I wuz gittin' real eloquent and riz up, for nothin' pleases a man more than to teach his wimmen folks great truths and enlighten 'em about laws. But Samantha had to bring me down from the hite I wuz on, in the aggravatin' way females have. And as it turned out I wuz kinder sorry I had dwelt on that trait of females that particular time, for she said in the irritatin' way wimmen have of bringin' up facts at times when there hain't no use of bringin' 'em up and when it is inconvenient for 'em to be brung. Sez she, "I would talk about exaggeration in females, and men's love for exact truth, after what took place in this settin' room only last evenin'." I didn't reply to her for there are times when silent disapproval is better than argument. I knowed what she meant, and I knowed she wanted to spile my argument, in the ornary way females have, so, as I say, I treated them words with silent contemp and went out to the barn. But I spoze I may as well tell you how it wuz, for if I don't she may tell it and make it out worse than it wuz. Condelick Henzy come over here last night after supper to borry my neck-yoke and Dr. Meezik from Zoar, where he used to live, went to see Condelick on bizness, and his wife told him he wuz here so he stopped here on his way home (I mistrust Condelick owes him though he didn't dun him before us). They're both on 'em good natered easy-goin' men, and love to talk and tell stories. And I brung up a basin of good sick-no-furder apples, and they set and et apples and talked and talked. They both on 'em love to brag about what they've seen and hearn and naterally both on 'em want to tell the biggest story about it. Onfortinately Samantha wuz in the room to work on a new insane bed-quilt. And of course she has to find fault and cricketcise what they said and won't make allowances for high sperits. Sez Dr. Meezik, "When I wuz a young man my folks lived on a farm that run along one side on a creek. And one day I wuz down on the creek lot hoein' corn and a bear come down on the ice from the big woods, and I rushed right out on the ice and killed that bear with my hoe." Sez Condelick, "That's nothin' to what I did at about the same time. I lived on that same creek though furder south; it wuz dretful rich land. And I raised a cabbage there that wuz so big I hollered out the stem on't and made a boat of it, and used it to ferry me acrost that very stream of water." "And it wuz jest about that time," sez Dr. Meezik, "le'me see, it wuz on my birthday about nine minutes past four o'clock in the afternoon, or it may have been nine and a half minutes past, I always want to be perfectly exact in my statements, but we will let it go at nine minutes. "I wuz a great hunter in them days and fearless as a lion as you may know by my goin' out on the ice to meet that bear who had come to eat green corn, and killed him with my hoe handle.