Josiah looked worried and sez, “Well, mebby there has been too much said about it, mebby it would be jest as well to leave pedestals to statters.”

And I sez, “It is as well agin.  Wimmen couldn’t stand it with all they have to do.”

And so we ended by bein’ real congenial in our two minds and thinkin’ considerable alike, which is indeed a comfort to pardners.  And we read our chapter in the Bible and had family prayers jest as we do to home.  For I would not leave off all the good old habits of my life because my body wuz moved round a little.  And we had a good night’s rest and sot out in good season the next mornin’ for the Exposition.

The next mornin’ grandpa Huff said to the breakfast table that he did wish he had someone to read to him that day, everybody wuz goin’ to the Fair and he wuz goin’ to be left alone.  So Blandina, clever creeter that she is, said she would stay and read to him from his favorite volume, Foxe’s Book of Martyr’s, and also from Lamentations and Job.  Billy said his grandpa wuz never happy only when he wuz perfectly miserable.  We have all seen such folks.

So Josiah and I sot off alone, and he bein’ in good sperits and bein’ gin to new and strange projects, proposed that we should take an ortomobile.  I didn’t favor the idee and said: 

“Id’no about it, Josiah, I feel kinder skairful about ortos, I fear that it might prove our last ride.”

“But,” sez he, “with a good shuffler there hain’t any danger.”

But I still wuz dubersome and sez, “Mebby it would end by our shufflin’ off our mortal coils, as Mr. Shakespeare tells on.”

“You don’t wear ’em, Samantha, nor never did, nor I don’t wear a pompodoor” (he meant this for a joke for his head is most as bare as a sass plate).

And he went on, “It would be a very stylish and genteel ride.  I’d love to tell brother Gowdey about it.  The bretheren will expect it of me as a live progressive Jonesvillian minglin’ here with the noblest in the land to cut sunthin’ of a dash.”

But seein’ that I still looked dubersome he sez, “I don’t feel very rugged this mornin’ and I dread the crowded car; Id’no but I should faint away in ’em if I sot out.”

That of course settled the matter.  As his anxious chaperone I consented to the project and he went and got the showiest one he could find.  He didn’t look for character or stability, only for gildin’ and red paint.  And we embarked, Josiah with a proud liniment, as if he wuz introducin’ me into gay life and fashionable amusements.  The man wuz to take us to the Fair ground for so much, and Josiah feelin’ so neat had paid him in advance, and there wuz another party waitin’ for him.  And the speed that shuffler put on wuz sunthin’ awful.

The first few minutes before we got to goin’ that terrific speed Josiah liked it, and seemed to look patronizin’ly down on the people walkin’ afoot that we passed by and pity ’em.  But anon the man got to goin’ faster and faster and Josiah’s liniment underwent a change and he hollered out to me, for the noise wuz so loud and skairful he had to yell: