lst we're here. You know it
would come handy in hayin' time and when the roads are drifted full."

I looked at him in a way that he will remember through his hull life,
and sez he quick, "I shan't do nothin' of the kind unless you're
willin'."

"Willin'!" sez I, in heart-broken axents. "What will happen next to
me?" And then indignation dried my tears before they fell and I sez,
"I command you, Josiah Allen, to never speak to me on this subject
agin; or think on't!" sez I fiercely.

He muttered sunthin' about thinkin' what he wuz a mindter. And I
turned to Arvilly and sez, to git her mind off:

"See that native, Arvilly, standin' up on that board!"

For as our good ship bore us onward we see crowds of natives standin'
up on little tottlin' boards, dartin' through the water every which
way, risin' and fallin' on the waves. I couldn't done it to save my
life. No, Josiah nor me couldn't stood on boards like that on our
creek, to say nothin' of the Pacific Ocean. But we should never have
appeared in public dressed in that way--it wuzn't decent, and I told
Josiah I wouldn't look at 'em if I wuz in his place; I mistrusted that
some on 'em might be wimmen. And then I thought of the Garden of Eden,
when Adam and Eve first took the place, and I didn't really know what
to think. But I drawed Arvilly's attention to one on 'em that seemed
extra dextrious in managin' his board and sez, "How under the sun duz
he do it, Arvilly?"

"I d'no," sez she, and she added dreamily, "I wonder if he would want
a copy of the 'Twin Crimes,' or the 'Wicked and Warlike.' If I do sell
any here to the natives it'll put some new idees in their heads about
idol worship wickeder and warliker than they ever had." Miss Meechim
and Dorothy wuz approachin' and Robert Strong I see looked off with
rapt eyes onto the glorious seen. And as no two can see the same
things in any picture, but see the idees of their own mind, blended in
and shadin' the view, I spozed that Robert Strong see rared up on the
foreground of that enchantin' seen his ideal City of Justice, where
gigantic trusts, crushin' the people's life out, never sot its feet,
but love, equality and good common sense sot on their thrones in the
middle on't, and the people they ruled wuz prosperous and happy. And
anon he looked down into Dorothy's sweet face as if no foreign shore
or any inner vision ever looked so good to him.

Miss Meechim hated to have Dorothy see them natives, I see she did;