ir trunks, made a bed up on top of 'em for her as well as he could.

But he got soaked through and through, and it brung on rumatiz, and he
couldn't move for over nine days. And the doctors said that his case wuz
critical.

Of course she couldn't leave him, and havin' to cook over a alcohol
lamp, it kep her to home every minit, even if he could be left.

So she said they got discouraged, and their bills run up so high for
doctors, and medicines, and plasters, etc., that they calculated to
break up tent and go and board for a few days, git a look at the Fair,
and then go home.

And sez she, "I spoze you have been here every day."

"Yes," sez I; "we would have a nice warm breakfast and supper at our
boardin' place, and a good comfortable bed to sleep in, and we would buy
our dinner here on the Fair ground, and we have kep real well."

She looked enviously at me out of her pale and haggard face.

Sez she, "We have both ruined our stomachs a-livin' on crackers and
cheese. I shall never see a well day agin! And we both have got rumatiz
for life, a-layin' round out-doors. It is dangerous at our time of
life," sez she.

"What made you do it, Drusilla?" sez I.

"Wall," she said, "the Deacon wanted to; he thought he couldn't afford
to board in a house; and you know," sez Drusilla, "that the Deacon is a
man of most splendid judgment."

"Not in this case," sez I.

And then, at my request, she told me what they had paid out for doctors
and medicines, and it come to five dollars and 63 cents more than Josiah
and I had paid for our board, and gate fees, and everything. And that
didn't count in the cost of their two dyspeptic boards, or their agony
in sickness and sufferin', or their total loss of happiness and
instruction at the Fair.

When we reckoned this up Drusilla come the nighest to disapprovin' of
the Deacon's management that I ever knew her to. She sez, and it wuz
strong language for Drusilla Sypher to use--

Sez she, "If it had been any other man but Deacon Sypher that had done
this, I should been mad as a hen. But the Deacon is, as you well know,
Josiah Allen's Wife, a wonderful man."

"Yes," sez I, "Drusilla, I know it, and have known it for some time."

She looked real contented, and then I sez--

"Josiah Allen had got his mind all made up to tent out durin' the Fair.
But I broke it up," sez I--"I broke it up in time!"

At this very minit Josiah and Deacon Sypher come back to us, the Deacon
a-limpin',