But Josiah wuz gittin’ worrisome and wanted to go, but I sez, “Josiah, I must see Solomon’s Temple.”

It wuz quite a few steps away, but I didn’t begrech the time or journey, and jest as we wuz goin’ up the steps, who should we meet comin’ out but Jane Olive Perkins (nay Gowdey) once a Jonesvillian, but now livin’ in Chicago, but visitin’ her old home and relation quite often.

She wuz dressed beautiful, her neck and bosom sparklin’ with diamonds.  I don’t approve of such dressin’ in the street, but Jane Olive wuz always showy.

She held out both hands in joyful greetin’ (the meanin’ of which I mistrusted afterwards).  We talked about the splendor of the Fair and our own two healths, and the Jonesvillians, and then she sez: 

“I am so delighted to meet you, Josiah Allen’s wife, for I know you will want to give to a noble cause I am workin’ for, you and dear Mr. Allen.  It is a cause that ort to be first in every feelin’ heart, and I knew you’d give liberal.”

I’d forgot my portmoney that mornin’ and didn’t want right there in Solomon’s Temple to dicker with Josiah for money, I knowed it would make him fraxious.  And I wuz havin’ such a lot of lofty emotions there at Jerusalem, I didn’t want to bring ’em down by havin’ words with my pardner.  And I knowed too that “dear Mr. Allen” would be apt to say hash things that would bring him down in Jane Olive’s estimation, he’s so clost and he never liked her to begin with.

So I said I couldn’t very well stop and tend to it right there in Solomon’s Temple, and she asked me for my address and told me she should come and see me.  She wuz stayin’ at a big tarven not so very fur from Miss Huff’s, and said she’d brought her orto and shuffler with her from Chicago.

Well, she bid us a tender adoo, sayin’ the last thing “owe Revwah,” or sunthin’ like that and Josiah sez to me: 

“Who’s she twittin’ us on?  I don’t owe nobody by that name, nor never did, not a cent, I’m a man that pays my debts.”

And I sez, “Dear Josiah, nobody that knows you can dispute it.”

Jane Olive kinder smiled and passed on, and I’dno but in Fancy I and the public may as well set down on the steps of Solomon’s Temple, and I’ll tell about who Jane Olive Perkins wuz.  She wuz Jane Olive Gowdey, and married Samuel Perkins, old Eliphilet Perkinses second boy, and folks thought she done mizable when she married him.  Sam hadn’t been put to work much bein’ sort o’ weakly so his folks thought, he looked kinder peaked.

But I spoze Sam enjoyed pretty good health all the time onbeknown to his folks and wuz kinder savin’ up his strength, layin’ it up as you may say for the time o’ need, so he had it all when he wuz married.  A master hand he wuz to save things and make ’em count.  For all he never did any work to speak on, he had more proppity laid up than any of the Perkins boys when he wuz married, he had saved so and sort o’ speculated and laid up.