Wall, as I say (and I have episoded fearfully, fearfully), Submit took supper with me that night. And after Josiah had put out his horse (he had been to Jonesville for the evenin' mail, and stopped for us at the meetin' house on his way back), he took the _World_ out of his pocket, and perused it for some time, and from that learned the great news that wimmen wuz jest about to be held up agin, to see if her strength wuz sufficient to set on the Conference. And oh! how Josiah Allen went on about it to Submit and me, all the while we wuz a eatin' supper--and for more'n a hour afterwuds. CHAPTER XII. Submit wuz very skairt to heern him go on (she felt more nervous on account of an extra hard day's work), and I myself wuz beat out, but I wuzn't afraid at all of him, though he did go on elegant, and dretful empressive and even skairful. He stood up on the same old ground that men have always stood up on, the ground of man's great strength and capability, and wimmen's utter weakness, helplessness, and incapacity. Josiah enlarged almost wildly on the subject of how high, how inaccessibley lofty the Conference wuz, and the utter impossibility of a weak, helpless, fragaile bein' like a women ever gettin' up on it, much less settin' on it. And then, oh how vividly he depictered it, how he and every other male Methodist in the land loved wimmen too well, worshipped 'em too deeply to put such a wearin' job onto 'em. Oh how Josiah Allen soared up in eloquence. Submit shed tears, or, that is, I thought she did--I see her wipe her eyes any way. Some think that about the time the Samuel Danker anniversary comes round, she is more nervous and deprested. It wuz very near now, and take that with her hard work that day, it accounts some for her extra depression--though, without any doubt, it wuz Josiah's talk that started the tears. I couldn't bear to see Submit look so mournful and deprested, and so, though I wuz that tired myself that I could hardly hold my head up, yet I did take my bits in my teeth, as you may say, and asked him-- What the awful hard job wuz that he and other men wuz so anxus to ward offen wimmen. And he sez, "Why, a settin' on the Conference." And I sez, "I don't believe that is such a awful hard job to tackle." "Yes, indeed, it is," sez Josiah in his most skairful axent, "yes, it is." And he shook his head meenin'ly and impressively, and looked at me and Submit in as mysterius and strange a way, es I have ever been looked at in my life, and I have had dretful curius looks cast onto me, from first to last. And he sez in them deep impressive axents of hisen, "You jest try it once, and see--I have sot on it, and I know." Josiah wuz sent once as a delegate to the Methodist Conference, so I spozed he did know.