And Uncle Lemuel's two girls, I said I wouldn't want it told out of the family, but they wuz extravagant and slack, and their houses didn't look much like Tirzah Ann's and Maggie's house. But we hadn't ort to expect many such housekeepers as our children wuz. And we talked about the Thousand Islands and she promised to go out with Josiah and me the next summer if nothin' happened. And Josiah then and there, tried to make us promise to go to Coney Island on our way there. "On our way," sez I, "it would be five hundred milds out of our way!" "And well worth it!" sez he, "to see what Serenus see, and hear what Serenus hearn. Why I git so carried away jest hearin' about that magnificent spot that I have to fairly hang onto myself to keep from startin' there to once bareheaded." "I know it, Josiah; you've acted luny about it. And if jest hearin' about it harrers your nerve so, what would seein' it do?" "My nerve ain't harrered," he sez. Sez I, "Can you deny I have had to give you quarts of catnip after you have had a seancy with Serenus about that frivolous spot, full of hilarity and temptation?" "Because you have drownded out my insides with catnip, it hain't no sign I needed it. And I tell you, Samantha Allen, you may demean that grand glorious place all you're a minter; I shall see it ere long. It is the shinin' gole I have rared up in front of me and I'm bound to set on it." Sez I, "If you hain't got any nobler gole than that ahead on you I pity you from the bottom of my heart." And to kinder skair him I sez agin, "Do you, a Christian deacon, want to act frisky and go pleasure-huntin' at your age?" "Why," sez he, "Serenus sez it is the most entrancin'ly beautiful and fascinatin' spot on earth. He sez, and can prove, it is the biggest playground in the hull world, to say nothin' of what you can learn there, and folks come from foreign countries jest to see it. Their first question when they land is, 'Where is Coney Island? Lead me to it!'" "Oh shaw!" sez I. "Well, it is so, and why should such droves of folks go there if it hain't worth it? Serenus sez and can prove, that a million folks go there in one day sometimes, and hundreds of thousands most every day." Sez I solemnly, "Do you remember the him, 'Broad is the road that leads,' you know where. 'And thousands walk together there.' Do you want to walk with 'em, Josiah?" "Yes, I do, and lay out to." Oh how deep the pizen had gone into his solar system! I see scarin' didn't do no good, so I tried tender talk to wean him from the idee. I told him I thought too much on him to resk him there in such crowds. He wuz too small boneded and his head too weak to grapple with the lures and temptations that would surround him, and I'd never give my consent to his goin,' much less lead him into temptation. "Lead your granny!" sez he in a rough axent. And that wuz all the good my lovin' talk did.