antaloons was blue, with a red stripe
down the sides--a kind of uniform. Josiah took a awful fancy to 'em, and
says he:

"I will wear 'em, Samantha; they look so dressy."

Says I: "They hain't hardly done. I was goin' to stitch that red stripe
on the left leg on again. They ain't finished as they ort to be, and I
would not wear 'em. It looks vain in you."

Says he: "I will wear 'em, Samantha. I will be dressed up for once."

I didn't contend with him. Thinks I: we are makin' fools of ourselves by
goin' at all, and if he wants to make a little bigger fool of himself by
wearin' them blue pantaloons, I won't stand in his light. And then I had
got some machine oil onto 'em, so I felt that I had got to wash 'em,
anyway, before Thomas J. took 'em to wear. So he put 'em on.

I had good vittles, and a sight of 'em. The basket wouldn't hold 'em
all, so Josiah had to put a bottle of red rossberry jell into the pocket
of his dress-coat, and lots of other little things, such as spoons and
knives and forks, in his pantaloons and breast pockets. He looked like
Captain Kidd armed up to the teeth, and I told him so. But good land!
he would have carried a knife in his mouth if I had asked him to, he
felt so neat about goin', and boasted so on what a splendid exertion it
was goin' to be.

We got to the lake about eight o'clock, for the old mare went slow. We
was about the first ones there, but they kep' a-comin', and before ten
o'clock we all got there.

The young folks made up their minds they would stay and eat their dinner
in a grove on the mainland. But the majority of the old folks thought it
was best to go and set our tables where we laid out to in the first
place. Josiah seemed to be the most rampant of any of the company about
goin'. He said he shouldn't eat a mouthful if he didn't eat it on that
island. He said what was the use of going to a pleasure exertion at all
if you didn't try to take all the pleasure you could. So about twenty
old fools of us sot sail for the island.

I had made up my mind from the first on't to face trouble, so it didn't
put me out so much when Deacon Dobbins, in gettin' into the boat,
stepped onto my new lawn dress and tore a hole in it as big as my two
hands, and ripped it half offen the waist. But Josiah havin' felt so
animated and tickled about the exertion, it worked him up awfully when,
jest after we had got well out onto the lake, the wind took his hat off
and blew it away out onto the l