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of lute-string ribbon, a light pink, and didnā€™t begrech it. But I have never dast, not in his most placid and serene moments - I have never dast, to say the word ā€œMermaidā€™ to him.

Truly there is something that the boldest female pardner dassent do. Mermaids is one of the things I donā€™ dast to bring up. No! no, fur be it from me to say ā€œMermaidā€ to Josiah Allen.

Chapter XII.
A DRIVE TO SARATOGA LAKE.

Josiah and me took a short drive this afternoon, he hirinā€™ a buggy for the occasion. He called it ā€œgoinā€™ in his own conveniance,ā€ and I didnā€™t say nothinā€™ aginst his callinā€™ it so. I didnā€™t break it up for this reasun, thinkses I it is a conveniance for us to ride in it, for us 2 tried and true souls to get off for a minute by ourselves.

Wall, Josiah wuz dretful good behaved this afternoon. He helped me in a good deal politer than usual and tucked the bright lap-robe almost tenderly round my form.

Men do have sech spells. They are dretful good actinā€™ at times. Why they act better and more subdueder and mellerer at sometimes than at others, is a deep subject which we mortals cannot as yet fully understand. Also visey versey, their cross, up headeder times, over bearinā€™ and actinā€™. It is a deep subject and one freighted with a great deal of freight.

But Josiahā€™s goodness on this afternoon almost reached the Scripteral and he sez, when we first sot out, and I see that the horseā€™s head wuz turned towards the Lake. Sez he, ā€œI guess weā€™ll go to the Lake, but where do you want to go, Samantha? I will go anywhere you want to go.ā€

And he still drove almost recklessly on lakewards. And sez he, ā€œWe had better go straight on, but say the word, and you can go jest where you want to.ā€ And he urged the horse on to still greater speed. And he sez agin, ā€œDo you want to go any particular place, Samantha?ā€

ā€œYes,ā€ sez I, ā€œI had jest as leves go there as not.ā€

ā€œWall, I knew there would be where you would want to go.ā€ And he drove on at a good jog. But no better jog than we had been a goinā€™ on.

Wall the weather wuz delightful. It wuz soft and balmy. And my feelinā€™s towered my pardner (owinā€™ to his linement) wuz soft and balmy as the air. And so we moved onwards, past the home of one who wuz true to his country, when all round him wuz false, who governed his state wisely and well, held the lines firm, when she wuz balky, and would have been glad to take the lines in her teeth and run away onto ruin; past the big grand house of him who carried a piece of our American justice way off into Egypt and carried it firm and square too right there in the dark. I sā€™pose it is dark. I have always hearn about its beinā€™ as dark as Egypt. Wall, anyway he is a good lookinā€™ man. They both on ā€™em are and Josiah admitted it - after some words.

Wall anon, or perhaps a little after, we came to where we could see the face of Beautiful Saratoga Lake, layinā€™ a smilinā€™ up into the skies. A little white cloud wuz a restinā€™ up on the top of the tree-covered mountain that riz up on one side of the lake, and I felt that it might be the shadow form of the sacred dove Saderrosseros a broodinā€™ down over the waters she loved.

That she loved still, though another race wuz a bathinā€™ their weary forwards in the tide. And I wondered as I looked down on it, whether the great heart of the water wuz constant; if it ever heaved up into deep sithes a thinkinā€™ of the one who had passed away, of them who once rested lightly on her bosem, bathed their dark forwards and read the meaninā€™ of the heavens, in the moon and stars reflected there.

I donā€™t know as she remembered ā€™em, and Josiah donā€™t. But I know as we stood there, a lookinā€™ down on her, the lake seemed to give a sort of a sithe and a shiver kind a run over her, not a cold shiver exactly, but a sort of a shininā€™, glorified shiver. I see it a cominā€™ from way out on the lake and it swept and sort a shivered on clean to the shore and melted away there at our feet. Mebby it wuz a sort oā€™ sithe, and mebby agin it wuznā€™t.

I guess it felt that it wuz all right, that a fairer race had brought fairer customs and habits of thoughts, and the change wuz not a bad one. I guess she looked forward to the time when a still grander race should look down into her shininā€™ face, a race of free men, and free wimmen; sons and daughters of God, who should hold their birthright so grandly and nobly that they will look back upon the people of to-day, as we look back upon the dark sons and daughters of the forest, in pity and dolor.

I guess she thought it wuz all right. Any way she acted as if she did. She looked real sort oā€™ serene and calm as we left her, and sort oā€™ prophetic too, and glowinā€™.

Wall, we went by a long first rate lookinā€™ sort of a tarven, I guess. It wuz a kind of a dark red color, and dretfully flowered off in wood - red wood. And there we see standinā€™ near the house, a great big round sort of a buildinā€™, and my Josiah sez,

ā€œThere! that is a buildinā€™ I like the looks on. That is a barn I like; built perfectly round. That is sunthinā€™ uneek. Iā€™ll have a barn like that if I live. I fairly love that barn.ā€ And he stopped the horse stun still to look at it.

