The waters raged, thou clasped it tight,

   I sighed, 'should both be drownded now'-

   I thought, Josiah,

   Oh, happy sheep to thus expiah."

   I showed the poetry to Josiah that night after he came home, and told
him I had read it. He looked awful ashamed to think I had seen it,
and, says he, with a dreadful sheepish look: "The persecution I
underwent from that female can never be told; she fairly hunted me
down. I hadn't no rest for the soles of my feet. I thought one spell
she would marry me in spite of all I could do, without givin' me the
benefit of law or gospel." He see I looked stern, and he added, with
a sick-lookin' smile, "I thought one spell, to use Betsey's language,
'I was a gonah.'"

   I didn't smile. Oh, no, for the deep principle of my sect was reared
up. I says to him in a tone cold enough to almost freeze his ears:
"Josiah Allen, shet up; of all the cowardly things a man ever done,
it is goin 'round braggin' about wimmin likin' 'em, and follern' 'em
up. Enny man that'll do that is little enough to crawl through a
knot-hole without rubbing his clothes." Says I: "I suppose you made
her think the moon rose in your head and set in your heels. I daresay
you acted foolish enough round her to sicken a snipe, and if you
makes fun of her now to please me, I let you know you have got holt
of the wrong individual.

   "Now," says I, "go to bed"; and I added, in still more freezing
accents, "for I want to mend your pantaloons." He gathered up his
shoes and stockin's and started off to bed, and we hain't never
passed a word on the subject sence. I believe when you disagree with
your pardner, in freein' your

    mind

   in the first on't, and then
not to be a-twittin' about it afterward. And as for bein' jealous, I

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