ot she will come right into your house unbeknown to
you."

"Wal," says he, "I guess I'll have another griddle-cake, Samantha."

And as he took it and poured the maple syrup over it, he added gently
but firmly:

"I shall go, Samantha, to this exertion, and I should be glad to have
you present at it, because it seems jest to me as if I should fall
overboard durin' the day."

Men are deep. Now that man knew that no amount of religious preachin'
could stir me up like that one speech. For though I hain't no hand to
coo, and don't encourage him in bein' spoony at all, he knows that I am
wrapped almost completely up in him. I went.

Wal, the day before the exertion Kellup Cobb come into our house of a
errant, and I asked him if he was goin' to the exertion; and he said he
would like to go, but he dassent.

"Dassent!" says I. "Why dassent you?"

"Why," says he, "how would the rest of the wimmin round Jonesville feel
if I should pick out one woman and wait on her?" Says he bitterly: "I
hain't perfect, but I hain't such a cold-blooded rascal as not to have
any regard for wimmen's feelin's. I hain't no heart to spile all the
comfort of the day for ten or a dozen wimmen."

"Why," says I, in a dry tone, "one woman would be happy, accordin' to
your tell."

"Yes, one woman happy, and ten or fifteen gauled--bruised in the
tenderest place."

"On their heads?" says I, inquirin'ly.

"No," says he, "their hearts. All the girls have probable had more or
less hopes that I would invite 'em--make a choice of 'em. But when the
blow was struck, when I had passed 'em by and invited some other, some
happier woman, how would them slighted ones feel? How do you s'pose they
would enjoy the day, seein' me with another woman, and they droopin'
round without me? That is the reason, Josiah Allen's wife, that I
dassent go. It hain't the keepin' of my horse through the day that stops
me. For I could carry a quart of oats and a little jag of hay in the
bottom of the buggy. If I had concluded to pick out a girl and go, I had
got it all fixed out in my mind how I would manage. I had thought it
over, while I was ondecided and duty was a-strugglin' with me. But I was
made to see where the right way for me lay, and I am goin' to foller it.
Joe Purday is goin' to have my horse, and give me seven shillin's for
the use of it and its keepin'. He come to hire it just before I made up
my mind that I hadn't ort to go.

"Of course it is a cross to me. Bu