Wal, I went back tu the office and sot down, kinder loth tu go so far from hum as Washington City, and yet anxious to oblige the Editor of the Express; but all I could du, thoughts of the humsted kept a crowding intu my mind till I couldn't stand it no longer, but kivered up my face with both of my hands and took tu crying like a sick baby. Jest then--while I was a feeling dreadfully--somebody opened the door of my office, and in walked Captain Doolittle, with his hand out, and a grinning from ear tu ear as if he was eenajest tickled tu death to see me agin. I jumped right up and shook hands with him, while I turned my face away and wiped my eyes with the cuff of my coat, for I felt ashamed to let him ketch me a crying. But there is no cheating that old coot, he's wide awake as a night hawk. "Jonathan," sez he, "What's the matter--you look as thin as a shad in summer--consarn me if I don't believe you have been boo-hooing." "You've lost your guess this time," sez I, a trying to put on a stiff upper lip. The old feller, he looked in my face, and then agin on the cuff of my coat--then he folded his arms and stepped back and eyed me all over, and sez he at last, "Jonathan, one thing is sartin, either you've been a crying, or you've told a whopper to your old friend, or--" "Or what?" sez I, wiping the cuff of my coat on my trousers' leg--"or what?" "Or your deginerated--deginerated!" sez he, "deginerated from the Weathersfield stock!" "Wal, I don't seem to understand how you'll make that out," sez I. "Jonathan," sez he, as arnest as could be, "there was tears in your eyes jest as I come in, and you was ashamed on 'em. Now, sich tears as a smart, honest young man may feel in his eyes naturally, are nothing to be ashamed on; when he gets to thinking of hum or old friends, or perhaps them that are dead and gone,--the drops that come up unawares to moisten his eyes are wholesome to his natur. I've seen the time, Jonathan, when a minister's prayer didn't seem half so easing to the heart. An honest chap might as well feel streaked about saying the Lord's Prayer; for the tears that thinking of them that we love sets a going, have eenamost as much religion in 'em as singing and praying and going to meeting altogether. Prayer, Jonathan, prayer falls upon the natur like the warm sun on a patch of young onions--and tears, ginuine tears that come from tender thoughts, Jonathan, darn me if they ain't the rain that keeps the young shoots green. You wouldn't have been scared about my seeing sich tears, Jonathan, and I know you've got tu much grit for any other--you aint the chap to snuffle and cry because things go crooked with you--I'm sartin of that." "I reckon you may be," sez I.