“Good evenin’,” says I, but she seemed to be a little deaf, and didn’t answer, and I see, as we stepped in, through a door partly open, a room full of women. “Good many have got here,” says I a little louder. “Yes, a very good doctor,” says she. “What in the world!”--I begun to say in wild amaze. “No, it is a boy.” I turned right round, and laid holt of Josiah; says I, “Start this minute, Josiah Allen, for the door.” I laid holt of him, and got him to the door, and we never spoke another word till we was in the sleigh, and turned round towards home; then says I, “Mebby you’ll hear to _me_, another time, Josiah. “I wish you wouldn’t be so agravatin’,” says he. Jest then we met the first load, where Tirzah Ann and Thomas Jefferson was, and we told ’em to “turn round, for they couldn’t have us, they had other company.” So they turned round. We had got most back to Jonesville, when we met the other load; they had tipped over in the snow, and as we drove out most to the fence to get by ’em, Josiah told ’em the same we had the other load. Says Betsey Bobbet, risin’ up out of the snow with a buffalo skin on her back, which made her look wild, “Did they say we _must not_ come?” “No, they didn’t say jest that,” says Josiah. “But they don’t want you.” “Wall then, my deah boys and girls,” says she, scramblin’ into the sleigh. “Let us proceed onwards, if they did not say we _should not_ come.” Her load went on, for her brother, Shakespeare Bobbet, was the driver. How they got along I haint never enquired, and they don’t seem over free to talk about it. But they kep’ on havin’ ’em, most every night. Betsey Bobbet as I said was the leader, and she led ’em once into a house where they had the small pox, and once where they was makin’ preparations for a funeral. Somehow Tirzah and Thomas Jefferson seemed to be sick of ’em, and as for Josiah, though he didn’t say much, I knew he felt the more. This coinsidense took place on Tuesday night, and the next week a Monday I had had a awful day’s work a washin’, and we had been up all night the night before with Josiah, who had the new ralegy in his back. We hadn’t one of us slept a wink the night before, and Thomas Jefferson and Tirzah Ann had gone to bed early. It had been a lowery day, and I couldn’t hang out my calico clothes, and so many of ’em was hung round the kitchen on lines and clothes bars, and nails, that Josiah and I looked as if we was a settin’ in a wet calico tent. And what made it look still more melancholy and sad, I found when I went to light the lamp, that the kerosene was all gone, and bein’ out of candles, I made for the first time what they call a “slut,” which is a button tied up in a rag, and put in a saucer of lard; you set fire to the rag, and it makes a light that is better than no light at all, jest as a slut is better than no woman at all; I suppose in that way it derived its name. But it haint a dazzlin’ light, nothin’ like so gay and festive as gas.