“Wall, dumb it all, do you want me to appear as awkward as a fool? I have told you more than a dozen times I have _got_ to do as the rest do, if I want to make any show at all in politics.” I said no more: but I riz right up, and walked out of the room, with my head right up in the air, and the strings of my head-dress a floatin' out behind me; and I'll bet there wus indignation in the float of them strings, and heart-ache, and agony, and--and every thing. I thought I had convinced him, and hadn't. I felt as if I must sink. You know, that is all a woman can do--to sink. She can't do any thing else in a helpful way when her beloved companion hangs over political abysses. She can't reach out her lovin' hand, and help stiddy him; she can't do nothin' only jest sink. And what made it more curious, these despairin' thoughts come to me as I stood by the sink, washin' my dinner-dishes. But anon (I know it wus jest anon, for the water wus bilein' hot when I turned it out of the kettle, and it scalded my hands, onbeknown to me, as I washed out my sass-plates) this thought gripped holt of me, right in front of the sink,-- “Josiah Allen's wife, you must _not_ sink. You _must_ keep up. If you have no power to help your pardner to patriotism and honor, you can, if your worst fears are realized, try to keep him to home. For if his acts and words are like these in Jonesville, what will they be in Washington, D.C., if that place is all it has been depictered to you? Hold up, Samantha! Be firm, Josiah Allen's wife! John Rogers! The nine! One at the breast!” So at last, by these almost convulsive efforts at calmness, I grew more calmer and composeder. Josiah had hitched up and gone. And he come home clever, and all excited with a new thing. They are buildin' a new court-house at Jonesville. It is most done, and it seemed they got into a dispute that day about the cupelow. They wanted to have the figger of Liberty sculped out on it; and they had got the man there all ready, and he had begun to sculp her as a woman,--the goddess of Liberty, he called her. But at the last minute a dispute had rosen: some of the leadin' minds of Jonesville, uncle Nate Gowdey amongst 'em, insisted on it that Liberty wuzn't a woman, he wuz a man. And they wanted him depictered as a man, with whiskers and pantaloons and a standin' collar, and boots and spurs--Josiah Allen wus the one that wanted the spurs. He said the dispute waxed furious; and he says to 'em,-- “Leave it to Samantha: she'll know all about it.” And so it was agreed on that they'd leave it to me. And he drove the old mare home, almost beyond her strength, he wus so anxious to have it settled.