re the men that will stand without hitchin,'
and as for girl blinders, they won't wear 'em, much as they need 'em
from the cradle to the grave.

"When wuz he layin' out to return?" sez I in a tremblin' voice.

"Oh they take trips there every half hour."

Thinks I, to-day I go there myself, and Josiah Allen will come down to
earth agin' if I know myself. But not one word did I say to demean my
pardner. Breakfast wuz ready and I sot down. But my emotions filled me
up. I couldn't seem to have any place for meat vittles, I couldn't eat
anything but some bread and butter and a glass of milk. A female
settin' by me sez, "You're not goin' to eat loose milk, are you?"

"Loose!" sez I, "Why should milk be tied up? I never wuz afraid
on't."

"I mean milk that hain't bottled," sez she. "I wouldn't eat loose
milk for the world." And she being enthusiastick gin a long eulogy of
the good men who wuz tryin' to save poor babies by givin' 'em pure
milk, and she talked bitter about the men who opposed the idee for
fear it would pauperize the babies.

And I told her it wouldn't make much difference with the babies
pizened by microby milk whether they died pauperized or onpauperized.

Well, I didn't know whether the milk wuz loose or tight, but I eat it
rapidly, so's to begin my hunt. I'd slep' some on the cars, and when I
had changed my parmetty waist for a brown gingham shirt waist, and
washed my face, and brushed back my hair, I wuz ready to start. The
room they gin me wuz so small I thought I would have to go out in the
hall to change my mind. But I did manage to change my waist. Bildad's
old colored woman wuz singin' as she made the bed in the next room
that old him "Pull for the Shore." She sung:

"Pull for the shore, brother,
Pull for the shore,
Heed not the rollin' pins,
Bend to the oar--

Leave the poor old straddled wreck
And pull for the shore."

She didn't git the words right, but her voice wuz melogious, and as I
listened my soul parodied the words to suit my needs. Yes, I felt that
I must "bend to the oar" of my purpose, I must not "heed the rollin'
waves" of weariness and anxiety, must leave "the poor old stranded
wreck" of my domestic happiness and security and pull for Josiah.

Luny Park wuz only a few steps from Bildad's and anon I stood before
what seemed to be a great city, gorgeous below an