You see, Josiah Allen, not havin’ any of his usual work to do, and not bein’ any hand to sew on fine sewin’, or knit tattin’, or embroider tidies and splashers, etc., he read a sight—read from mornin’ till night almost. And with his ardent, enthusiastic nater he got led off “by many windy doctrines,” as the text reads. He would be rampant as rampant could be on first one thing and then another—on the tariff, the silver bill, and silo’s, and air ships, etc., etc. And he would air all his new doctrines onto me, jest as a doctor would try all his new medicines on his wife to see if they wuz dangerous or not. Wall, I spoze it wuz right, bein’ the pardner who took him for worse as well as better. And for family reasons I ever preferred that he should ventilate his views in my indulgent ear before he let ’em loose onto society. And one mornin’, havin’ read late the night before and bein’ asleep when I come to bed, he begun promulgatin’ a new idee to me as he stood by the washstand a washin’ him in the early mornin’ sunshine. He wuz full of enthusiasm and eagerness, and did not brook anything of the beautiful mornin’ scene that wuz spread out in the open winder before him. The cool, sweet mornin’ air a comin’ in through the clusters of climbin’ roses, and through the tall boughs of a big old orange-tree that stood between him and the sunshine. Its glossy green leaves wuz new washed by a shower that had fell over night, and it looked like a bride decked for her husband, with garlands of white and pink posies, and anon the round, shinin’ globes of the ripe fruit hangin’ like apples of gold right in amongst the sweet blows and green leaves. And way beyend the fields and orchards of Belle Fanchon stood the tree-crowned mountain, and the sun wuz jest over the top, so the pine-trees stood out dressed in livin’ green aginst the glowin’ sky. It wuz a fair seen, a fair seen. But my companion heeded it not. He had read some eloquent and powerful speech the evenin’ before, and his mind had started off on a new tact. His ambition was rousted up agin to do and to dare, as it had been so many times before (see accounts of summer boarders, tenants, political honors, etc., etc., etc., etc., and so forth). And sez he, a holdin’ the towel dreamily in his hands, “Samantha, my mind is made up.” I had not roze up yet, and I sez calmly from my piller, where I lay a drinkin’ in the fair mornin’ scene: “It wuzn’t a very hefty job, wuz it?” Sez he, with about as much agin dignity as he had used before: “You can comment on the size of my mind all you want to, but you will probable think different about the heft of it before I get through with the skeme I am jest about to embark on.”