ext day
but one Miss Gowdey come over to borry a drawin' of tea and she sez,

"Serenus and Josiah are havin' a gay time at Coney Island. I've jest
had a card from Serenus."

You could have knocked me down with a pin feather. But so powerful is
my mind, though it seemed to roll to and fro under my foretop and my
knees wobbled under me, I did up the tea with marble composure and a
piece of paper, and she sot off with it, and then I fell into a
rockin' chair with almost frenzied forebodin's. What! _what_ wuz
Josiah Allen doin' in that place of folly and fashion? Could he keep
his innocence amidst the awful temptations? I'd hearn there wuz places
there where folks stood on their heads; wuz his brain strong enough to
stand the jolt?

Spozein' them iron horses should kick him over? Spozein' he got
wrecked on the Immoral railway? Or went up on the Awful Tower and fell
off? Spozein' the elephants should tread on him? Or the
boyconstructors or tigers git after him? Or he should go to the moon
and git lost there and be obleeged to stay? Oh the wild fears that
raced through my foretop; mebby they wuzn't reasonable but they gored
me jest the same. What must I, what could I do? I couldn't tell.

[Illustration: "_'Serenus and Josiah are havin' a gay time at Coney
Island. I've jest had a card from Serenus,' sez Miss
Gowdey. You could have knocked me down with a pin
feather._" (_See page 214_)]

But all of a sudden I thought of what Serenus said about a woman twice
my size dressed in gaudy red, forever takin' after folks--What would
Josiah do if she took after him? And no doubt she would, for looked at
through the magnifying lens of Absence and Anxiety he looked passingly
beautiful. As I thought of her I knowed what I would do. Sez I, "I
will go and tear him away and bring him back to duty and his mournin'
pardner."

But how could I go, wuz my next thought? How dast I venter there
alone? I lacked both courage and a summer suit. But when did Samantha
ever fail to lay holt of Duty's apron strings when they dangled in
front of her? Better go clothed in a righteous purpose and a old
parmetty than in the richest new alpacky and a craven sperit.

I knowed that if I had wanted a hobble skirt or a hayrem, or a hip
cosset there wuz no time to git 'em. But Heaven knows I didn't want
'em, treasurin' as I did the power to walk and breathe. Suffice it to
say the next mornin' the risin' sun gilded my brown straw bunnet and
umbrell as I des