Wall, I wuz a beginnin’ to look bad, and so wuz Josiah, although Josiah, though I am fur from approvin’ of his course, yet it is the truth that he seemed to find some relief in givin’ vent to his feelin’s out on one side, and blowin’ round and groanin’ out to the barn and in the woodhouse, more than I did, who took it calm, and considered it a dispensation from the first, and took it as such. Wall, if you’ll believe it, right on the top of these sufferin’s come a letter from a relation of Josiah’s, a widowed man by the name of Peter Tweedle. He wuz a distant relation of Josiah Allen—lived about two hundred miles away. He writ that he wuz lonesome—he had lost his companion for the third time, and it wore on him. He felt that the country air would do him good. (We found out afterwards that he had rented his house sence his bereavement and had lived in a boarding-house, and had been warned out by the crazed landlady and the infuriated boarders, owing to reasons which will appear hereafter, and _had_ to move on). Wall, he wanted to come and visit round to our house first, and then to the other relations. And I sez to myself, it is one of ’em on his side, and not one word will I say agin the idee, not if I fall down in my tracks. And Josiah was so kinder beat out with Melinda, and depressted and wore out by havin’ to go round in his stockin’ feet so much and whisperin’, that he said, “That any change would be a agreeable one, and he should write for Peter to come.” And I, buoyed up by my principle, never said a word agin the idee, only jest this: “Think well on it, Josiah Allen, before you make the move.” And sez Josiah, “It will be a comfort to make a move of any kind.” He had been kep’ awful still, I’ll admit. But I couldn’t see how it wuz goin’ to make it any better to have another relation let in, on whomsoever’s side they wuz. Howsomever, I see that Josiah wuz determined, and I felt a delicacy about interferin’, knowin’ well that I had one of the relations on my own side in the house. Who wuz I, I sez to myself—who be I, to set up agin hisen? No, I never will. So the letter of acceptance wuz writ, and in less than a week’s time Peter Tweedle come. We spozed he would bring a satchel bag with him; mebby a big one, but—good land! Josiah had to go after his baggage with the Democrat wagon. We see he had come to stay; it wuzn’t a evenescent visit, but a long campane. We didn’t know at the time that they wuz most all musical instruments; we thought they wuz clothes. I see a black shadder come over my companion’s face as he shouldered the fifth trunk and took it up two flights of stairs into the attick. He had filled the bedroom and hall. Wall, I guess Peter Tweedle hadn’t been in the house over half an hour before he walked up to the organ and asked me if it wuz in good repair. I sez, “I guess so.” Sez he, “How many banks of reeds is in it?” I sez, “I don’t know.” Sez he, “Have you any objections to my tryin’ it?” I sez, “No.”