Sez I, "I believe she's a Christian, Josiah."

And so I do. But sez I, "Folks must be megum even in goodness, Josiah Allen, and in order to set down and hold a half orphan in your arms, you mustn't overset yourself and come down on the floor on top of a hull orphan or a nursin' child.

"You mustn't tromple so fast on your way to the gole as to walk over and upset two or three lame ones and paryletics."

Sez I, "Do you remember my eppisode with Sister Blanker, Josiah?"

He did not frame a reply to me, but sot off to look at sunthin' or ruther, sayin' that he would come back in a few minutes.

And as I sot there alone Memory went on and onrolled her panorama in front of my eyeb.a.l.l.s, about my singular eppisode with Drusilla Blanker.

Sister Blanker is a good woman and a Christian, but she never so much as sot her foot on the fair plains of megumness, whose balmy, even climate has afforded me so much comfort all my life.

No; she is a woman who stalks on towards goles and don't mind who or what she upsets on her way.

She is a woman who a-chasin' sinners slams the door in the faces of saints.

And what I mean by this is that she is in such a hurry to git inside the door of Duty (a real heavy door sometimes, heavy as iron), she don't see whether or not it is a-goin' to slam back and hit somebody in the forward.

A remarkable instance of this memory onrolled on her panorama--a eppisode that took place in our own Jonesville meetin'-house.

The session room where we go to session sometimes and to transact other business has got a heavy swing door. And everybody who goes through it always calculates to hold it back if there is anybody comin' behind 'em, for that door has been known to knock a man down when it come onto him onexpected and onbeknown to him.

Wall, Sister Blanker wuz a-goin' on ahead of me one night; it wuz a charitable meetin' that we wuz a-goin' to--to quilt a bedquilt for a heathen--and she knew I wuz jest behind her--right on her tracts, as you may say, for we had sot out together from the preachin'-room, and we had been a-talkin' all the way there on the different merits of otter color or butnut for linin' for the quilt, and as to whether herrin'-bone looked so good as a quiltin' st.i.tch as plain rib.

She favored rib and otter; I kinder leaned toward herrin'-bone and butnut.

We had had a agreeable talk all the way, though I couldn't help seein'

she wuz too hard on butnut, and slightin' in her remarks on herrin'-bone.

Anyway, she knew I wuz with her in the body; but as she ketched sight of the door that wuz a-goin' to let her in where she could begin to do good, her mind jest soared right up, and she forgot everything and everybody, and she let that door slam right back and hit me on my right arm, and laid me up for over five weeks.

And I fell right back on Edna Garvin, and she is lame, and it knocked her over backwards onto Sally Ann Bobbetses little girl, and she fell flat down, and Miss Gowdey on top of her, and Miss Gowdey, bein'

a-walkin' along lost in thought about the bedquilt, and thinkin' how much battin' we should need in it, and not lookin' for a obstacle in her path, slipped right up and fell forwards. Wall, a-tryin' to save little Annie Gowdey from bein' squashed right down, Miss Gowdey throwed herself sideways and strained her back. She weighs two hundred, and is loose-jinted.

And she hain't got over it to this day. She insists on't that she loosened her spine in the affair.

And I d'no but she did!

But the child wuz gin up to die. So for weeks and weeks the Bobbetses and all of Sally Ann's relations (she wuz a Henzy and wide connected in the Methodist meetin'-house) had to give up all their time a-hangin'

over that sick-bed.

And the Garvins wuz mad as hens, and they bein' connected with most everybody in the Dorcuss Society--and it wuzn't over than above large--why, take it with my bein' laid up and the children havin' to be home so much, Sister Blanker in that one slam jest about cleaned out the hull Methodist meetin'-house.

The quilt wuzn't touched after that night, and the heathen lay cold all winter, for all I know.

I had all I could do to take care of my own arm, catnip and lobela alternately and a-follerin' after each other I pursued for weeks and weeks, and the pain wuz fearful.

Sister Blanker wuz about the only one who come out hull, and she had plenty of time to set down and mourn over a lack of opportunities to do good, and to talk a sight about the lukewarmness of members of the meetin'-house in good works. And there they wuz to home a-sufferin', and it wuz her own self who had brung it all on.

You see, as I have said more formally, in our efforts to march forwards to do good it is highly neccessary to see that we hain't a-tromplin' on anybody; and in order to help sinners in Africa it hain't neccessary to knock down Christians in New Jersey and Rhode Island, or to stomp onto professors in Maine.

Howsumever, that is some folkses ways.

Wall, I'd a been a-lookin' at the panorama with one half of my mind and admirin' the beauty round me with the other half.

But at this minute--and it wuz lucky my eppisode had come to an end, for if there is anything I hate it is to be broke up in eppisodin'--my Josiah returned.

In front of Horticultural Hall is a flower terrace for out-door exhibits of loveliness, and then in front of that is the beautiful, cool water, and down in the centre of that, below the terrace, and its beauty, and vases, is a boat-landin'. The water did look dretful good to me after lookin' at so many gorgeous colors--more than any rainbow ever boasted of, enough sight--it did seem good to me to look down into them cool waters; and I sez to my pardner--

"The water does look dretful good and sort o' satisfyin', don't it, Josiah?"

A bystander a-standin' by sez, "I guess if you would go into the south pavilion here and look at the display of wine you wouldn't talk about lookin' at water; why," sez he, "to say nothin' of the display of our own country, the exhibit of wine from France, Italy, Spain, and Germany is enough to set a man half crazy to look at."

I looked at him coldly--his nose wuz as red as fire--and I sez, "I hain't got no call to look at wine.

[Ill.u.s.tration: His nose wuz as red as fire.]

"I wouldn't give a cent a barrel for the best there is there, if I had got to consoom it myself.

"Though," sez I, reasonably, "I wouldn't object to havin' a pint bottle on't to keep in the house in case of sickness, or to make jell, or sunthin'.

"But I will not go and encourage the makin' of such quant.i.ties as there is there, I will not encourage 'em in makin' that show."

He looked mad, and sez he, "I guess they won't stop their show because you won't go and see it."

"Probable not," sez I; but sez I, real eloquent, "I will hold up my banner afoot or on horseback."

And then I sez to my husband, with quite a good deal of dignity--

"Less proceed to the Wooded Island, Josiah Allen."

But alas! for Josiah's hope of seein' sunthin' plain and simple. When we got there, that seemed to be the very central garden of the earth for flowers, and beauty, and bloom, and there it wuz that we see the most gorgeous rainbow--all made of pansies--glow and dazzlement.

The island contains seventeen acres, and it stands on such a rise of ground, that every buildin' on the Fair ground can be seen plain.

In the centre of the south end wuz the rose garden, where the choicest and most beautiful roses from all over the world bloom in their glowin'

richness.

When I thought how much store I had sot by one little monthly rose a-growin' in a old earthen teapot of Mother Allen's--and when it wuz all blowed out I had reason to be proud on't--

But jest think of seein' fifty thousand of the choicest roses in the world, all a-blowin' out at one time.

Why, I had a immense number of emotions.

I thought of the ancient rose gardens we read of, and Solomon's Songs, and most everything.

It wuz surrounded on all four sides with a wire trellis, with archways openin' on four sides, and all over these pretty trellises climbin'