And I hurried off till I come out into a kinder open place with some good stiddy chairs to set down on, and some green willers hangin' down their verdant boughs over some posy beds. Nothin' made up about 'em. Oh how good it looked to me to see sunthin' that God had made, and man hadn't dickered with and manufactured to seem different from what it wuz. Thinks I, if I should take hold of one of these feathery green willer sprays it wouldn't turn into a serpent or try to trip me up, or wobble me down. They looked beautiful to me, and beyond 'em I could see the Ocean, another and fur greater reality, real as life, or death, or taxes, or anything else we can't escape from. [Illustration: "_I'm tellin' the livin' truth, as she towered up in front on me, her breast opened and a man's face looked out on me._" (_See page 253_)] Settin' there lookin' off on them mighty everlastin' waves, forever flowin' back and forth, forth and back, the world of the flimsy and the false seemed to pass away and the Real more nigh to me than it did in the painted land of shams and onreality I had been passin' through. And as I meditated on the disgraceful sight I had seen--that gaudy, guilty creeter with a man concealed in her breast. For if it wuzn't a guilty secret, why wuz the door shet and fastened tight, till the searchlight of a woman's indignant eyes brought him to light? Thinkin' it over calmly and bein' reasonable and just, my feelin's over that female kinder softened down, and I sez to myself, what if there wuz a open winder or door into all our hearts, for outsiders to look in, what would they see? Curious sights, homely ones and beautiful, happy ones and sorrowful, and some kinder betwixt and between. Sacred spots that the nearest ones never got a glimpse on. Eyes that look acrost the coffee pot at you every mornin' never ketched sight on 'em, nor the ones that walk up and down in them hidden gardens. Some with veiled faces mebby, some with reproachful orbs, some white and still, some pert and sassy. Nothin' wicked, most likely; nothin' the law could touch you for; but most probable it might make trouble if them affectionate eyes opposite could behold 'em, for where love is there is jealousy, and a lovin' woman will be jealous of a shadder or a scare-crow. It is nateral nater and can't be helped. But if she stopped to think on't, she herself has her hid-away nooks in her heart, dark or pleasant landscapes, full of them, you never ketch a glimpse on do the best you can. And jealous curosity goes deep. What would Josiah see through my heart's open door? What would I see in hisen? It most skairs me to think on't. No, it hain't best to have open doors into hearts. Lots of times it would be resky; not wrong, you know, but jest resky.