Transcriber's Note: Archaic and variable spelling, as well as inconsistency in hyphenation, has been preserved as printed in the original book. [Illustration: "Oh, Josiah," sez I, "what a sight!"--_Frontispiece_. Page 125.] AROUND THE WORLD WITH JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE BY MARIETTA HOLLEY Author of "Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition," "My Opinion and Betsey Bobbets'," "Samantha at Saratoga," "Samantha at the World's Fair," Etc. ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. M. PETTIT G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Copyright, 1899, 1900 and 1905, by Marietta Holley. Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England. (Issued September, 1905.) Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife. J. J. Little & Ives Co. New York AROUND THE WORLD WITH JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE CHAPTER I Our son, Thomas Jefferson, and his wife, Maggie, have been wadin' through a sea of trouble. He down with inflamatory rumatiz so a move or jar of any kind, a fly walkin' over the bedclothes, would most drive him crazy; and she with nervious prostration, brought on I spoze by nussin' her pardner and her youngest boy, Thomas Josiah (called Tommy), through the measles, that had left him that spindlin' and weak-lunged that the doctor said the only thing that could tone up his system and heal his lungs and save his life would be a long sea voyage. He had got to be got away from the cold fall blasts of Jonesville to once. Oh! how I felt when I heard that ultimatum and realized his danger, for Tommy wuz one of my favorites. Grandparents ort not to have favorites, but I spoze they will as long as the world turns on its old axletrys. He looks as Thomas J. did when he wuz his age and I married his pa and took the child to my heart, and got his image printed there so it won't never rub off through time or eternity. Tommy is like his pa and he hain't like him; he has his pa's old ways of truthfulness and honesty, and deep--why good land! there hain't no tellin' how deep that child is. He has got big gray-blue eyes, with long dark lashes that kinder veil his eyes when he's thinkin'; his hair is kinder dark, too, about the color his pa's wuz, and waves and crinkles some, and in the crinkles it seems as if there wuz some gold wove into the brown. He has got a sweet mouth, and one that knows how to stay shet too; he hain't much of a talker, only to himself; he'll set and play and talk to himself for hours and hours, and though he's affectionate, he's a independent child; if he wants to know anything the worst kind he will set and wonder about it (he calls it wonner). He will say to himself, "I wonner what that means." And sometimes he will talk to Carabi about it--that is a child of his imagination, a invisible playmate he has always had playin' with him, talkin' to him, and I spoze imaginin' that Carabi replies. I have asked him sometimes, "Who is Carabi, I hearn you talkin' to out in the yard? Where duz he come from! How duz he look?"