s we got
to the door we backed into the Chinese Minister and his party who wuz
jest comin' in.

But then, as I told Josiah as we went down the steps when he wuz blamin'
me for this _contrary temps_, as men always will blame their pardners
for most everything, I sez:

"China is used to bein' backed into by foreigners, I guess they'll
overlook it."

I didn't bandy words with Josiah, I knowed I'd done my duty and that
kep' me serene. When you're follerin' a star you don't mind the bite of
a nat.

The last week of our stay in St. Louis Aunt Trypheny on leavin' the Fair
ground one day wuz struck by the twenty-mule team that perambulates the
ground, was knocked down and carried to an emergency hospital on the
Fair ground. The head doctor there wuz Miss Huff's nephew, and she got a
little room for her till she could be moved with safety.

The day before we went home Josiah went down into the city to do a few
errents for the bretheren, Blandina had gone with Aspire Todd to visit a
sister of hisen (they wuz engaged), and I had been to work gittin' ready
to leave the next mornin', and Molly and I wuz goin' in the afternoon to
take a last look at the Fair, and she come into my room as I wuz gittin'
my bunnet on with her hands full of the most beautiful flowers she could
get, and proposed that we should go and see Aunt Pheeny and cheer her up
a little.

Sweet creeter, I hadn't thought on't. The hospital wuz quite a distance
off from where we had laid out to go, and I knowed I would be tired as a
dog anyway. But not wantin' to be behind hand in good works I said I
would go with her, and I selected some of the nicest of the fruit I had
bought to take home to the grandchildren, and put in my silk bag for
her, and put on my mantilly and told her I wuz ready. And then that dear
child proposed we should take Dorothy with us, knowin' Aunt Trypheny
would ruther see her than any Emperor or Zar, and I gin my consent to
that, and we sot off, Dotie happy as a Queen at goin' with us.

Well, Aunt Pheeny wuz glad enough to see us, specially Dorothy. But we
found her blissful in mind anyway for she told us the first thing her
Prince Arthur had been there to see her and had been gone only a few
minutes, and she showed us a couple of gold pieces he had gin her, big
enough to bear witness to his goodness of heart as well as his wealth.
She said with her linement all aglow (she never liked her) that his
mother had died two months ago leaving