that week
owin' to the cat tippin' over her yeast, she's so petickular she won't
use boughten, and a hull load of company driv up onexpected at leven
forty-five. The baker come and not havin' a cent of change by her, and
he refusin' to trust her jest out of meanness, she knowin' she wuz to
have some money paid her in the mornin', jest borrowed five cents from
Uncle Sam. I don't say it wuz right, she'd better made biscuit, but I
say she wuz punished pretty hash for that and two other small things,
for bein' half distracted by her cares, she forgot to cancel three
letters, the first mistake she'd made in the three years she'd been in
office. One wuz a drop letter, so Uncle Sam wuz only out five cents.
Well, you know Theodore, that when trials come, they come as Shakespeare
said, 'Not as single spiders but hull battles on 'em,' or words to that
effect.

"Right on top of that Baker come the Inspector. He discovered the
deficit of ten cents, and also that other incident, where I got mixed up
in the Jonesville P.O. Scandal. Keturah had to have help in the office
once in awhile, and two men wanted to work for her, Nate Yerden and Sam
Pendergrast. She didn't like Nate, and she did like Sam, and I don't
spoze it made much difference in her feelin's, but Sam kep' sheep and
did gin her yarn for a pair of stockin's, and jest out of pure kindness
I colored it for her in my indigo dye tub.

"I never thought of committin' any sin, let alone one with such a big
name, Misprision of Treason and Maladministration of Justice, I believe
he called it. Why, for a spell I thought I should have to be shot up,
Josiah wuz skairt to death, and told him he never hearn of such crimes,
and sez he, 'I'll bet you can't find 'em in the Velosipeder.'

"He meant the Encyclepeder, but poor man he wuz most crazy. I emptied
out my blue dye and don't know as I shall ever set up another. And
Keturah raveled out her stockin's and gin back the yarn, I got off with
the awfulest talkin' to I ever had, and warnin's never, never to trifle
in such a heedless and wicked way with Public Matters and the sacred
rights of the people. But Keturah, poor thing! wuz jest turned right out
of office root and branch. She knowed what high influence duz in
politics, and she got Thomas Jefferson to argy with the Inspector and
tell him jest how it wuz. But he said the dignity of a great Nation wuz
at stake and out she must go.

"Keturah wep' and cried, and reminded him the yarn