t was on Friday, P.M.,
that he arrove at our home.

I see a good-lookin' young chap a-comin' up the path from the front gate
with my Josiah, and I hastily but firmly turned my apron the other side
out--I had been windin' some blue yarn that day for some socks for my
Josiah, and had colored it a little--it wuz a white apron--and then I
waited middlin' serene till he come in with him.

And lo! and behold! Josiah introduced him as Christopher Columbus Allen,
my own cousin on my own side, and also on hisen.

He wuz a very good-lookin' chap, some older than Thomas Jefferson, and I
do declare if he didn't look some like him, which wouldn't be nothin'
aginst the law, or aginst reason, bein' that they wuz related to each
other.

I wuz glad enough to see him, and I inquired after the relations with
considerable interest, and some affection (not such an awful sight,
never havin' seen 'em much, but a little, jest about enough).

And then I learnt with some sadness that his father and mother had
passed away not long before that, and that his sister Isabelle wuz not
over well.

And there wuz another coincerdence that struck aginst me almost hard
enough to knock me down.

Isabelle! jest think on't, when my mind wuz on a perfect strain about
Isabelle Casteel.

Columbus and Isabelle!--the idee!

Why, my reason almost tottered on its throne under my recent best
head-dress, when I hearn him speak the name. Christopher Columbus a
tellin' me about Isabelle--

I declare I wuz that wrought up that I expected every minute to hear him
tell me somethin' about Ferdinand; but I do believe that I should have
broke down under that.

But it wuz all explained out to me afterwards by another relation that
come onto us onexpected shortly afterwards.

It seemed that Uncle Ezra and Aunt Tryphenia, after they went to Maine,
moved into a sort of a new place, where it wuz dretful lonesome.

They lost every book they had, owin' to a axident on their journey,
and the only book their nighest neighbor had wuz the life of Queen
Isabelle.

[Illustration: They lost every book they had, owin' to a axident on
their journey.]

And so Aunt Tryphenia for years wuz, as you may say, jest saturated with
that book. And she named her two children, born durin' that time of
saturation, Christopher Columbus and Isabelle. And I presoom if she had
had another, she would have named it King Ferdinand. Though I hain't
sure of this--you can't be postive certain