If Hannah did not blush, it was probably owing to her being at that moment engaged in blowing the fire at a desperate rate with an enormous pair of broken-winded bellows, which occupation had set her all in a blowze. She understood the hint, and replied: “Guess ye’d better not try, Josh.” Whether this was intended as a warning, or an invitation, never could be satisfactorily known. Josh did not stop to inquire, but he thought it too good a chance to be lost: “I’ll kiss her! by Golly!” he exclaimed to himself. He made a bounce from his chair and seized the nozzle of the bellows, which Hannah was sticking at that moment under a huge iron pot over the fire. Now, in this pot were apples a stewing, and so it happened that Hannah, in the confusion occasioned by the visit of Josh, had made a mistake and put in sour apples instead of sweet ones: sour apples when cooking, everybody knows, are apt to explode like bomb-shells. Hannah had been puffing at the bellows with might and main, and raised the heat to a mischievous degree; there was no safety-valve in the pot-lid, and just as Josh was upon the point of snatching a kiss, whop! the whole contents of the pot went off in their faces! At the same moment the door flew open, and the whole Downer family came in from meeting. Such a sight as they beheld! There stood Josh beplastered with apple-sauce from head to foot, and frightened worse than if he had seen a green monkey. Hannah made her escape, and left Josh to explain the catastrophe. He rolled up his eyes in utter dismay. “What _is_ the matter?” exclaimed Peggy Downer. “Ugh! ugh! ugh!” replied Josh, and that was all he could say. “Goodness’ sake! Josh Beanpole! is that you?” asked Mother Downer, for Josh was so beplastered, beluted and transubstantiated by the apple-sauce, that she did not at first discover who it was. “I d’n know—no, n’t I,” said Josh. “What a spot o’ work!” exclaimed Peggy. Josh looked down at his pantaloons. “Oh! forever!” he exclaimed, “this beats the gineral trainin’!” How matters were explained, and how Josh got safe home, I cannot stop to explain. As to the final result of the courtship, the reader may as well be informed that Josh had too much genuine Yankee resolution to be beaten away from his prize by a broadside of baked apples. In fact, it was but a few months afterwards, that Deacon Powderpost, the town clerk, was digging all alone in the middle of his ten-acre potato field, and spied Josh Beanpole looming up over the top of the hill. Josh looked all around the horizon, and finding no other living soul to be seen, came scrambling over the potato hills, and got right behind the Deacon, where in about a quarter of an hour he mustered courage sufficient to ask him to step aside, as he had a communication for his private ear. To make a long story short, Josh and Hannah were published the next Sunday. III. PETER BRUSH, THE GREAT USED UP.[7]