So, as I told Josiah Allen, our sufferin’s brung about good to two lonesome and onhappy and fitty creeters, and we ort to be thankful when we look back on our troubles and afflictions with ’em. And he looked at me enough to take my head off, if a look could guletine, and sez he: “Thankful! Oh, my gracious Heaven! hear her! Thankful!” And his tone wuz such that I hain’t dasted to bring up the subject sence. No, I don’t dast to, but I do inside of me feel paid for all I went through. [Illustration: PETER AND MELINDA ANN.] CHAPTER IV. WALL, it wuzn’t more than a few days after the marriage and departure of Peter and Melinda Ann, when I got a letter from Cousin John Richard—he wuz then in South Carolina, hard at work agin, literally follerin’ the example of Him who went about doin’ good. The letter wuz writ in pure friendship, and then he wanted to find out the ingredients of that spignut syrup I had give him when he wuz at Jonesville, his throat wuz a botherin’ him agin, and he said that had helped him. That is a good syrup, very, though mebby I hadn’t ort to say it. It is one that I made up out of my own head, and is a success. Yeller dock, and dandelion roots, and spignut, steeped up strong, and sweetened with honey. I sent it to him to once, with some spignut roots by mail; I wuz afraid he couldn’t get ’em in the South. And in my letter I asked him out of politeness, as it were, how he wuz a gettin’ along colporterin’, and if things looked any brighter to him in the South. And such a answer as I got—_such_ a letter! why, it wuz a sermon almost. Jest as skairful, jest as earnest, and jest as flowery as the talk he had talked to us when he wuz with us. Why, it fairly sent the cold chills over me as I read it. But it madded Josiah. He wuz mad as a hen to hear it, and he said agin that he believed Cousin John Richard (Josiah knew he wuz jest as good as gold, and he wouldn’t brook a word from anybody else agin him), but he said he believed he wuz a losin’ his faculties. He didn’t believe a word on’t. He didn’t believe there wuz any danger nor any trouble; if folks would only let the South alone and mind their own bizness, it would get along well enough. But some folks had always got to be a putterin’ around, and a meddlin’, and he shouldn’t wonder a mite if John Richard wuz a doin’ jest such a work as that. And I sez mildly, “Sometimes things _have_ to be meddled with in order to get ahead any.” “Wall,” sez he, “don’t you know how, if there is any trouble in a family, the meddlers and interferers are the ones that do the most mischief?” “But,” sez I, “teachin’ religion and distributin’ tracts and spellin’ books hadn’t ort to do any hurt.” “Wall, I d’no,” sez Josiah. “I d’no what kind of tracts he is a circulatin’, mebby they are inflamitory. If they are offen a piece with some of his talk here, I should think the South would ride him out.”