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By Root 520 0

wert but thou away, Could we thy hauntin' form no more, nor see; How sweet 'twould be to linger on with A-, How sweet 'twould be to dwell for aye with G-." Wall, as I say, she gin good satisfaction in the deestrict and I declare for it, I got to likin' her dretful well before the winter wuz over. Softer she wuz, and had to be, than any fuz that was ever on any cotton flannel fur or near. And more verses she wrote than wuz good for her, or for anybody else, - Why she would write "Lines on the Tongs," or "Stanzas on the Salt Suller," if she couldn't do any better; it beats all! And then she would read 'em to me to get my idees on 'em. Why I had to call on every martyr in the hull string of martyrs sometimes to keep myself from tellin' her my full mind about 'em unbeknown to me. For, if I had, it would have skairt the soft little creeter out of what little wit she had. So I kep' middlin' still, and see it go on. For she wuz a good little soul, affectionate and kinder helpful. A good creeter now to find your speks. Why she found 'em for me times out of number, and I got real attached to her and visey versey. And when she came a visitin' me in the spring (at my request), and I happened to mention that Josiah and me laid out to go to Saratoga for the summer, what did the soft little creeter want to do but to go too. Her father was well off and wuz able to send her, and she had relatives there on her own side, some of the Pixleys, so her board wouldn't cost nothin'. So it didn't look nothin' unreasonable, though whether I could get her there and back without her mashin' all down on my hands, like a over ripe peach, she wuz that soft, wuz a question that hanted me, and so I told Josiah. But Josiah kinder likes young girls (nothin' light; a calm meetin'-house affection), it is kinder nater that he should, and he sez: "Better let her go, she won't make much trouble." "No," sez I, "not to you, but if you had to set for hours and hours and hear her verses read to you on every subject -- on heaven, and earth, and the seas, and see her a measurin' of it with a stick to get the lines the right length; if you had to go through all this, mebby you would meditate on the subject before you took it for a summer's job." " Wall," sez he, "mebby she won't write so much when she gets started; she will be kinder jogged round and stirred up in body and mebby her feelins' will kinder rest. I shouldn't wonder a mite if they did," sez he. "And then she can take a good many steps for you, and I love to see you favored," sez he. He wanted her to go, I see that, and I see that it wuz natur that he should, and so I consented in my mind -- after a parlay. She found his specks a sight and his hat. Nothin' seemed to please her better than to be gropin' round after things to please somebody; her disposition wuz such. So it wuz settled that she should accompany and go with us. And the mornin' we started she met us at the Jonesville Depot in good sperits and a barege delaine dress, cream color, and a hat of the same. I hadn't seen her for some weeks, and she seemed softly tickled to see Josiah and me, and asked a good many questions about Jonesville, kinder turnin' the conversation gradually round onto bread, as I could see. So I branched right out, knowin' what she wanted of me, and told her plain, that "Abram Gee wuz a lookin' kinder mauger. But doin' his duty stiddy," sez I, lookin' keenly at her, "a doin' his duty by everybody, and beloved by everybody, him and his bread too." She turned her head away and kinder sithed, and I guess it wuz as much as a quarter of a hour after that, that I see her take out a pencil and a piece of paper out of her portmonny, and a little stick, and she went to makin' some verses, a measurin' 'em careful as she wrote 'em, and when she handed 'em to me they wuz named

"A LAY ON A CAR; "or "THE LESSON OF A LOCOMOTIVE." After I had read it and handed it back to her, she sez, "Don't you think I improve on the