And I sez in sort oā€™ cool tones, not entirely cold, but coolish: ā€œWhat under the sun do you want with a round barn? And you donā€™t need another one.ā€

ā€œWall, I donā€™t exactly need it, Samantha, but it would be a comfert to me to own one. I should dearly love a round barn.ā€

And he went on pensively, - ā€œI wonder how much it would cost. I wouldnā€™t have it quite so big as this is. Iā€™d have it for a horse barn, Samantha. It would look so fashionable, and genteel. Think what it would be, Samantha, to keep our old mair in a round barn, why the mair would renew her age.ā€

ā€œShe wouldnā€™t pay no attention to it,ā€ sez I. ā€œShe knows too much.ā€ And I added in cooler, more dignifieder tones, but dretful meaninā€™ ones, ā€œThe old mair, Josiah Allen, donā€™t run after every new fancy she hears on. She donā€™t try to be fashionable, and she haint high-headed, except,ā€ sez I, reasenably, ā€œwhen you check her up too much.ā€

ā€œWall,ā€ sez he, ā€œI am bound to make some enquiries. Hello!ā€ says he to a bystander a cominā€™ by. ā€œHave you any idee what such a barn as that would cost? A little smaller one, I donā€™t need so big a one. How many feet of lumber do you sā€™pose it would take for it? I ask you,ā€ sez he, ā€œas between man and man.ā€

I nudged him there, for as I have said, I didnā€™t believe then, and I donā€™t believe now, that he or any other man ever knew or mistrusted what they meant by that term ā€œas between man and man.ā€ I think it sounds kind oā€™ flat, and I always oppose Josiahā€™s usinā€™ it; he loves it.

Wall, the man broke out aā€™ laughinā€™ and sez he, ā€œThat haint a barn, that is a tree.ā€

ā€œA tree!ā€ sez I, a sort oā€™ craninā€™ my neck forward in deep amaze. And what exclamation Josiah Allen made, I will not be coaxed into revealinā€™; no, it is better not.

But suffice it to say that after a long explanation my companion at last gin in that the man wuz a tellinā€™ the truth, and it wuz the lower part of a tree-trunk, that growed once near the Yo Semity valley of California. Good land! good land!

Josiah drove on quick after the man explained it, he felt meachinā€™, but I didnā€™t notice his linement so much, I wuz so deep in thought, and a wonderinā€™ about it; a wonderinā€™ how the old tree felt with her feet a restinā€™ here on strange soil - her withered, dry old feet a standinā€™ here, as if jest ready to walk away restless like and feverish, a wantinā€™ to get back by the rushinā€™ river that used to bathe them feet in the spring overflow of the pure cold mountain water. It seemed to me she felt she was a alien, as if she missed her strong sturdy grand old body, her lofty head that used to peer up over the mountains, and as if some day she wuz a goinā€™ to set off a walkinā€™ back, a tryinā€™ to find ā€™em.

I thought of how it had towered up, how the sun had kissed its branches, how the birds had sung and built their nests against her green heart, hovered in her great, outstretched arms. The birds of a century, the birds of a thousand years. How the storms had beat upon her; the first autumn rains of a thousand years, the first snow-flakes that had wavered down in a slantinā€™ line and touched the tips of her outstretched fingers, and then had drifted about her till her heart wuz almost frozen and she would clap her cold hands together to warm ā€™em, and wail out a dretful moaninā€™ sound of desolation, and pain.

But the first warm rain drops of Spring would come, the sunshine warmed her, she swung out her grand arms in triumph agin, and joined the majestic psalm of victory and rejoicing with all her grand sisterhood of psalmists. The stars looked down on her, the sun lit her lofty forward, the suns and stars of a thousand years. Strange animals, that mebby we donā€™t know anything about now, roamed about her feet, birds of a different plumage and song sung to her (mebby).

Strange faces of men and women looked up to her. What faces had looked up to her in sorrow and in joy? Iā€™d gin a good deal to know. Iā€™d have loved to see them strange faces touched with strange pains and hopes. Tribulations and joys of a thousand years ago. What sort of tribulations wuz they, and what sort of joys? Sunthinā€™ human, sunthinā€™ that we hold in common, no doubt. The same pain that pained Eve as she walked down out of Eden, the same joy that Adam enjoyed while they and the garden wuz prosperus, wuz in their faces most probable whether their forwards wuz pinted or broad, their faces black, copper colored or white.

And the changes, the changes of a thousand years, all these the old tree had seen, and I respected her dry dusty old feet and wuz sorry for ā€™em. And I reveryed on the subject moreā€™n half the way home, and couldnā€™t help it. Anyway my revery lasted till jest before we got to the big gate of the Race Course.

And right there, right in front of them big ornamental doors, we see Miss G. Washington Flamm, with about a thousand other carriages and wagons and Tally hoā€™s and etcetry, and etcetry. Josiah thinks there wuz a million teams, but I donā€™t. I am mejum; there wuznā€™t probable over a thousand right there in the road.

Miss Flamm recognized us and asked us if we didnā€™t want to go in. Wall, Josiah wuz agreeable to the idee and said so. And then she said sunthinā€™ to the man that tended to the gate, probably sunthinā€™ in our praise, and handed him sunthinā€™, it might have been a ten cent piece, for all I know.

But anyway he wuz dretful polite to us, and let us through. And my land! if it wuznā€™t a sight to behold! Of all the big roomy places I ever see all filled with vehicles of all shapes and sizes and folks on foot and big high platforms, all filled with men and wimmen and children! And Josiah sez to me, ā€œI thought the hull dumb world wuz there outside in the road, and here there is ten times as many in here.ā€

And I sez, ā€œYes, Josiah, be careful and not lose me, for I

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