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.” Sez he, “Sence my last affliction I have turned my mind agin towards music, I find it soothes.” Sez he, “After my first bereavement I took up the pickelo—I still play on it at intervals; I learned that and the snare drum durin’ them dark hours,” sez he. “And I still play on ’em in lonesome moments. I have ’em both with me,” sez he. “Durin’ my next affliction I learned the clarinet, the fife, and the base violin. Now,” sez he, “I am turnin’ my mind onto the brass horn in various keys. But I have brought all my instruments with me,” sez he, in a encouragin’ axent. “I frequently turn from one to another. When I get lonesome in the night,” sez he, “I frequently run from one to another till I have exhausted the capabilities of each, so to speak.” I sithed and couldn’t help it, but I held firm on the outside, and he turned to the organ. “I love the organ,” sez he; and with that he sot down on the music-stool, opened up all the loud bases, the double octave coupler, blowed hard, and bust out in song. Wall, it all come jest as sudden onto Melinda as a thunder-clap out of a parlor ceilin’, or a tornado out of a teacup, it wuz as perfectly onexpected and onlooked for as they would be, and jest as skairful. For this wuz one of her bad days, and bein’ a old maid, we thought mebby it would excite her too much to know a widower wuz in the house, so we had kep’ it from her. And the first intimation she had of Peter’ses presence wuz this awful loud blast of sound. His voice wuz loud in the extreme, and it wuz “Coronation” he bust out in. He is pious, there hain’t a doubt on’t, but still “Coronation” is the loudest him in the him-book. Wall, the very first time he blasted forth I knew jest as well as I knew afterwards what the result would be.