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Josiah wuz dretful took with the sights of shops on either side of the narrow streets of old Cairo and all sorts of trades bein' carried on there right out doors: goldsmiths and silversmiths makin' their jewelry right there before you, and Josiah sez: "I lay out to have a shop rigged out doors to hum and make brooms and feather dusters; and why don't you, Samantha; how uneek it would be for you to have your sewin'-machine or your quiltin'-frames in the corner of the fence between us and old Bobbett's, and have a bedquilt or a crazy blanket draped behind you on the fence.
Josiah said that he should see Uncle Sime Bentley and Deacon Henzy about naming over the Jonesville streets the minute he got home. Sez he, "How uneek it will be to trot along through Josiah's Never Ending Success, or Prosperous Interesting Josiah, or the Glorious Pathmaster, or the Divine Travellin' Deacon, or sunthin' else uneek and well meanin'."
Though," sez Josiah, dreamily, "I don't know but I shall try that in Jonesville; I may on my return from my travels walk up to Elder Minkley and the bretheren in the meetin'-house, and pass the compliments with 'em and clasp my own hands and shake 'em quite a spell, not touchin' their hands. I may, but can't tell for certain; it would be real uneek to do it."
Well, Whitfield of course couldn't wait another minute, without seein' Shadow Island, so the next day we went over there right after dinner. Josiah proposed enthusiastickly to fish on the way there. Sez he, "Samantha, how I do wish we could git a periouger to go in." "A what?" sez I. "A periouger," sez he, "that we could go fishin' in, a very uneek boat." "Uneek!" sez I, "I should think as much.
Sez I, "If you want to make me happy in corn, Josiah Allen, take it to the mill and grind it into samp or good fine meal. You and Ury can't bring happiness to me by paintin' me in corn, so dismiss the thought to once, for I will not be took." "Yes, break it up," sez he bitterly; "you always do, if I branch out into anything uneek." It wuz some time before I could quiet him down.
But," sez I, "you will never go into that undertakin' with my consent, Josiah Allen." "Why," sez he, "it would be a beautiful recreation; so uneek." But at that minute Miss Flamm gin the order to turn round and start for the Moon, or that is how I understood her, and I whispered to Josiah and sez, "She means to go in the buggy, for the land's sake!"
He snubbed Plato, too; didn't want anything, only his tub and his lantern and hunt round for a honest man, though I don't see how he got round in it. But Josiah sez the tub wuz on castors, and he had a idee of havin' our old washtub fixed up and go to Washington, D. C., in it with our old tin lantern, jest to be uneek and hunt round there for an honest man.
But to resoom: The evenin' we got there Josiah looked out of our winder and see a camel kneelin' to take on its load, and sez Josiah: "If I could train the old mair to kneel down in front of the Jonesville meetin' house for me to git onto her back, how uneek it would look." Sez I coldly, "Then you lay out to go to meetin' horseback, do you? And where should I be?"
In speakin' on this subject, Josiah said: "What a lot of saints they do have in these furren countries," and says he to me, soto vosy, "I'd kinder like, Samantha, to get that name; Saint Josiah would sound well and uneek in Jonesville." But I scorfed at the idee, though knowin' that he wuz jest as worthy to be called saint as a good many who wuz called by that name.
Josiah whispered to me: "What a show it would make in Jonesville, Samantha, to see you and me in a gondola on the mill-dam, I with long, pale blue ribbins tied round my best beaver hat and you with Mother Allen's long, black lace veil that fell onto you, thrown graceful over your head, and both of us singin' 'Balermy' or 'Coronation. How uneek it would be!"
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