d I tell you, Samantha Allen, you may demean that
grand glorious place all you're a minter; I shall see it ere long. It
is the shinin' gole I have rared up in front of me and I'm bound to
set on it."

Sez I, "If you hain't got any nobler gole than that ahead on you I
pity you from the bottom of my heart." And to kinder skair him I sez
agin, "Do you, a Christian deacon, want to act frisky and go
pleasure-huntin' at your age?"

"Why," sez he, "Serenus sez it is the most entrancin'ly beautiful and
fascinatin' spot on earth. He sez, and can prove, it is the biggest
playground in the hull world, to say nothin' of what you can learn
there, and folks come from foreign countries jest to see it. Their
first question when they land is, 'Where is Coney Island? Lead me to
it!'"

"Oh shaw!" sez I.

"Well, it is so, and why should such droves of folks go there if it
hain't worth it? Serenus sez and can prove, that a million folks go
there in one day sometimes, and hundreds of thousands most every
day."

Sez I solemnly, "Do you remember the him, 'Broad is the road that
leads,' you know where. 'And thousands walk together there.' Do you
want to walk with 'em, Josiah?"

"Yes, I do, and lay out to."

Oh how deep the pizen had gone into his solar system! I see scarin'
didn't do no good, so I tried tender talk to wean him from the idee. I
told him I thought too much on him to resk him there in such crowds.
He wuz too small boneded and his head too weak to grapple with the
lures and temptations that would surround him, and I'd never give my
consent to his goin,' much less lead him into temptation.

"Lead your granny!" sez he in a rough axent. And that wuz all the good
my lovin' talk did.

Faith said she didn't care about goin'. But we took her to visit the
children, though the day I took her to Whitfield's he had of course,
jest like Josiah, to ride that hobby of hisen which raced and cavorted
round us, till before night he got us both most as wild as he wuz
about the Islands. But she had to go from our house to Uncle Ornaldo
Smithses, and had promised to visit friends out to Ohio durin' the
summer. I hated to have her go.

CHAPTER TWO

WE SET SAIL FOR THOUSAND ISLAND PARK AND HAVE A REAL GOOD TIME, BUT
JOSIAH MURMURS ABOUT CONEY.

CHAPTER TWO

WE SET SAIL FOR THOUSAND ISLAND PARK AND HAVE A REAL GOOD TIME, BUT
JOSIAH MURMURS ABOUT CONEY.

Soon after, Whitfield wuz obleeged to go to Canada agin on that
bi