l her what use the mit would be to support a big meetin'
house." Oh, how dry my axent wuz. It wuz the very dryest, and most irony
one I keep by me--and I keep dretful ironikle ones to use in cases of
necessity.

"Most probable," sez Josiah, "most probable she did." He thought I wuz
praisin' men up, and he acted tickled most to death.

"Yes, some man without any doubt, advised her, told her that some other
widder would lose one of hern, and give hers to the meetin' house, jest
the mate to hern. That is the way I look at it," sez he "and I mean to
mention that view of mine on this subject the very next time they take
up a subscription in the meetin' house and call on me."

But I turned and faced him then with the hot flat-iron in my hand, and
burnin' indignation in my eys, and sez I:

"If you mention that, Josiah Allen, in the meetin' house, or to any
livin' soul on earth, I'll part with you." And I would, if it wuz the
last move I ever made.

But I gin up from that minute the idea of gettin' anything out of Josiah
Allen for the fair. But I had some money of my own that I had got by
sellin' three pounds of geese feathers and a bushel of dried apples,
every feather picked by me, and every quarter of apple pared and peeled
and strung and dried by me. It all come to upwerds of seven dollars, and
I took every cent of it the next day out of my under bureau draw and
carried it to the meetin' house and gin it to the treasurer, and told
'em, at the request of the hull on 'em, jest how I got the money.

And so the hull of the female sisters did, as they handed in their
money, told jest how they come by it.

Sister Moss had seated three pairs of children's trouses for young Miss
Gowdy, her children are very hard on their trouses (slidin' down the
banesters and such). And young Miss Gowdy is onexperienced yet in
mendin', so the patches won't show. And Sister Moss had got forty-seven
cents for the job, and brung it all, every cent of it, with the
exception of three cents she kep out to buy peppermint drops with. She
has the colic fearful, and peppermint sometimes quells it.

Young Miss Gowdy wuz kep at home by some new, important business
(twins). But she sent thirty-two cents, every cent of money she could
rake and scrape, and that she had scrimped out of the money her husband
had gin her for a woosted dress. She had sot her heart on havin' a
ruffle round the bottom (he didn't give her enough for a overshirt),
but she concl