doubt and a
mark of a deep thinker.

I hearn him go on for quite a spell, for Robert wouldn't argy with
him, thinkin' I spoze it might strain his arm to hit at vacancy. But
at last I seemed to have to speak up to Miss Meechim and say:

"How strange it is that some folks think the less they believe the
bigger it makes 'em, but good land! it don't take much intellect to
believe in nothin', it don't strain the mind any if it is ever so
weak."

I guess he hearn me, for he kinder changed his talk and went to
patronizin' the seenery. Well, it wuz beautiful a good deal of the
way, though at the last of our journey it broke out rainy all of a
sudden right whilst Josiah wuz all engaged in admirin' a particular
view, and it grew cold and disagreeable. And he bein' tired out,
worried a sight about the rain and the suddenness on't and how it
stopped his sight-seein' and brung on his rumatiz, and he complained
of his corns and his tight boots, and said that I had ort to seen that
he wuz dressed thicker, and fretted and acted. And I sez:

"You've got to take things as they come, Josiah. I couldn't send
anybody out this mornin' to bring in a pail of weather to see if it
wuz goin' to rain. You've got to take it as it comes, and when it
comes, and make the best on't."

But he still acted restless and oneasy, and most cried, he felt so
bad. And I went on and dilated on the merits of calmness and serenity
and how beautiful traits they wuz and how much to be desired.

And he snapped me up enough to take my head off, and said that he
"couldn't always be calm and wuzn't goin' to try to be."

"No," sez I reasonable, "you've got to be megum in that, or in eatin'
bread and milk; of course, you could kill yourself on that, though it
seems innocent and harmless; you can carry everything too fur."

And seein' that his liniment still bore the marks of restless
oneasiness and onhappiness, I eppisoded a little on his side of the
question, for what will not a woman do to ease a pardner's mind and
comfort him?

"Yes, Josiah, Cousin Joel Smith's life used to be so serene and so
deadly calm on all occasions that she used to mad Uncle Joel, who wuz
of a lively and active temperament, like the most of the Smiths.

"I asked Joel once on a visit there, when she had been so collected
together and monotonous in aspect, and talked with such oneven and
sweetness of tone that I got dead tired on't myself, and felt that I
had been lookin' on a sunbak