." And I got up and dragged out the hair trunk, sithin' so deep
that it wuz dretful to hear, some like the melancholy winter winds
howlin' round a Jonesville chimbly.

"What are you a goin' to do, Samantha?" sez Josiah anxiously.

"I am goin' back home," sez I, "to-morrer to see about that law."

"Alone?" sez he.

"Yes, alone," sez I, "alone."

"Never!" sez Josiah. "Never will I let my idol go from Japan to
Jonesville unprotected. If you must go and make a town's talk from
China to Jonesville I'll stand by you." And he took down his hat and
ombrell.

"What would you do if you went back?" sez I. "I should think you had
done enough as it is; I shall go alone."

"What! you go and leave all the pleasures of this trip and go alone?
Part from your pardner for months and months?"

"Yes," sez I wildly, "and mebby forever. It don't seem to me that I
can ever live with a man that is doin' what you are." And hot tears
dribbled down onto my sheep's-head night-caps.

"Oh, Samantha!" sez he, takin' out his bandanna and weepin' in
consort, "what is money or ambition compared to the idol of my heart?
I'll write to Ury to change the law agin."

"Dear Josiah!" sez I, "I knew, I knew you couldn't be so wicked as to
continue what you had begun. But can you do it?" sez I.

Sez he cheerfully, as he see me take out a sheep's-head night-cap and
shet down the trunk led, "What man has done, man can do. If Ury can
fix a law once, he can fix it twice. And he done it for me." Sez he,
"I can repeal it if I am a minter, and when I am a minter." And he got
up and took a sheet of paper and begun to write to repeal that law. I
gently leggo the apron-string dear Duty had lowered to me; it had
held; pure Principle had conquered agin. Oh, the relief and sweetness
of that hour! Sweet is the pink blush of roses after the cold snows of
winter; sweet is rest after a weary pilgrimage.

Calm and beautiful is the warm ambient air of repose and affection
after a matrimonial blizzard. Josiah wuz better to me than he had been
for over seven weeks, and his lovin' demeanor didn't change for the
worse for as many as five days. But the wicked wrong wuz done away
with.

I writ a letter to Ernest White tellin' him I never knowed a word
about it till that very day, and my companion had repealed the law,
and Cap'n Bardeen had got to move out or stop sellin' whiskey. He
knows how I worship Josiah; he didn't expect that I would come out
openly and blame him;