“Make fun all you are a mind to of a anxious Samantha,” says I, “but I will never give my consent to have you plunge into such dangerous enterprizes. And talkin' about pullin' wires sounds dangerous: it sounds like a circus, somehow; and how would _you_, with your back, look and feel performin' like a circus?” “Oh, you don't understand, Samantha! the wires hain't pulled in that way. You don't pull 'em with your hands, you pull 'em with your minds.” “Oh, wall!” says I, brightenin' up. “You are all right in that case: you won't pull hard enough to hurt you any.” I knew the size and strength of his mind, jest as well as if I had took it out of his head, and weighed it on the steelyards. It was _not_ over and above large. I knew it; and he knew that I knew it, because I have had to sometimes, in the cause of Right, remind him of it. But he knows that my love for him towers up like a dromedary, and moves off through life as stately as she duz--the dromedary. Josiah was my choice out of a world full of men. I love Josiah Allen. But to resoom and continue on. Josiah says, “Which side had I better go on, Samantha?” Says he, kinder puttin' his head on one side, and lookin' shrewdly up at the stove-pipe, “Would you run as a Stalwart, or a Half-breed?” Says I, “I guess you would run more like a lame hen than a Stalwart or a Half-breed; or,” says I, “it would depend on what breeds they wuz. If they wus half snails, and half Times in the primers, maybe you could get ahead of 'em.” “I should think, Samantha Allen, in such a time as this, you would act like a rational bein'. I'll be hanged if I know what side to go on to get elected!” Says I, “Josiah Allen, hain't you got any principle? Don't you _know_ what side you are on?” “Why, yes, I s'pose I know as near as men in gineral. I'm a Democrat in times of peace. But it is human nater, to want to be on the side that beats.” I sithed, and murmured instinctively, “George Washington!” “George Granny!” says he. I sithed agin, and kep' sithin'. Says I, “It is bad enough, Josiah Allen, to have you talk about runnin' for senator, and pullin' wires, and etcetery. But, oh, oh! my agony to think my partner is destitute of principle.” “I have got as much as most political men, and you'll find it out so, Samantha.” My groans touched his heart--that man loves me. “I am goin' to work as they all do. But wimmen hain't no heads for business, and I always said so. They don't look out for the profits of things, as men do.” I didn't say nothin' only my sithes, but they spoke volumes to any one who understood their language. But anon, or mebby before,--I hadn't kep' any particular account of time, but I think it wus about anon,--when another thought struck me so, right in my breast, that it most knocked me over. It hanted me all the rest of that day: and all that night I lay awake and worried, and I'd sithe, and sposen the case; and then I'd turn over, and sposen the case, and sithe.