t seated when the driver give a skairful yell,
and the camel give a fearful lunge, and straightened up on its feet, and
Selinda's bunnet fell back onto her neck, and lay there through the hull
of the enterprise, and her gray hair floated back onchecked, for she
dassent let her hands go a minit to fix it.

It wuz a mournin' bunnet and veil, but black gittin' soiled so easy, she
had put on a bright green alpaca dress she had, thinkin' that she
wouldn't see nobody she knew; and she wore some old yeller mitts for the
same reason, and some low, shabby-lookin' shoes, and some white
stockin's.

And her weight bein' two hundred and forty, she showed off vivid aginst
the settin' sun.

Selinda is a meek woman and obedient, but she cries easy. You have got
to take good traits and bad ones in folks. She can't help it. She always
cries in class meetin', or anywhere--has cried time and agin a-tellin'
how she would be trompled on and lay down and have her head chopped off
if Bizer told her to.

And of course it couldn't be expected she would go through this fearful
experience without sheddin' tears. No; before she had been up there two
minits she begun to cry.

[Illustration: Before she had been up there two minits she begun to
cry.]

She always makes up pitiful faces when she weeps. It has been talked on
a sight in Jonesville, some sayin' she might help it, and some
contendin' that she couldn't; but she skairs children frequent.

But now she dassent leggo a minit to git her handkerchief, so she rode
along weepin' silently, and a fearful sight for men or angels, but
truly a cryin' monument of wifely devotion.

As she moved off, I could see at the first strain her dress waist, bein'
one of the short round ones with a belt, had bust asunder, leavin' a
white waist of cotton flannel between 'em, which seemed to be a-growin'
wider and wider all the time. (She wears cotton flannel for her health.)

As I see this, and not knowin' what would ensue and take place in her
clothin', I cast onto the wind my own fears, and the shrinkin' timidity
of my sect, and graspin' my umbrell in my hand, I run along by the side
of the lofty quadreped, a-tryin' to reach up and fix her a little.

But I could not; her position wuz too lofty, the mount wuz too
precipitous on which she sot.

She see me, but she didn't stop her cryin', and the faces she wuz
a-makin' wuz pitiful in the extreme, and skairful to anybody that hadn't
seen 'em so much as I h