a cheese cloth comforter any way." She sort o' stopped to ketch breath, and Josiah sez:

   "Oh, wall, Lodema, a cheese cloth comforter is better than none, and I should think you would be jest the one to like any sort of a frame on legs."

   But I wunk at him, a real severe and warnin' wink, and he stopped short off, for all the world as if he had forgot bein' on his good behavior; he stopped short off, and went right to behavin', and sez he to me:

   "Don't put on your comforter to-day, Samantha, for Tirzah Ann and Whitfield and the babe are a-comin' over here bimeby, and Maggie is a-comin', and Thomas Jefferson."

   "Wall," sez I, "that is a good reason why I should keep on with it; the girls can help me if I don't get it off before they get here."

   And then he sez, "Miss Minkley is a-comin', too, and the Elder."

   "Why'ee," sez I, "Josiah Allen, why didn't you tell me before, so I could have baked up somethin' nice? What a man you are to keep things; how long have you known it?"

   "Oh, a week or so!"

   "A week!" sez I; "Josiah Allen, where is your conscience? if you have got a conscience."

   "In the same old place," sez he, kinder hittin' himself in the pit of his stomach.

   "Wall, I should think as much," sez I.

   And Lodema sez, sez she: "A man that won't tell things is of all creeters that walks the earth the most disagreeable. And I should think the girls, Maggie and Tirzah Ann, would want to stay to home and clean house such a day as this is. And I should think a Elder would want to stay to home so's to be on hand in case of anybody happenin' to be exercised in their minds, and wantin to talk to him on religious subjects. And if I wuz a Elder's wife, I should stay to home with him; I should think it wuz my duty and my privilege. And if I wuz a married woman, I would have enough baked up in the house all 

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