And if we would get into a nap, Josiah would think it was mornin' and he would start up and go out to look at the clock. He seemed so afraid we would be belated and not get to that exertion in time. And there we was on our feet 'most all night. I lost myself once, for I dreampt that Josiah was a-drowndin', and Deacon Dobbins was on the shore a-prayin' for him. It started me so that I jist ketched hold of Josiah and hollered. It skairt him awfully, and says he, "What does ail you, Samantha? I hain't been asleep before to-night, and now you have rousted me up for good. I wonder what time it is!" And then he got out of bed again and went and looked at the clock. It was half-past one, and he said he "didn't believe we had better go to sleep again, for fear we would be too late for the exertion, and he wouldn't miss that for nothin'." "Exertion!" says I, in a awful cold tone. "I should think we had had exertion enough for one spell." But as bad and wore out as Josiah felt bodily, he was all animated in his mind about what a good time he was a-goin' to have. He acted foolish, and I told him so. I wanted to wear my brown-and-black gingham, and a shaker, but Josiah insisted that I should wear a new lawn dress that he had brought me home as a present, and I had jest got made up. So jest to please him, I put it on, and my best bonnet. And that man, all I could do and say, would put on a pair of pantaloons I had been a-makin' for Thomas Jefferson. They was gettin' up a milatary company to Jonesville, and these pantaloons was blue, with a red stripe down the sides--a kind of uniform. Josiah took a awful fancy to 'em, and says he: "I will wear 'em, Samantha; they look so dressy." Says I: "They hain't hardly done. I was goin' to stitch that red stripe on the left leg on again. They ain't finished as they ort to be, and I would not wear 'em. It looks vain in you." Says he: "I will wear 'em, Samantha. I will be dressed up for once." I didn't contend with him. Thinks I: we are makin' fools of ourselves by goin' at all, and if he wants to make a little bigger fool of himself by wearin' them blue pantaloons, I won't stand in his light. And then I had got some machine oil onto 'em, so I felt that I had got to wash 'em, anyway, before Thomas J. took 'em to wear. So he put 'em on. I had good vittles, and a sight of 'em. The basket wouldn't hold 'em all, so Josiah had to put a bottle of red rossberry jell into the pocket of his dress-coat, and lots of other little things, such as spoons and knives and forks, in his pantaloons and breast pockets. He looked like Captain Kidd armed up to the teeth, and I told him so. But good land! he would have carried a knife in his mouth if I had asked him to, he felt so neat about goin', and boasted so on what a splendid exertion it was goin' to be. We got to the lake about eight o'clock, for the old mare went slow. We was about the first ones there, but they kep' a-comin', and before ten o'clock we all got there.