Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition | Page 6

so much of the Widder Albert. You could
enact it in the creek where the water is shaller. You've got a long
scrubbin' brush, I always thought you looked some like Britanny, and
you do scrub and scour so beautiful, Samantha."
"No, Josiah, you'll never git me into that scrape, not but what Britanny
may need help with her scrubbin' brush. But I shan't catch my death
cold makin' a fool of myself by tacklin' that job."
"Oh, you could wear my rubber boots. But I shall not urge the matter, I
only thought we two countries are such clost friends and I wanted you
to have the foremost character, but I can probable git someone else to
enact it. But the strain is fearful on me, Samantha, to have everything
go on as it should."
His looks wuz strange. I could see that he wuz all nerved up, and his
mind (what he had) wuz all wrought up to its highest tension; I knowed
what happened when the tension to my sewin' machine wuz drawed too
tight--it broke. And my machine wuz strong in comparison to some
other things I won't mention out of respect to my pardner. I felt that I
must be cautious and tread carefully if I would influence him for his
good, so I brought forth the argument that seldom failed with him, and
sez I:
"If I hadn't no other reason for jinin' in these doin's, cookin' has got to
be done and how can a statute or a Historical Tabloo bile potatoes and
brile steak and make yeast emptin's bread perked up on a pedestal or
posin' in the creek, and you know, Josiah, that no matter how fur
ambition or vain glory may lead a man, his appetite has got to be
squenched, and vittles has got to be cooked else how can he squench
it."

And to this old trustworthy weepon I held in all his different plans to
inviggle me into his preposterous idees and found it answered better
than reason or ridicule. But even this failed to break up his crazy plan.
His hull mind (what he had) wuz sot on it.

CHAPTER II.
I felt dretful and how I wuz goin' to break it up and git his mind off I
couldn't tell; I talked it over with the children. They wuz goin' to be
mortified to death by the idee if carried out and they told me in
confidence and the woodhouse kitchen, "It must be stopped!"
And I sez, "How is it goin' to be stopped? I've handled every weepon I
know how to lay holt on. I've pompied him, cooked the very best of
vittles, argued with him, eppisoded, but all to no use, he's as sot as a
hen turkey on a brick bat, and I've got to the end of my chain."
Sez Tirzah Ann, "Have you tried readin' historical novels to him?"
"No," sez I, "I don't dast to be too hash with him, your pa's health hain't
what it wuz, I dassent take too hash measures."
Sez she, "Have you tried readin' poetry?"
"Yes," sez I, "I have read Pollock's Course of Time most through to
him, and the biggest heft of 'Paradise Lost,' and I read the last named
with deep feelin', I can tell you."
"Didn't it do any good?"
"Not a mite," sez I. "He would choke me off in the soarinest passages
to boast about some crazy side-show at his Exposition."
Tirzah Ann sithed and sez, "I don't know what can be done."
Thomas J. is more practical and sez, "Can't you git his mind on some
work? Hain't there sunthin' that ort to be done round the farm? Or in the

house?"
"Id'no," sez I. "He can't plow or reap in February or pick gooseberries
or wash sheep. But I know what ort to be done in the house, I tried my
best to git him at it in the fall, I do want a furnace and hot water pipes
put in to heat the house. We most freeze these cold days, and it is too
much for your pa when Ury is away to tend to the fires."
"That's just the thing!" sez Thomas J., "get him interested in that and he
will forgit all about the Allen Exposition by the time it is done."
But I sez in a discouraged way, "If I couldn't git him at it in the fall
Id'no how I'm goin' to now."
"But it is worth tryin'," sez Thomas J., "for his scheme must be broke
up, and if you git your furnace in now it will be all ready for another
fall."
"Well," sez I, "I can try." And so I begun that very night on a new tact,