Here was where Whitfield got so lame. He never had danced a step before in his life, nor Tirzah Ann nuther. But Skidmore and his wife danced every night, and Tirzah Ann, bein’ so ambitius, was determined that she and Whitfield should dance as much as they did, if they fell down a-doin’ of it; and not bein’ used to it, it almost killed ’em, besides loosening their mussels, so that it will be weeks and weeks before they get as strong and as firm as they wus before, and I don’t know as they ever will. When mussels get to totterin’, it is almost impossible to get ’em as firm as they wus before. But truely they got their pay, Whitfield bein’ so tuckered out with the rest and recreation he had been a-havin’, it lamed him awfully, rheumatiz set in, and he wus most bed-rid. And then a base ball hit him, when he was a-playin’; a base ball hit him on the elbo’, right on the crazy-bone; I s’pose he wus most crazy, the pain wus terrible, but the doctor says, with care, he may get over it, and use his arm agin. At present, it is in a sling. It seemed to hurt Tirzah Ann more innardly; it brought on a kind of weakness. But where she got her death-blow (as it were), what laid her up, and made her sick a-bed, was goin’ in a-bathin’, and drinkin’ so much mineral water. Ridin’ out on the water was bad for ’em both, as I said; made ’em as sick as snipes, they were dretfully sick every time they went, almost split their stomachs. But if she had kep’ on top of the water, it would have been better for her, sick as she was. But she wasn’t goin’ to have Mrs. Skidmore bathe, and she not, not if she got drowned in the operations. She was always afraid of deep water—dretful. But in she went, and got skairt, the minute the water was over her ankles; it skairt her so, she had sort o’ cramps, and gin up she was a-drowndin’, and that made it worse for her, and she did crumple right down in the water, and would have been drownded, if a man hadn’t rescued of her; she wus a-sinkin’ for the third time, when he laid holt of her hair, and yanked her out. But she hain’t got over the fright yet, and I am afraid she never will. Whitfield says now, night after night, she will jump right up inside of the bed, and ketch holt of him, and yell the most uneerthly yells he ever, ever heard; and night after night, in the dead of night, she will jump right over him, onto the floor, thinkin’ she is drowndin’ agin; it makes it hard for ’em both, dretful.