goin' to the Pike to-day and you can do as
you're a minter." And Blandina jined in of course and said that if dear
Uncle Josiah's mind wuz sot on it it wuz best to go, and she sez kinder
low to me, "it wuzn't right to cross a man unless it wuz absolutely
necessary."

I wuz goin' to twit her and tell her that as first chaperone I wuz the
one to settle these matters, but I see Josiah wuz gittin' too agitated,
one look at his gloomy face made me think of the past, and I gin in as
gracefully as I could, and we wended our way thither with no more
parley, and Josiah, as soon as our heads wuz turned that way, begun to
brighten up and look better, and so about one-half of my mind and sperit
wuz satisfied. And sometimes I think you can't be satisfied any more
than that on this spear wherever you go, and whatever you see, specially
if you have a man to deal with that is more or less fraxious and
worrisome. To ease his mind and temper you'll git led into strange and
devious paths time and agin.

But to resoom forward. The Four Cowboys on a Tear guardin' the entrance
to the Pike confronted us and in their wild and boysterous hilarity
seemed to my agitated and forebodin' sperit to shadow forth what we
would find inside their domain. They wuz a strange and skairful set,
their clothes wuz rough and disheveled and so wuz their linements. They
all on 'em brandished aloft a pistol, seemin' to be on the lookout for
someone to shoot. Their horses wuz on the dead gallop and you knowed by
the expression on their faces jest what blood curdlin' yells wuz issuin'
from their throats.

Why, if you'll believe it they wuz goin' at such a gallopin' prancin'
gait that the feet of one of their horses never touched the ground, all
four of his feet wuz gallopin' through the air. Josiah sez as he looked
at it:

"I would give a dollar bill to Ury in a minute if he could learn the
colt to do that trick, gallop along without his feet touchin' the
ground. Jest think what a sensation it would make to the Jonesville
fair. The old mair is too old of course to git the trick."

"Yes," sez I, "I guess her feet will never be lifted altogether from the
ground till they are turned up in their last rest. But I wouldn't try,
Josiah Allen, to imitate that roarin' and rakish set if I wuz in your
place, you a member of the meetin' house."

"Oh, keep throwin' that meetin' house in my face, I should think you'd
git tired ont but don't spoze you will."

And Blandina