He raved, he swore, he said, “Dumb him!” repeatedly. You see Josiah hated music anyway, only the very softest, lowest kind; and Peter’ses wuz powerful—powerful and continuous. But I reminded Josiah Allen in the cause of duty that he had complained that the house wuz too still sence Melinda Ann had come, and he wanted a noise. “I never wanted to be in a Lunatick Asylum,” sez he; “I didn’t hanker for Bedlam,” he yelled. Wall, suffice it to say that I never got a wink of sleep till past midnight. And mebby it wuz about one o’clock, when all of a sudden we wuz all waked up by a low, rumblin’ noise, strange and weird. My first thought was a earthquake, and then a cyclone. But Josiah Allen had waked up first and got his senses before I did, and sez he: “It is that dumb fool a playin’ on a base viol.” And that wuz what it proved to be. He had got lonesome in the night, and got up and on-packed the base viol, and wuz playin’ a low, mournful piece on it, so’s not to wake us up. He said in the mornin’ that he held it in for that purpose. He is a good-natured creeter, and a mourner, there hain’t no doubt on’t, and so I told Josiah. And he snapped out enough to take my head off: “He’d ought to mourn! I mourn,” sez he, “Heaven knows I do. But I shan’t mourn after the first ray of daylight, for I’ll take his trunks and throw ’em out-doors, and him on top of ’em. And I’ll cast out Melinda Ann like a viper,” sez he. “I’ll empty the house of the hull crew of fools and lunaticks! I’ll do it,” sez he, “if I have a breath left in my body.” When he sez this I thought of Melinda Ann. Had she got a breath left? Wuz she alive? Or wuz she not? I jest sprung over Josiah Allen, I trompled on him, I won’t deny it, in my haste to get up, and I left him groanin’ and a sayin’ in a low, mournful axent: “That foot could never be stepped on agin by him.” But I didn’t stop to comfort him; no, my mind wuz too much took up with the relation on my side. I hastened upstairs, and there wuz my worst fears realized. Melinda Ann wuz wild as a hen hawk. She had got the winder up and wuz jest a springin’ out. I ketched her by her limb and hollered for Josiah. Before he got there she had got her hands clenched into my hair and wuz a tryin’ to choke me. But, good land! she didn’t know what she wuz a doin’. Wall, Josiah Allen by main strength got her into the house agin, and after a tussle we got her onto the bed. And then I begun to doctor her up. But I never tried to go to bed agin that night, for it wuz daylight before I got her quieted down. Wall, Josiah had to go off that mornin’ early on bizness, to be gone all day. And I wuz glad on’t, for I wuz afraid, in spite of all I could do, he would do sunthin’ to disgrace himself in the eyes of both sides. His last words to me wuz: [Illustration: “I KETCHED HER BY HER LIMB.”] “If I find either of them cussed fools in the house when I get back, I’ll burn the house down over their heads.”