ough."

Sez I, "It seems to me it would depend more on the strength of their
legs, specially if the pedestal wuz a high one. I never could git up
onto it at all if I should go into it without gittin' up on a chair and
then on a table. No woman no matter how strong she wuz could git more
than two meals a day under the circumstances."

Josiah looked worried and sez, "Well, mebby there has been too much said
about it, mebby it would be jest as well to leave pedestals to
statters."

And I sez, "It is as well agin. Wimmen couldn't stand it with all they
have to do."

And so we ended by bein' real congenial in our two minds and thinkin'
considerable alike, which is indeed a comfort to pardners. And we read
our chapter in the Bible and had family prayers jest as we do to home.
For I would not leave off all the good old habits of my life because my
body wuz moved round a little. And we had a good night's rest and sot
out in good season the next mornin' for the Exposition.

The next mornin' grandpa Huff said to the breakfast table that he did
wish he had someone to read to him that day, everybody wuz goin' to the
Fair and he wuz goin' to be left alone. So Blandina, clever creeter that
she is, said she would stay and read to him from his favorite volume,
Foxe's Book of Martyr's, and also from Lamentations and Job. Billy said
his grandpa wuz never happy only when he wuz perfectly miserable. We
have all seen such folks.

So Josiah and I sot off alone, and he bein' in good sperits and bein'
gin to new and strange projects, proposed that we should take an
ortomobile. I didn't favor the idee and said:

"Id'no about it, Josiah, I feel kinder skairful about ortos, I fear that
it might prove our last ride."

"But," sez he, "with a good shuffler there hain't any danger."

But I still wuz dubersome and sez, "Mebby it would end by our shufflin'
off our mortal coils, as Mr. Shakespeare tells on."

"You don't wear 'em, Samantha, nor never did, nor I don't wear a
pompodoor" (he meant this for a joke for his head is most as bare as a
sass plate).

And he went on, "It would be a very stylish and genteel ride. I'd love
to tell brother Gowdey about it. The bretheren will expect it of me as a
live progressive Jonesvillian minglin' here with the noblest in the land
to cut sunthin' of a dash."

But seein' that I still looked dubersome he sez, "I don't feel very
rugged this mornin' and I dread the crowded car; Id'no but I should
faint