Samantha Among the Brethren | Page 6

would shake the permanency of the sacred home relations to its downfall. It would hasten anarchy, and he thought sizm." Why, Josiah Allen handled that paper as if it wuz pure gold. I know he asked me anxiously as he handed it to me to read, "if my hands wuz perfectly clean," and we had some words about it.
And till he could pass it on to Deacon Sypher to read he kep it in the Bible. He put it right over in Galatians, for I looked to see--Second Galatians.
And he wrapped it up in a soft handkerchief when he carried it over to Deacon Sypherses. And Deacon Sypher treasured it like a pearl of great price (so I spoze) till he could pass it on to Deacon Henzy.
And Deacon Henzy was to carry it with care to a old male Deacon in Zoar, bed rid.
Wall, as I say, that is the very first I had read about their bein' any idee promulgated of wimmens settin' up on the Conference.
And I, in spite of Josiah Allen's excitement, wuz in favor on't from the very first.
Yes, I wuz awfully in favor of it, and all I went through durin' the next and ensuin' weeks didn't put the idee out of my head. No, far from it. It seemed as if the severer my sufferin's wuz, the much more this idee flourished in my soul. Just as a heavy plow will meller up the soil so white lilies can take root, or any other kind of sweet posies.
And oh! my heart! wuz not my sufferin's with Lodema Trumble, a hard plow and a harrowin' one, and one that turned up deep furrows?
But of this, more anon and bimeby.

CHAPTER II.
Wall, it wuz on the very next day--on a Thursday as I remember well, for I wuz a-thinkin' why didn't Lodema's letter come the next day--Fridays bein' considered onlucky--and it being a day for punishments, hangin's, and so forth.
But it didn't, it came on a Thursday. And my companion had been to Jonesville and brung me back two letters; he brung 'em in, leavin' the old mair standin' at the gate, and handed me the letters, ten pounds of granulated sugar, a pound of tea, and the request I should have supper on the table by the time that he got back from Deacon Henzy's.
(On that old buzz-saw business agin, so I spozed, but wouldn't ask.)
Wall, I told him supper wuz begun any way, and he had better hurry back. But he wuz belated by reason of Deacon Henzy's bein' away, so I set there for some time alone.
Wall, I wuz goin' to have some scolloped oysters for supper, so the first thing I did wuz to put 'em into the oven--they wuz all ready, I had scolloped 'em before Josiah come, and got 'em all ready for the oven--and then I set down and read my letters.
Wall, the first one I opened wuz from Lodema Trumble, Josiah's cousin on his own side. And her letter brought the sad and harrowin' intelligence that she was a-comin' to make us a good long visit. The letter had been delayed. She was a-comin' that very night, or the next day. Wall, I sithed deep. I love company dearly, but--oh my soul, is there not a difference, a difference in visitors?
Wall, suffice it to say, I sithed deep, and opened the other letter, thinkin' it would kind o' take my mind off.
And for all the world! I couldn't hardly believe my eyes. But it wuz! It wuz from Serena Fogg. It wuz from the Authoress of "Wedlock's Peaceful Repose."
I hadn't heard a word from her for upwards of four years. And the letter brung me startlin' intelligence.
It opened with the unexpected information that she wuz married. She had been married three years and a half to a butcher out to the Ohio.
And I declare my first thought wuz as I read it, "Wall, she has wrote dretful flowery on wedlock, and its perfect, onbroken calm, and peaceful repose, and now she has had a realizin' sense of what it really is."
But when I read a little further, I see what the letter wuz writ for. I see why, at this late day, she had started up and writ me a letter. I see it wuz writ on duty.
She said she had found out that I wuz in the right on't and she wuzn't. She said that when in the past she had disputed me right up and down, and insisted that wedlock wuz a state of perfect serenity, never broken in upon by any cares or vexations whatsomever, she wuz in the wrong on't.
She said she had insisted that when anybody had moored their barks into that haven of wedded life, that they wuz forever safe from any