I hastened upstairs, and there she wuz, there sot Melinda Ann in a fit; she hadn’t had time to get onto the bed, and there she sot bolt upright in her rockin’ chair in a historical fit. We had better let her known he wuz there. Wall, I histed her onto the bed as quick as I could, and hollered down the back stairs for catnip. And as soon as I had brung her to a little, she would clench right into me, and groan and choke, and sort o’ froth to the mouth. And I’ll be hanged if I didn’t feel like it myself, for right down under our feet I heard that loud, thunderin’ organ, for his legs wuz strong, and he blowed hard. But yet so curius is human nater, specially wimmen’s human nater—right there in my agony I couldn’t help bein’ proud o’ that instrument. I had no idee, I said to myself, not a idee, that it had such a volume of sound. But loud as it wuz, Peter’ses clarion voice rung out loud and high above it. It wuz a fearful time, very. But even at that moment I sez to myself agin: “He is a relation on _his_ side—be calm!” and I wuz calm. [Illustration: “IT WUZ ‘HOLD THE FORT’ HE BELCHED OUT IN.”] Wall, I rubbed Melinda Ann and explained it to her, and poulticed her, and got her kinder settled down. And I see it took up her mind some. She didn’t seem to dislike it now, after the first shock wuz over. And I left her propped up on her piller a listenin’, and went down and got supper. Wall, it wuz all I could do to get that man away from the instrument long enough to eat. He seemed to be kinder absent-minded and lost like till he got back to it agin. Wall, it had been still for some time; you couldn’t hear a thing from the dinin’ room up in Melinda’s room. And when he bust out agin imegiatly after supper, it wuz too much, too much, for I spoze she had been in a drowze. It wuz “Hold the Fort” he belched out in, with all the steam on. He had a way, Peter had, of bustin’ out loudest when he begun, and then kinder dwindle down towards the last of the piece. (But it wuz one of ’em on _his_ side, and I didn’t murmur, not out loud, I didn’t.) Wall, I knew what wuz before me at the first volley of sound. I sez to myself: “Melinda Ann! Melinda Ann!” and hurried upstairs. And there she wuz layin’ back on her piller with her eyes rolled up in her head and fixed, and her nuckels clenched. Wall, I brung her to agin after a long and tejus process, and then agin I see that she sort o’ enjoyed it; and I left her propped up and went down and helped do up the work. Wall, Peter never stopped playin’ till a late bedtime. And then I might have slept some at first, only Josiah begun a noise where he left off, a scoldin’ and a jawin’. And oh! my sufferin’s that I suffered with that man. I reminded him that Peter wuz a relation on _his_ side—no avail. I brung up his lonesome state. Josiah said, “He’d ought to be lonesome! He’d ought to be fur away in the middle of the desert or on a island in the depths of the seas. Alone! alone!”