made me enough trouble too, yes indeed! for he would come and pour out his praises of that frisky, frivolous spot into Josiah’s too willin’ ears, till he got him as wild as he wuz about it.

Why, evenin’s after he’d been there recountin’ its attractions till bed-time, Josiah would be so wrought up he’d ride night mairs most all night. He’d spring up in bed cryin’ out, “All aboard for Coney Island!” or, “There is the Immoral Railway! See the divin’ girls, and the Awful Tower. Get a hot dog; look at the alligators, etc., etc.” I gin him catnip to soothe his nerve, but that didn’t git the pizen out of his system; no, acres of catnip couldn’t.

Oh, how dead sick I’d git of their talk, Coney Island! Luna Park! Well named, I’d say to myself, it is enough to make anybody luny to hear so much about it. Steeple Chase! chasin’ steeples, folly and madness. Dreamland! night mairs, most probable. Why, from Serenus’ talk that I hearn onwillingly about toboggan slides, merry-go-rounds, swings, immoral railways, skatin’ rinks, diving girls, loops de loops, and bumps de bumps, trips to the moon and trashy shows of all kinds I got the idee there 5 wuzn’t nothin’ there God had made, only the Ocean and the little incubator babies, though them two shows wuzn’t what you might call similar and the same size. Why, I myself, with my powerful mind, would git so cumfuddled hearin’ his wild and glarin’ descriptions, that my brain would seem to turn over under my foretop, and I didn’t wonder at Josiah’s bein’ led away by it, much as I lamented it, for he soon declared that go there he would.

In vain I reminded him that he wuz a deacon and a grand-father. He said he didn’t care how many deacons he wuz, or how many grand-fathers; he wuz goin’ to see that beautiful and entrancin’ place with his own eyes. I tried to quell him down, but couldn’t quell him worth a cent, with Serenus firin’ him up on the other side.

One Sunday, Elder Minkley preached an eloquent sermon describing the glories of the New Jerusalem, and Josiah said goin’ home that from Serenus’ tell, the elder had gin a crackin’ good description of Coney Island.

I groaned aloud. And he sez, “You may groan and sithe all you’re a minter; I shall see that magnificent place before I die.”

“Well,” sez I coldly, “I don’t want to talk 6 about it Sunday. If you’ve got to talk about shows and Pleasure Huntin’, do it week days, and don’t pollute this sacred day with it.”

“Pollute nothing!” sez he, and we didn’t speak for over two milds. But another weariness wuz ahead on me, and another strain on my overworked ear pans. Jest about this time, Whitfield Minkley, our Tirzah Ann’s husband, got jest as much carried away and enthused over some other Islands, though he had more to show for his het up state of mind. One thousand and seventy wuz the number of islands he fell voylently in love with and tried to make us the same. He had been to Canada on bizness and went through them islands, and wuz overcome by their extreme beauty. I’d heard that Whitfield’s islands wuz as beautiful as anything this side of the Heavenly gardens. Still, with Serenus on one side praisin’ up Coney, and Whitfield on the other praisin’ up his islands, I got so dead tired of ’em that I wished there wuzn’t a single island on the hull face of the earth. Yes, extreme weariness had got me so low down as that.

One evenin’, Serenus had been there and talked three hours stiddy, describin’ the charms and attractions of his island. The rush and roar 7 of the mechanical amusements, so wonderful they made scientific men wonder. The educated animals that showed how fur animals could be made to reason and understand. The constant hustle and bustle of the immense crowds, ever comin’, ever goin’, ever movin’, never stoppin’. He stood up some of the time describin’ the wonders and splendors there, and tramped up and down our kitchen floor, swingin’ his arms and actin’, till, when he left at late bed-time, Josiah wuz pale with longin’, and when I got up to lock the door and let out the cat, my head seemed to go round and round, and I had to hang onto the door nob to stiddy myself.

And the very next forenoon Whitfield and Tirzah Ann and little Delight come to spend the day. Her name is Anna Tirzah, but I called her Heart’s Delight, she wuz so sweet and pretty, and we’ve shortened it into Delight. I wuz glad to see ’em and done well by ’em in cookin’. I had a excelent dinner started—roast fowl and vegetables and orange puddin’, etc.—but Whitfield, jest as soon as he sot down, begun to descant on the beauty of his islands. I groaned and sithed out in the buttery. “Islands agin! I had one island last night till bed-time, and now I’ve got one thousand and seventy ahead on me.”

“Serenus Gowdey tramped up and down our kitchen floor swingin’ his arms and describin’ the wonders of Coney Island.” (See page 7)

He begun jest as I put my potatoes on to bile, I wuz goin’ to smash ’em with plenty of cream and butter; I hearn him till dinner wuz on the table, and I wuz turnin’ out the rich, fragrant coffee and addin’ the cream to it, and his praise on ’em wuz still flowin’ in a stiddy stream, and then I asked him, in one of his short pauses for breath, how Grout Nickelson’s rumatiz wuz.

He answered polite but brief, and resoomed the subject nearest and dearest. I then, with dizzy foretop and achin’ ear pans, tried to turn his mind onto politics and religion, no avail. I tried cotton cloth, carbide, lamb’s wool blankets, Panama Canal, literatoor, X rays, hens’ eggs, Standard Oil, the school mom, reciprocity, and the tariff; not a mite of change, all his idees swoshin’ up against them islands, and tryin’ to float off our minds there with hisen. I thought of what I’d hearn Thomas J. read about Tennyson’s character, who “didn’t want to die a listener,” and I sez in a firm voice, “I’ve had a letter from Cousin Faithful Smith. She’s comin’ here next spring to make a visit.”

Whitfield said he should love to see Cousin 10 Faith, but whilst she wuz here, we all ort to go to the Thousand Islands.

Sez Josiah firmly, “We ort to take her to Coney Island,” and he went on rehearsin’ Serenuses praises, and the education and the bliss one could git there. He rid his hobby nobly, but Whitfield, bein’ young and spry, could ride his hobby faster and furder, till finally Josiah got discouraged, and sot still a spell, and then scratched his head, and went out to the barn. And Whitfield seated himself with ease on his hobby, which pranced about us till, well as I love the children, I felt relieved to see ’em go, for my head felt as if the river wuz rushin’ through it. And after they left and we driv over to the post office, it seemed as if the democrat wuz a boat and the dusty road a broad, liquid stream, down which we wuz glidin’ and the neighin’ of the old mair (we had to leave her colt to home) wuz the snort of a steamer. My dreams that night wuz about the Saint Lawrence, kinder swoshy and floatin’ round.

Well, the cold winter passed away, as winters will, if you have patience to wait (or if you don’t either, to be exact and truthful). The shiverin’ earth begun to git a little warmer, 11 kinder shook herself and partly throwed off the white fur