nd I sez, "Sinners stand on slippery
places."

"I see they do!" she snapped out, lookin' at me; "but I can't!"

I sez to myself as I turned away, "I'll bet she meant me." But bein'
tuckered out, I sot down on a reliable-lookin' stool, the high-headed
woman takin' another one by my side--there wuz a hull row of folks
settin' on 'em--when, all of a sudden, I d'no how it wuz done or why,
but them stools all sunk right down to the floor bearin' us with 'em
onwillin'ly.

I scrambled to my feet quick as I could, and as I riz up I see right
in front on me the gigantick, shameless female Bildad had as good as
told me Josiah had been flirtin' with. I knowed her to once, the
gaudy, flashin' lookin' creeter, bigger than three wimmen ort to be;
she wuz ten feet high if she wuz a inch. As she come up to me with
mincin' steps, I sez to her in skathin' axents:

"What have you done with my innocent pardner? Where is Josiah Allen?
Open your guilty breast and confess." And now I'm tellin' the livin'
truth, as she towered up in front on me, her breast did open and a
man's face looked out on me. My brain tottled, but righted itself with
relief, for it wuz not Josiah; it wuz probable some other woman's
husband. But I sez to myself, let every woman take care of her own
husband if she can; it hain't my funeral.

And I hurried off till I come out into a kinder open place with some
good stiddy chairs to set down on, and some green willers hangin' down
their verdant boughs over some posy beds. Nothin' made up about 'em.
Oh how good it looked to me to see sunthin' that God had made, and man
hadn't dickered with and manufactured to seem different from what it
wuz. Thinks I, if I should take hold of one of these feathery green
willer sprays it wouldn't turn into a serpent or try to trip me up, or
wobble me down. They looked beautiful to me, and beyond 'em I could
see the Ocean, another and fur greater reality, real as life, or
death, or taxes, or anything else we can't escape from.

[Illustration: "_I'm tellin' the livin' truth, as she towered up in
front on me, her breast opened and a man's face looked out
on me._" (_See page 253_)]

Settin' there lookin' off on them mighty everlastin' waves, forever
flowin' back and forth, forth and back, the world of the flimsy and
the false seemed to pass away and the Real more nigh to me than it did
in the painted land of shams and onreality I had been passin' through.
And as I meditated on the disgra