d of work, and it fell
back on 'em once or twice, and most squashed 'em; but they nipped to,
and lifted again, and finally got it on; but they was completely
tuckered out.

And then Josiah got in, and thanked 'em for the liftin'; and the organ
man, a wipin' the sweat offen his face--that had started out in his hard
labor--said he should be down to-morrow mornin'; and the piano man, a
pantin' for breath, told Josiah not to make up his mind till _he_ came;
he should be down that night if he got rested enough.

And then Josiah told 'em that he should be glad to see 'em down a
visitin' any time, but he had jest bought a organ.

I don't know but what they would have laid holt of Josiah, if they
hadn't been so tuckered out; but as it was, they was too beat out to
look anything but sneakin'; and so we drove off.

The manty maker had told me that day, that there was two or three new
agents with new kinds of sewin' machines jest come to Jonesville, and I
was tellin' Josiah on it, when we met a middle-aged man, and he looked
at us pretty close, and finally he asked us as he passed by, if we could
tell him where Josiah Allen lived.

Says Josiah, "I'm livin' at present in a Democrat."

Says I, "In this one-horse wagon, you know."

Says he, "You are thinkin' of buyin' a sewin' machine, haint you?"

Says Josiah, "I am a turnin' my mind that way."

At that, the man turned his horse round, and follered us, and I see he
had a sewin' machine in front of his wagon. We had the old mare and the
colt, and seein' a strange horse come up so close behind us, the colt
started off full run towards Jonesville, and then run down a cross-road
and into a lot.

Says the man behind us, "I am a little younger than you be, Mr. Allen;
if you will hold my horse I will go after the colt with pleasure."

Josiah was glad enough, and so he got into the feller's wagon; but
before he started off, the man, says he:

"You can look at that machine in front of you while I am gone. I tell
you frankly, that there haint another machine equal to it in America; it
requires no strength at all; infants can run it for days at a time; or
idiots; if anybody knows enough to set and whistle, they can run this
machine; and it's especially adapted to the blind--blind people can run
it jest as well as them that can see. A blind woman last year, in one
day, made 43 dollars a makin' leather aprons; stitched them all round
the age two rows. She made two dozen of 'em, an