“I won't be calm! I can't see into it,” he hollered. “Why, what lifted Letitia Lanfear right up, didn't lift me up. Hain't what's sass for the goose, sass for the gander?” “No,” says I sadly. “It hain't the same sass. The geese have to get the same strength from it,--strength to swim in the same water, fly over the same fences, from the same pursuers and avengers; and they have to grow the same feathers out of it; but the sass, the sass is fur different. “But,” says I, “I don't approve of all your piece. A man, as a general thing, has as much time as a woman has. And I'd love to see the time that I couldn't do a job as short as puttin' a letter in the post-office. Why, I never see the time, even when the children was little, and in cleanin' house, or sugarin'-time, but what I could ride into Jonesville every day, to say nothin' of once a year, and lay a vote onto a pole. And you have as much time as I do, unless it is springs and falls and hayin'-time. And if _I_ could do it, _you_ could. I don't approve of such talk. “And you know very well that you and I had better spend a little of our spare time a studyin' into matters, so as to vote intelligently; study into the laws that govern us both,--that hang us if we break 'em, and protect us if we obey 'em,--than to spend it a whittling shingles, or wonderin' whether Miss Bobbet's next baby will be a boy or a girl.” “Wall,” says he, takin' his hand down, and winkin',--a sort of a shrewd, knowin' wink, but a sad and dejected one, too, as I ever see wunk,-- “I didn't have no idee of stoppin' votin'.” Says I coldly, as cold as Zero, or pretty nigh as coldblooded as the old man,-- “Did you write that article _jest_ for the speech of people? Didn't you have no principle to back it up?” “Wall,” says he mournfully, “I wouldn't want it to get out of the family, but I'll tell you the truth. I didn't write it on a single principle, not a darn principle. I wrote it jest for popularity, and to make 'em fierce to promote me.” I groaned aloud, and he groaned. It wus a sad and groanful time. Says he, “I pinned my faith onto Letitia Lanfear. And I can't understand now, why a thing that made Letitia so populer, makes me a perfect outcast. Hain't we both human bein's--human Methodists and Jonesvillians?” Says he, in despairin', agonized tone, “I can't see through it.” Says I soothenly, “Don't worry about that, Josiah, for nobody can. It is too deep a conundrum to be seen through: nobody has ever seen through it.” But it seemed as if he couldn't be soothed; and agin he kinder sithed out,-- “I pinned my faith onto Letitia, and it has ondone me;” and he kinder whimpered. But I says firmly, but gently,-- “You will hear to your companion another time, will you not? and pin your faith onto truth and justice and right?” “No, I won't. I won't pin it onto nothin' nor nobody. I'm done with politics from this day.”