Well, we didn't stay long in Prussia, for the cords that wuz drawin' us home tightened from day to day, the children and Philury drawin' them cords closter ever and anon with long and loving letters, and we hastened on to Hamburg. It wuz a lovely day when we sot out on our journey and we wuz all feelin' well, specially Josiah and I, for every revolution of the wheels brought us nigher to our beloved Jonesville and every toot of the engine seemed to shout afresh the joyful tidin's to us that we had sot our faces towards the bright hearth stun of home. We had no eventful experiences on the journey to relate, unless it wuz a interview we had with a young man, a Freshman I believe he wuz from some college, travellin' with his tutor, and he seemed real fresh, he seemed to have plenty of money but a scarcity of brains, or mebby he had enough brains, but they seemed to be in a sort of a soft state, and I guess they'll harden up some when he gits older if he has good luck with them. I wuz most a good mind to advise him to set in the sun bareheaded all he could, thinkin' mebby it might harden 'em some, but didn't know how it would be took. He thought he knew a sight, but the shadder he really cast on worldly affairs wuz exceedingly small, he could step over it the hull time, but he felt that it reached the horizon. Robert talked quite a good deal with him, to pass away the time I spoze, but there wuz a queer smile in his eyes and kinder patient and long sufferin' as if to say: "You'll know more in the future than you do now and I'll bear with you." The young man thought he wuz patronizin' Robert, I knew from his liniment. He wuz a infidel, and seemed to think it made him very smart. You know some folks do think it is real genteel to doubt and a mark of a deep thinker. I hearn him go on for quite a spell, for Robert wouldn't argy with him, thinkin' I spoze it might strain his arm to hit at vacancy. But at last I seemed to have to speak up to Miss Meechim and say: "How strange it is that some folks think the less they believe the bigger it makes 'em, but good land! it don't take much intellect to believe in nothin', it don't strain the mind any if it is ever so weak." I guess he hearn me, for he kinder changed his talk and went to patronizin' the seenery. Well, it wuz beautiful a good deal of the way, though at the last of our journey it broke out rainy all of a sudden right whilst Josiah wuz all engaged in admirin' a particular view, and it grew cold and disagreeable. And he bein' tired out, worried a sight about the rain and the suddenness on't and how it stopped his sight-seein' and brung on his rumatiz, and he complained of his corns and his tight boots, and said that I had ort to seen that he wuz dressed thicker, and fretted and acted. And I sez: