l the folks couldn't keep their seats and one by
one they wuz throwed off, and went down through a hole in the floor I
know not where.

As I see 'em disappear one by one in the depths below, thinks I, is
that where Josiah Allen has disappeared to? Who knows but he is
moulderin' in some underground dungeon, mournin' and pinin' for me and
his native land. Of course Reason told me that he couldn't moulder
much in two days, but I wuz too much wrought up to listen to Reason,
and as I see 'em slide down and disappear, onbeknown to myself I spoke
out loud and sez:

"Can it be that Josiah is incarcerated in some dungeon below? If he
is, I will find and release him or perish with him."

A woman who looked as if she belonged there, hearn me and sez, "Who is
Josiah?" "My pardner," sez I, and I continued, "You have a kind face,
mom; have you seen him? Have you seen Josiah Allen?"

[Illustration: "_Pretty soon it begun to move and one by one they wuz
throwed off and went down I know not where._" (_See
page 260_)]

"Describe him," sez she, "there wuz a man here just now hunting for
some woman."

"Oh, he is very beautiful!"

"Young?" sez she.

"Well, no; about my age or a little older."

"Light complexion? Dark hair and eyes? Stylish dressed?"

"No, wrinkled complexion, bald, and what few hairs he's got, gray."

She smiled; she couldn't see the beauty Love had gilded his image
with.

Sez I, "If he's incarcerated in some dungeon below, I too will mount
the turn-table of torture, and share his fate or perish on the turn
table."

Sez she, "There is no dungeons below; the folks come out into a vast
place as big as this. There is just as much to see down there as there
is here, just as many people and just as much amusement."

"Amusement!" sez I in a holler voice.

After I left her, I see a whisk broom hangin' up in a handy place, and
it had a printed liebill on it, "This whisk broom free." And as my
parmetty dress had got kinder dusty a slidin' and wobblin' as I had
slode and wobbled, I went to brush off my skirt with it, when all of
a sudden somebody or sunthin' gin me a stunnin' blow right in my arm
that held the brush. I dropped it without waitin' to argy the matter,
and I don't know to this day who or what struck me and what it wuz
for. But my conscience wuz clear; I hadn't done nothin'.

I santered on and entered an enclosure seemin'ly made of innocent
lookin' fence rails. I wuz kinder attracted to it, for it lo