“Thomas J., I am worried about you: your pulse don't beat hardly any.” “No,” says he. And he laughed with his eyes and his lips too. “I am glad I am not a newspaper this morning, mother.” And I says, “Why?” And he says, “If I were a morning paper, mother, I shouldn't be a success, my circulation is so weak.” A jokin' right there, when he couldn't lift his head. But he got over it: he always did have them sort of sick spells, from a little child. But a manlier, good-hearteder, level-headeder boy never lived than Thomas Jefferson Allen. He is _just right_, and always wuz. And though I wouldn't have it get out for the world, I can't help seein' it, that he goes fur ahead of Tirzah Ann in intellect, and nobleness of nater; and though I love 'em both devotedly, I _do_, and I can't help it, like him jest a little mite the best. But _this_ I wouldn't have get out for a thousand dollars. I tell it in strict confidence, and s'pose it will be kep' as such. Mebby I hadn't ort to tell it at all. Mebby it hain't quite orthodox in me to feel so. But it is truthful, anyway. And sometimes I get to kinder wobblin' round inside of my mind, and a wonderin' which is the best,--to be orthodox, or truthful,--and I sort o' settle down to thinkin' I will tell the truth anyway. Josiah, I think, likes Tirzah Ann the best. But I studied deep, and mused. Mused on our 4 fathers, and our 4 mothers, and on Liberty, and Independence, and Truth, and the Eagle. And thinkin' I might jest as well be to work while I was a musin', I had a dress made for the occasion. It wus bran new, and the color wus Bismark Brown. Josiah wanted me to have Ashes of Moses color. But I said no. With my mind in the heroic state it was then, I couldn't curb it down onto Ashes of Moses, or roses, or any thing else peacible. I felt that this color, remindin' me of two grand heroes,--Bismark, John Brown,--suited me to a T. There wus two wimmen who stood ready to make it,--Jane Bently and Martha Snyder. I chose Martha because Martha wus the name of the wife of Washington. It wus made with a bask. When the news got out that I wus goin' to Washington on a tower, the neighbors all wanted to send errents by me. Betsey Bobbet wanted me to go to the Patent Office, and get her two Patent-office books, for scrap-books for poetry. Uncle Jarvis Bently wanted me to go to the Agricultural Bureau, and get him a paper of lettis seed. And Solomon Cypher wanted me to get him a new kind of string-beans, if I could, and some cowcumber seeds.