But I knew he wouldn’t, I knew he would quiet down while he wuz gone, and he did. But my sufferin’s through that day can’t never be told or sung. And the martyrs that I called on, and the groans and sithes that I smothered in my breast waist, couldn’t be told. But jest as I expected, when Peter first blasted out on the clarinet loud and strong, not bein’ afraid of wakin’ anybody up, I had to drop everything and go right up to Melinda Ann. But the attack wuz light, and, as usual, after she got over the first shock she enjoyed it. And I happened to mention—havin’ that pride I have spoke of, of havin’ the relations on his side stand on their best foot before mine—I happened to mention that Peter got up and played in the night because he wuz lonesome, and that he said he would give half his property (he wuz well off) if he had somebody to play the organ while he played the clarinet. I see she grew more meller-lookin’ and brightened up, and she sez: “I used to be a good player.” And if you’ll believe it—I don’t spoze you will, for Josiah wouldn’t when I told him that night— But when Josiah Allen came home that night they wuz a playin’ together like a pair of turkle doves, she a playin’ the organ, and he a settin’ by her a tootin’, both as happy as kings. And from that time out she never got skairt agin when he bust out sudden in song or begun gradual. And her fits grew lighter and lighter and fur seldomer. And though our sufferin’s wuz heavy and severe to hear that organ and clarinet, or base viol, or pickelo, or brass horn a goin’ day and night, yet I seemed to see what wuz a comin’ on’t, and I held Josiah by main force to stand still and let providential circumstances have a straight path to move on in. Wall, after two weeks of sufferin’ on our part almost onexampled in history, ancient or modern, the end come. Peter Tweedle took Josiah out one side and told him, as bein’ the only male relation Melinda Ann had handy to get at, “that he had it in his mind to marry her quietly and take her at once to his home in the city,” and he asked Josiah “if he had any objections.” And Josiah told me that he spoke out fervently and earnestly, and sez, “No! Heaven knows I hain’t.” And he urged Peter warm to have the weddin’ sudden and to once, that very day and hour, and offered to get the minister there inside of twenty minutes. But I wuz bound to have things carried on decent. So I sot the day most a week off, and I sent for Aunt Melinda and his children that wuz married, and the single one, and we had a quiet little weddin’, or it would have been, only the last thing that they done in the house before they left wuz to get the hull crew on ’em to bust out in a weddin’ song loud enough almost to raise the ruff. Wall, Peter writ to Josiah that he hadn’t been lonesome sence it took place, not a minute. And Melinda Ann writ to me that she hadn’t had a fit sence, nor a spazzum.