Anyway, when she come home from school she come dressed in gay colors.  She had on a yeller woosted dress with sky-blue trimmin’s, a pink hat, a lilock veil, and a bunch of flowers in her bosom—­too many colors to look well, but she did it to break her yoke.

This kinder stunted the mother, so she wuz easier to handle, bein’ kinder dazed.

So they took her off to a Christian Science meetin’, and got her converted the first thing.

This broke her chain, for they don’t believe in mournin’ as one without hope, and they believe in wanderin’ round and seein’ the beautiful world all you can, and takin’ some comfort while you are in it.

So while the zeal of the convert wuz on her, and she didn’t feel like disputin’, the girls made her some red dresses, and some yeller ones, and had some white streamers put onto a white bunnet she had.  And they bought themselves the most gorgeous and gay clothin’ Jonesville and Loontown afforded.  Oren is well off, and he wouldn’t stent ’em in such a cause as this—­no, indeed!

And Oren bought some bright, gay-lookin’ suits, and some brilliant neckties—­pale blue silk, with red polka dots on ’em, and some otter-colored ones.

He had on the day we met him a bright plaid suit and a red necktie spangled with yeller, hangin’ out kinder loose in front.

And Oren bought a three-seated carriage, and they jest scoured the hull country—­went to all the parties they could hear on, and the fairs, and camp-meetin’s, and such.  They wuz on the go the hull time; and Lateza Alzina got to likin’ it as much as Oren did.

I don’t spoze they wuz to home hardly enough to eat their meals whilst they wuz in Jonesville; they had a good hired girl, so they wuz free to wander all they wuz a mind to.

This summer Lateza Alzina told me that they had been up to the upper end of Canada and British America on a tower, and come home round by Lake Champlain, and Lake George, and Saratoga; they’d stayed there three weeks, and then they went home and hurried and got ready for the Fair.  They come the first day it wuz opened in the mornin’, and laid out to go home the last day of the Fair along in the night, so Oren said.

They all looked real happy, but some fagged out from seein’ so much.

I’m dretful afraid that the pendulum, havin’ swung too fur on one side, is a-goin’ too fur on the other; it is nater.

But mebby they’ll settle down and be more megum when the pendulum gits kinder settled down some, and its vibration ceases to be so vibratin’.

Anyway, I’m glad to see ’em a-steppin’ out of their weeds, and I told ’em so.

Sez I, “You wuz in mournin’ a awful while, wuzn’t you?”

Oren fairly gritted his teeth, and before Lateza Alzina could speak, he busted out—­

“By Vum!  I’ve mourned all I’m a-goin’ to!  I’ve staid penned up in the house all I’m a-goin’ to!

“I’ve quit it, by Vum!  First my stepfather passed away.  I never liked him—­he always imposed on me; but we all went into deep mournin’, staid out of society—­jest shet ourselves up in a black jail for years.