I saw thee washing sheep last night, On the bridge I stood with marble brow, The waters raged, thou clasped it tight, I sighed, ‘should both be drownded now’— I thought, Josiah, Oh happy sheep to thus expiah.” I showed the poetry to Josiah that night after he came home, and told him I had read it. He looked awful ashamed to think I had seen it, and, says he, with a dreadful sheepish look, “The persecution I underwent from that female can never be told; she fairly hunted me down. I hadn’t no rest for the soles of my feet. I thought one spell she would marry me in spite of all I could do, without givin’ me the benefit of law or gospel.” He see I looked stern, and he added, with a sick lookin’ smile, “I thought one spell,” to use Betsey’s language, “I was a gonah.” I didn’t smile. Oh no, for the deep principle of my sect was reared up. I says to him, in a tone cold enough to almost freeze his ears, “Josiah Allen, shet up; of all the cowardly things a man ever done, it is goin’ round braggin’ about wimmin likin’ ’em, and follerin’ ’em up. Enny man that’ll do that is little enough to crawl through a knot hole without rubbing his clothes.” Says I, “I suppose you made her think the moon rose in your head and set in your heels. I daresay you acted foolish enough round her to sicken a snipe, and if you makes fun of her now to please me, I let you know you have got holt of the wrong individual. [Illustration: “I SHOWED THE POETRY TO JOSIAH THAT NIGHT.”] “Now,” says I, “go to bed;” and I added, in still more freezing accents, “for I want to mend your pantaloons.” We gathered up his shoes and stockin’s and started off to bed, and we hain’t never passed a word on the subject sence. I believe when you disagree with your pardner, in freein’ your _mind_ in the first on’t, and then not to be a-twittin’ about it afterwards. And as for bein’ jealous, I should jest as soon think of bein’ jealous of a meetin’-house as I should of Josiah. He is a well principled man. And I guess he wasn’t fur out o’ the way about Betsey Bobbet, though I wouldn’t encourage him by lettin’ him say a word on the subject, for I always make it a rule to stand up for my own sect; but when I hear her go on about the editer of the _Augur_, I can believe anything about Betsey Bobbet.