rms as she would the buyer, on the third day, and appeared pale
but triumphant, with a subscription book in her hand and the words of
her prospectus dribblin' from her lips. She had ordered a trunkful to
sell on sight, but Arvilly will never git over what she has went
through, never.

As the days went on the big ship seemed more and more to us like a
world, or ruther a new sort of a planet we wuz inhabitin'--it kinder
seemed to be the centre of the universe. I overheard a woman say one
day how monotonous the life wuz. But I thought to myself, mebby her
mind wuz kinder monotonous--some be, you know, made so in the first
on't; I found plenty enough to interest me, and so Josiah did.

There wuz a big library where you could keep company with the great
minds of the past and present. A music room where most always some of
the best music wuz to be hearn, for of course there wuz lots of
musicians on board, there always is. And for them that wanted it,
there wuz a smokin' room, though Josiah or I didn't have any use for
it, never havin' smoked anything but a little mullen and catnip once
or twice for tizik. And there wuz a billiard room for them that
patronized Bill, though I never did nor Josiah, but wuz willin' that
folks should act out their own naters. I spoze they played cards
there, too. But Josiah and I didn't know one card from another; I
couldn't tell Jack from the King to save my life.

We stayed in the music room quite a good deal and once or twice Josiah
expressed the wish that he had brought along his accordeon.

And he sez: "It don't seem right to take all this pleasure and not
give back anything in return."

But I sez, "I guess they'll git along without hearin' that accordeon."

"I might sing sunthin', I spose," sez he. "I could put on my dressin'
gown and belt it down with the tossels and appear as a singer, and
sing a silo."

That wuz the evenin' after Dorothy, in a thin, white dress, a little
low in the neck and short sleeves, had stood up and sung a lovely
piece, or that is I 'spoze it wuz lovely, it wuz in some foreign
tongue, but it sounded first rate, as sweet as the song of a robin or
medder lark--you know how we all like to hear them, though we can't
quite understand robin and lark language. It wuz kinder good in
Josiah to want to give pleasure in return for what he had had, but I
argyed him into thinkin' that he and I would give more pleasure as a
congregation than as speakers or singers. For af