And one mornin’ Josiah asked me before breakfast, jest as cool as if he wuz proposin’ a glass of lemonade with ice in it, if I didn’t want to go to Jerusalem that mornin’.

Jerusalem!  City of our Lord!  Oh, my soul, think on’t!  As he said the words I looked at him and then some distance through him and beyond, and entirely onbeknown to myself I begun to hum over that old him: 

“Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest,
Beneath thy contemplation sink heart and soul oppressed. 
We know not, oh, we know not what joys await us there.”

And Josiah broke in and sung the last line with me (or what he called singin’).

“What radiancy of glory, what bliss beyond compare.”

But I knowed that singin’ that time of day would be apt to draw attention, specially as Josiah’s singin’ wuz very base and my sulferino hain’t what it wuz, and I hastened to say: 

“Yes, Josiah, I want to go.”

Breakfast wuz kinder late that mornin’, and little Dorothy come into my room, she slep’ jest acrost from us, and she begun to tell me to once about a meetin’ she’d been to the night before with Aunt Pheeny.  And to make talk with her I asked her what the text wuz, and she sez: 

“Jesus the quilt.”

Josiah wuz horrified, and it did sound bad, and he begun to reprimand her sharp, but I sez: 

“Tell me all about it, Dotie.”

And come to find out, it wuz “Jesus the Comforter,” and her little bedspread wuz sometimes called a quilt and sometimes a comforter.  And I told Josiah how necessary it wuz not to condemn children before searching into their motives.  But Dotie wuz evidently thinkin’ about the sermon she had hearn so lately, and she went on to ask, “Was Jesus a Jew?”

And I sez, “Yes, dear.”

“Why,” sez she, “I always thought Dod wuz a Presbyterium.”

That wuz her Aunty Huff’s persuasion, which she nachully thought couldn’t be improved on.

Dotie had a little straw hat on that time o’ day and I asked her what it wuz for, and she sez, “Oh, I carry my papers in it, I’m writin’ a book.”

Grandpa Huff always carried papers in his hat, and she copied him.  I asked her what her book wuz about, and how she wuz gittin’ on with it and she said: 

“It wuz about a lady, a buggler and a ghost, and I’ve killed ’em all and that’s as fur as I’ve got.”

Killin’ a ghost! a burglar and a heroine, I thought what a noble start for a sensational novel.

But the breakfast bell rung jest then, and I took the little warm hand in mine and led her down to breakfast.

Well, after breakfast Josiah and I sot out in good season for Jerusalem.

Molly wanted to go to the British Building to see a school friend of hern that she thought might be there, and Blandina offered to accompany her.  They wuz goin’ to stop at a number of places on the way, and we agreed to meet at noon sharp at the English Building.