And he sez, "I guess I know what I am about. She is one of the relations on my side, and I guess I have got a few rights left, and a little spunk."

   "Yes," sez I, sadly, "you have got the spunk."

   "Wall," sez he, "I guess I can spunk up, and do somethin' for one of my own relations, without any interference or any advice from any of the Smith family, or anybody else."

   Sez I, "I don't want to stop your doin' all you can for Lodema, but why not tell what you are a-goin' to do?"

   "It will be time enough when the time comes," sez he. "You will find it out in the course of next week."

   Wall, it run along to the middle of the next week. And one day I had jest sot down to tie off a comforter.

   It wuz unbleached cheese cloth that I had bought and colored with tea leaves. It wuz a sort of a light mice color, a pretty soft gray, and I wuz goin' to tie it in with little balls of red zephyr woosted, and work it in buttonhole stitch round the edge with the same.

   It wuz fur our bed, Josiah's and mine, and it wuz goin' to be soft and warm and very pretty, though I say it, that shouldn't.

   It wuzn't quite so pretty as them that hain't colored. I had 'em for my spare beds, cream color tied with pale blue and pink, that wuz perfectly beautiful and very dressy; but I thought for everyday use a colored one would be better.

   Wall, I had brought it out and wuz jest a-goin' to put it onto the frames (some new-fashioned ones I had borrowed from Tirzah Ann for the occasion).

   And Cousin Lodema had jest observed, "that the new-fashioned frames with legs wuzn't good for nothin', and she didn't like the color of gray, it looked too melancholy, and would be apt to depress our feelin's too much, and would be tryin' to our complexions."

   And I told her "that I didn't spoze there would be a very great congregation in our bedroom, as a general thing in the dead of night, to see whether it wuz becomin' to Josiah and me or not. And, it bein' as dark as Egypt, our complexions wouldn't make a very bad show any way."

   "Wall," she said, "to tie it with red wuzn't at all appropriate, it wuz too dressy a color for folks of our age, Josiah's and mine." "Why," sez she, "even

 Prev. P 9/31 next