Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor
    Jonesville Gimlet

   , but
the editor of the

    Augur

   , a longhaired chap, who moved into
Jonesville a few months ago, lost his wife soon after he come there,
and sense that she has turned Dimocrat, and writes for his paper
stidy. They say that he is a dreadful big feelin' man, and I have
heard—it came right straight to me—his cousin's wife's sister told
it to the mother-in-law of one of my neighbors' brother's wife, that
he didn't like Betsey's poetry at all, and all he printed it for was
to plague the editor of the

    Gimlet

   , because she used to write for
him. I myself wouldn't give a cent a bushel for all the poetry she can
write. And it seems to me, that if I was Betsey, I wouldn't try to
write so much. Howsumever, I don't know what turn I should take if I
was Betsey Bobbet; that is a solemn subject, and one I don't love to
think on.

   I never shall forget the first piece of her poetry I ever see. Josiah
Allen and I had both on us been married goin' on a year, and I had
occasion to go to his trunk one day, where he kept a lot of old
papers, and the first thing I laid my hand on was these verses.
Josiah went with her a few times after his wife died, on Fourth of
July or so, and two or three camp-meetin's and the poetry seemed to
be wrote about the time

    we

   was married. It was directed over
the top of it, "Owed to Josiah," just as if she were in debt to him.
This was the way it read:

   "Josiah, I the tale have hurn,

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