cultivate.

   But my idees wuz frowned at by every man in Jonesville, when I ventured to promulgate 'em. They all said, "The better the man, the better the deed."

   They said, "The better the man wuz, the better the buzz saw he would be likely to run." The fact wuz, they needed some buzz saw mills bad, and wuz very glad to have these deacons lay holt of 'em.

   But I threw out this question at 'em, and stood by it—"If bein' set apart as a deacon didn't mean anything? If there wuzn't any deacon-work that they ought to be expected to do—and if it wuz right for 'em to go into any world's work so wild and hazardous and engrossin', as this enterprise?"

   And again they sez to me in stern, decided axents, "The better the man, the better the deed. We need buzz saws."

   And then they would turn their backs to me and stalk away very high-headed.

   And I felt that I wuz a gettin' fearfully onpopular all through Jonesville, by my questions. I see that the hull community wuz so sot on havin' them five deacons embark onto these buzz saws that they would not brook any interference, least of all from a female woman.

   But I had a feelin' that Josiah Allen wuz, as you may say, my lawful prey. I felt that I had a right to question my own pardner for the good of his own soul, and my piece of mind.

   And I sez to him in solemn axents:

   "Josiah Allen, what time will you get when you are fairly started on your buzz saw, for domestic life, or social, or for religious duties?"

   And Josiah sez, "Dumb 'em! I guess a man is a goin' to make money when he has got a chance." And I asked him plain if he had got so low, and if I had lived with him twenty years for this, to hear him in the end dumb religious duties.

   And Josiah acted skairt and conscience smut for most half a minute, and said, "he didn't dumb 'em."

   "What wuz you dumbin'?" sez I, coldly.

   "I wuz dumbin' the idee," sez he, "that a man can't make money when he has a chance to."

   But I sez, a haulin' up this strong argument agin—

 Prev. P 5/26 next