And sez he to her one day, about the third week, when she was a-goin' on about how good and fatherly he looked, and how much he seemed like a parent to her, and always had, sez he: "I wonder if I seemed like a father to you when we wuz a-kickin' at each other in the same cradle?" Sez he: "We both used to nuss out of the same bottle, any way, for I have heard my mother say so lots of times. There wuzn't ten days' difference in our ages. You wuz ten days the oldest as I have always made out." She screamed right out, "Why, Josiah Allen, where is your conscience to talk in that way--and your heart?" "In here, where everybody's is," sez Josiah, strikin' himself with his right hand--he meant to strike against his left breast, but struck too low, kinder on his stomach. And sez I, "That is what I have always thought, Josiah Allen. I have always had better luck reachin' your conscience through your stomach than in any other way. And now," sez I coldly, "do you go out and bring in a pail of water." I used to get beat out and sick of their scufflin's and disagreein's, and broke 'em up whenever I could. But oh! oh! how she did quarrel with Josiah Allen and that buzz saw scheme of his'n. How light she made of that enterprise, how she demeaned the buzz, and run the saws--till I felt that bad as I hated the enterprise myself, I felt that a variety of loud buzz saws would be a welcome relief from her tongue--from their two tongues; for as fur down as she would run them buzz saws, jest so fur would Josiah Allen praise 'em up. [Illustration: LODEMA AND JOSIAH IN YOUTH.] She never agreed with Josiah Allen but in jest one thing while she was under his ruff. I happened to mention one day how extremely anxious I wuz to have females set on the Conference; and then, wantin' to dispute me, and also bein' set on that side, she run down the project, and called it all to nort--and when too late she see that she had got over on Josiah Allen's side of the fence. But it had one good effect. When that man see she wuz there, he waded off, way out of sight of the project, and wouldn't mention it--it madded him so to be on the same side of the fence she wuz--so that it seemed to happen all for the best. Why, I took her as a dispensation from the first, and drawed all sorts of morels from her, and sights of 'em--sights. But oh, it wuz tuff on me, fearful tuff. And when she calculated and laid out to make out her visit and go, wuz more than we could tell. CHAPTER VIII. For two weeks had passed away like a nite mair of the nite--and three weeks, and four weeks--and she didn't seem to be no nigher goin' than she did when she came. And I would not make a move towards gettin' rid of her, not if I had dropped down in my tracts, because she wuz one of the relatives on his side. But I wuz completely fagged out; it did seem, as I told Tirzah Ann one day in confidence, "that I never knew the meanin' of the word 'fag' before."