e had watched in sickness.

But, as bad and wore out as Josiah felt bodily, he was all animated
in his mind about what a good time he was a goin' to have. He acted
foolish, and I told him so. I wanted to wear my brown and black
gingham, and a shaker; but Josiah insisted that I should wear a new
lawn dress that he had brought me home as a present, and I had got
just made up. So, jest to please him, I put it on, and my best bonnet.
And that man, all I could do and say, would wear a pair of pantaloons
I had been a makin' for Thomas Jefferson. They was gettin' up a
military company in Thomas J.'s school, and these pantaloons was white
with a blue stripe down the sides, a kind of uniform. Josiah took a
awful fancy to 'em; and, says he,

"I will wear 'em, Samantha; they look so dressy."

Says I, "They hain't hardly done. I was goin' to stitch that blue
stripe on the left leg on again. They haint finished as they ought to
be, and I would not wear 'em. It looks vain in you."

Says he, "I will wear 'em, Samantha. I will be dressed up for once."

I didn't contend with him. Thinks I, we are makin' fools of ourselves
by goin' at all, and if he wants to make a little bigger fool of
himself, I won't stand in his light. And then I had got some machine
oil onto 'em, so I felt that I had got to wash 'em any way, before
Thomas J. took 'em to school. So he put 'em on.

I had good vittles, and a sight of 'em. The basket wouldn't hold 'em
all. So Josiah had to put a bottle of red rhaspberry jell into the
pocket of his dress coat, and lots of other little things, such as
spoons, and knives, and forks, in his pantaloons and breast pockets.
He looked like Captain Kidd, armed up to the teeth, and I told him so.
But, good land, he would have carried a knife in his mouth if I had
asked him, he felt so neat about goin', and boasted so, on what a
splendid exertion it was going to be.

We got to the lake about eight o'clock, being about the first ones
there; but they kep' a comin', and before 10 o'clock we all got
there. There was about 20 old fools of us, when we got all collected
together. And about 10 o'clock we sot sail for the island. Josiah
havin' felt so animated and tickled about the exertion, was worked up
awfully when, just after we had got well out onto the lake, the wind
took his hat off and blew it away. He had made up his mind to look so
pretty that day, and be so dressed up, that it worked him up awfully.
And then the sun beat