ad a big balloon here all tied
up ready to start off at a minute's notice.

You jest paid your money, and you could go on a trip up in it through
the blue fields of air. I told Josiah "that it wouldn't be but a few
years before folks would ride round in 'em jest as common as they do in
wagons." Sez I, "Mebby we shall have a couple of our own stanchled up in
our own barn."

"You mean tied up," sez he, and I do spoze I did mean that.

But now to look up at the great deep overhead, and consider the vastness
of space, and consider the smallness of the ropes a-holdin' the balloon
down, I said to myself, "Mebby it wuz jest as well not to tackle the job
of ridin' out in it that day."

Jest as I wuz a-meditatin' this Josiah spoke up, and sez, "I won't pay
out no two dollars apiece to ride in it."

And I sez, "I kinder want to go up in it, and I kinder don't want to."

And he sez, "That is jest like wimmen--whifflin', onstabled,
weak-livered."

Sez I, "I believe you're afraid to go up in it."

"Afraid!" sez he; "I wouldn't be afraid a mite if it broke loose and
sailed off free into space."

"Why don't you try it, then?" I urged. "Wall," he sez, a-lookin' round
as if mebby he could find some excuse a-layin' round on the ground, or
sailin' round in the air, "if I wuz," sez he--"if I had another vest on.
I hain't dressed up exactly as I'd want to be to go a-balloon ridin'.

"And then," sez he, a-brightenin' up, "I don't want to skair you. You'd
most probable be skairt into a fit if it should break loose and start
off independent into space. And it would take away all my enjoyment of
such a pleasure excursion to see you a-layin' on the earth in a fit."

Sez I, "It hain't vests or affection that holds you back, Josiah
Allen--it's fear."

"Fear!" sez he; "I don't know the meanin' of that word only from what
I've read about it in the dictionary. Men don't know what it is to be
afraid, and that is why," sez he, "that I've always been so anxious to
have wimmen keep in her own spear, where men could watch over her,
humble, domestic, grateful.

"Nater plotted it so," sez he; "nater designs the male of creation to
branch out, to venter, to labor, to dare, while the female stays to hum
and tends to her children and the housework." Sez he, "In all the works
of nater the females stay to hum, and the males soar out free.

"It is a sweet and solemn truth," sez he, "and female wimmen ort to lay
it to heart. In these latter days,"