htcap off. They looked
dreadful curious at me, and I felt awful meachin'. But I jest ketched it
off, and never said nothin'. But when Josiah come out of the bedroom
with what little hair he has got standin' out in every direction, no two
hairs a-layin' the same way, and one of his galluses a-hangin' most to
the floor under his best coat, I up and told 'em. I thought mebby they
wouldn't stay long. But Deacon Dobbinses' folks seemed to be all waked
up on the subject of religion, and they proposed we should turn it into
a kind of a conference meetin'; so they never went home till after ten
o'clock.

It was 'most eleven when Josiah and me got to bed agin. And then jest as
I was gettin' into a drowse, I heered the cat in the buttery, and I got
up to let her out. And that roused Josiah up, and he thought he heered
the cattle in the garden, and he got up and went out. And there we was
a-marchin' round 'most all night.

And if we would get into a nap, Josiah would think it was mornin' and he
would start up and go out to look at the clock. He seemed so afraid we
would be belated and not get to that exertion in time. And there we was
on our feet 'most all night. I lost myself once, for I dreampt that
Josiah was a-drowndin', and Deacon Dobbins was on the shore a-prayin'
for him. It started me so that I jist ketched hold of Josiah and
hollered. It skairt him awfully, and says he, "What does ail you,
Samantha? I hain't been asleep before to-night, and now you have rousted
me up for good. I wonder what time it is!"

And then he got out of bed again and went and looked at the clock. It
was half-past one, and he said he "didn't believe we had better go to
sleep again, for fear we would be too late for the exertion, and he
wouldn't miss that for nothin'."

"Exertion!" says I, in a awful cold tone. "I should think we had had
exertion enough for one spell."

But as bad and wore out as Josiah felt bodily, he was all animated in
his mind about what a good time he was a-goin' to have. He acted
foolish, and I told him so. I wanted to wear my brown-and-black gingham,
and a shaker, but Josiah insisted that I should wear a new lawn dress
that he had brought me home as a present, and I had jest got made up.
So jest to please him, I put it on, and my best bonnet.

And that man, all I could do and say, would put on a pair of pantaloons
I had been a-makin' for Thomas Jefferson. They was gettin' up a milatary
company to Jonesville, and these p