s Bobbet started off in search of her wild turnip, and after she had
got out of sight Josiah whispered to me with a savage look and a tone
sharp as a sharp ax:

"Can't you bring forty or fifty more wimmen up here? You couldn't come
here a minute, could you, without a lot of other wimmen tight to your
heels?"

I begun to see daylight, and after Miss Bobbet had got her wild turnip
and some spignut, I made some excuse to send her on ahead, and then
Josiah told me all about why he had gone off by himself alone, and why
he had been a-settin' in such a curious position all the time since we
had come in sight of him.

It seems he had set down on that bottle of rossberry jell. That red
stripe on the side wasn't hardly finished, as I said, and I hadn't
fastened my thread properly, so when he got to pullin' at 'em to try to
wipe off the jell, the thread started, and bein' sewed on a machine,
that seam jest ripped from top to bottom. That was what he had walked
off sideways toward the woods for. But Josiah Allen's wife hain't one to
desert a companion in distress. I pinned 'em up as well as I could, and
I didn't say a word to hurt his feelin's, only I jest said this to him,
as I was fixin' 'em--I fastened my gray eye firmly, and almost sternly
onto him, and says I:

"Josiah Allen, is this pleasure?" Says I, "You was determined to come."

"Throw that in my face agin, will you? What if I was? There goes a pin
into my leg! I should think I had suffered enough without your stabbin'
of me with pins."

"Wal, then, stand still, and not be a-caperin' round so. How do you
s'pose I can do anything with you a-tossin' round so?"

"Wal, don't be so aggravatin', then."

I fixed 'em as well as I could, but they looked pretty bad, and there
they was all covered with jell, too. What to do I didn't know. But
finally I told him I would put my shawl onto him. So I doubled it up
corner-ways as big as I could, so it almost touched the ground behind,
and he walked back to the table with me. I told him it was best to tell
the company all about it, but he just put his foot down that he
wouldn't, and I told him if he wouldn't that he must make his own
excuses to the company about wearin' the shawl. So he told 'em he always
loved to wear summer shawls; he thought it made a man look so dressy.

But he looked as if he would sink all the time he was a-sayin' it. They
all looked dretful curious at him, and he looked as meachin' as if he
had stole she