Wall, sure enough, the next day, jest as quick as he got that lumber drawed up to the house, Josiah Allen dressed up, and sot off for Jonesville, and come home at night as tickled a man as I ever see, if not tickleder. And he says, “Now what do you think, Samantha Allen? Now what do you think about my ridin' on that pass?” And I says, “Have you rode on it, Josiah Allen?” And he says, “Yes, mom, I have. I have rode to Loontown and back; and I might have gone ten times as fur, and not a word been said.” And I says, “What did the conductor say?” And he says, “He didn't say nothin'. When he asked me for my fare, I told him I had a free pass, and I showed it to him. And he took it, and looked at it close, and took out his specks, and looked and looked at it for a number of minutes; and then he handed it back to me, and I put it into my pocket; and that wus all there was of it.” [Illustration: LOOKING DUBERSOME.] Says I, “How did the conductor look when he was a readin' it?” And he owned up that he looked dubersome. But, says he, “I rode on it, and I told you that I could.” “Wall,” says I, sithin', “there is a great mystery about it.” Says he, “There hain't no mystery to me.” And then I beset him agin to tell me what he thought the reason wus they give it to him. And he said “he thought it was because he was so smart.” Says he, “I am a dumb smart feller, Samantha, though I never could make you see it as plain as I wanted to.” And then says he, a goin' on prouder and prouder every minute,-- “I am pretty-lookin'. I am what you might call a orniment to any car on the track. I kinder set a car off, and make 'em look respectable and dressy. And I'm what you might call a influential man, and I s'pose the railroad-men want to keep the right side of me. And they have took the right way to do it. I shall speak well of 'em as long as I can ride free. And, oh! what solid comfort I shall take, Samantha, a ridin' on that pass! I calculate to see the world now. And there is nothin' under the sun to hender you from goin' with me. As long as you are the wife of such a influential and popular man as I be, it don't look well for you to go a mopein' along afoot, or with the old mare. We will ride in the future on my free pass.” “No,” says I. “I sha'n't ride off on a mystery. I prefer a mare.” Says he, for he wus that proud and excited that you couldn't stop him nohow,-- “It will be a dretful savin' of money, but that hain't what I think of the most. It is the honor they are a heapin' onto me. To think that they think so much of me, set such a store by me, and look up to me so, that they send me a free pass without my makin' a move to ask for it. Why, it shows plain, Samantha, that I am one of the first men of the age.” And so he would go on from hour to hour, and from day to day; and I wus that dumbfoundered and wonderin' about it, that I couldn't for my life tell what to think of it. It worried me.