I thought mebby they wouldn’t stay long. But Deacon Dobbins’ folks seemed to be all waked up on the subject of religion, and they proposed we should turn it into a kind of a conference meetin’, so they never went home till after 10 o’clock. It was most 11 o’clock when Josiah and me got to bed agin. And then jest as I was gettin’ into a drowse, I heard the cat in the buttery, and I got up to let her out. And that roused Josiah up, and he thought he heard the cattle in the garden, and he got up and went out. And there we was a marchin’ round most all night. And if we would get into a nap, Josiah would think it was mornin’, and he would start up and go out to look at the clock. He seemed so afraid we would be belated, and not get to that exertion in time. And there we was on our feet most all night. I lost myself once, for I dreamt that Josiah was a droundin’, and Deacon Dobbins was on the shore a prayin’ for him. It started me so, that I jest ketched hold of Josiah and hollered. It skairt him awfully, and says he, “What does ail you, Samantha? I haint been asleep before, to-night, and now you have rousted me up for good. I wonder what time it is.” And then he got out of bed again, and went out and looked at the clock. It was half-past one, and he said, “he didn’t believe we had better go to sleep again, for fear we would be too late for the exertion, and he wouldn’t miss that for nothin’.” “Exertion,” says I, in a awful cold tone. “I should think we had had exertion enough for one spell.” But I got up at 2 o’clock, and made a cup of tea, as strong as I could, for we both felt beat out, worse than if we had watched in sickness. But as bad, and wore out as Josiah felt bodily, he was all animated in his mind about what a good time he was a goin’ to have. He acted foolish, and I told him so. I wanted to wear my brown and black gingham, and a shaker, but Josiah insisted that I should wear a new lawn dress that he had brought me home as a present, and I had jest made up. So jest to please him I put it on, and my best bonnet. And that man, all I could do and say, would wear a pair of pantaloons I had been a makin’ for Thomas Jefferson. They was gettin’ up a military company to Thomas J’s school, and these pantaloons was white with a blue stripe down the sides, a kind of uniform. Josiah took a awful fancy to ’em. And says he: “I will wear ’em Samantha, they look so dressy.” Says I, “They hain’t hardly done. I was goin’ to stitch that blue stripe on the left leg on again. They haint finished as they ought to be, and I would not wear ’em. It looks vain in you.” Says he, “I will wear ’em, Samantha. I will be dressed up, for once.”