now."

Thomas J. asked me what it wuz, but I gently declined to answer,
merely sayin' that it was a matter of duty, and so I told Miss Meechim
when she asked about it. She is so big feelin' that it raised me up
considerable to think that I had business with a Empress. But I
answered her evasive, and agin I giv vent to a low groan, and sez to
myself, "Can I let the Pacific Ocean roll between me and Josiah? Will
Duty's apron string hold up under the strain, or will it break with
me? Will it stretch out clear to China? And oh! will my heart strings
that are wrapped completely round that man, will they stretch out the
enormous length they will have to and still keep hull?" I knew not. I
wuz a prey to overwhelmin' emotions, even as I did up my best
night-gowns and sheepshead night-caps and sewed clean lace in the neck
and sleeves of my parmetty and gray alpaca and got down my hair
trunk, for I knew that I must hang onto that apron string no matter
where it carried me to. Waitstill Webb come and made up some things I
must have, and as preparations went on my pardner's face grew haggard
and wan from day to day, and he acted as if he knew not what he wuz
doin'. Why, the day I got down my trunk I see him start for the barn
with the accordeon in a pan. He sot out to get milk for the calf. He
was nearly wild.

He hadn't been so good to me in over four years. Truly, a threatened
absence of female pardners is some like a big mustard poultice applied
to the manly breast drawin' out the concealed stores of tenderness and
devotion that we know are there all the time, but sometimes kep' hid
for years and years.

He urged me to eat more than wuz good for me--rich stuff that I never
did eat--and bought me candy, which I sarahuptishly fed to the pup.
And he follered me round with footstools, and het the soap stun hotter
than wuz good for my feet, and urged me to keep out of drafts.

And one day he sez to me with a anxious face:

"If you do go, Samanthy, I wouldn't write about your trip--I am afraid
it will be too much for you--I am afraid it will tire your head too
much. I know it would mine."

And then I say to him in a tender axent, for his devotion truly
touched me:

"There is a difference in heads, Josiah."

But he looked so worried that I most promised him I wouldn't try to
write about the trip--oh! how that man loves me, and I him visey
versey. And so the days passed, little Tommy pale and pimpin', Thomas
J. lookin' more c