near now, and
take that with her hard work that day, it accounts some for her extra
depression--though, without any doubt, it wuz Josiah's talk that started
the tears.

I couldn't bear to see Submit look so mournful and deprested, and so,
though I wuz that tired myself that I could hardly hold my head up, yet
I did take my bits in my teeth, as you may say, and asked him--

What the awful hard job wuz that he and other men wuz so anxus to ward
offen wimmen.

And he sez, "Why, a settin' on the Conference."

And I sez, "I don't believe that is such a awful hard job to tackle."

"Yes, indeed, it is," sez Josiah in his most skairful axent, "yes, it
is."

And he shook his head meenin'ly and impressively, and looked at me and
Submit in as mysterius and strange a way, es I have ever been looked at
in my life, and I have had dretful curius looks cast onto me, from first
to last. And he sez in them deep impressive axents of hisen,

"You jest try it once, and see--I have sot on it, and I know."

Josiah wuz sent once as a delegate to the Methodist Conference, so I
spozed he did know.

But I sez, "Why you come home the second day when you sot as happy as a
king, and you told me how you had rested off durin' the two days, and
how you had visited round at Uncle Jenkins'es, and Cousin Henn's, and
you said that you never had had such a good time in your hull life, as
you did when you wuz a settin'. You looked as happy as a king, and acted
so."

Josiah looked dumbfounded for most a quarter of a minute. For he knew my
words wuz as true es anything ever sot down in Matthew, Mark, or Luke,
or any of the other old patriarks. He knew it wuz Gospel truth, that
he had boasted of his good times a settin', and as I say for nearly a
quarter of a minute he showed plain signs of mortification.

But almost imegietly he recovered himself, and went on with the doggy
obstinacy of his sect: "Oh, wall! Men can tackle hard jobs, and get some
enjoyment out of it too, when it is in the line of duty. One thing that
boys em' up, and makes em' happy, is the thought that they are a keepin'
trouble and care offen wimmen. That is a sweet thought to men, and
always wuz. And there wuz great strains put onto our minds, us men that
sot, that wimmen couldn't be expected to grapple with, and hadn't ort to
try to. It wuz a great strain onto us."

"What was the nater of the strain?" sez I. "I didn't know as you did a
thing only sot still there and go to sl