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In the old Jonesville meetin'-house now, when Elder Minkley is a-preachin' on Jonah and you know he trots him out a dozen times a year as a warnin' how you and I could lift up our heads and tost 'em, and how the necks of the Jonesvillians would be craned round to look at us we two, who had rid out in a whale we had been right there, and knew how it wuz."
Elder Minkley's face began to look red red as blood and sez he, "You present the subject in a way I never thought on before, Sister Arvilly. I will think of it; I will pray over it." "Will you vote as you pray?" sez Arvilly anxiously. "I will!" sez Elder Minkley, solemnly, "I will!" Arvilly come forward and took holt of his hand.
One Sunday, Elder Minkley preached an eloquent sermon describing the glories of the New Jerusalem, and Josiah said goin' home that from Serenus' tell, the elder had gin a crackin' good description of Coney Island. I groaned aloud. And he sez, "You may groan and sithe all you're a minter; I shall see that magnificent place before I die." "Well," sez I coldly, "I don't want to talk about it Sunday.
Jest about this time, Whitfield Minkley, our Tirzah Ann's husband, got jest as much carried away and enthused over some other Islands, though he had more to show for his het up state of mind. One thousand and seventy wuz the number of islands he fell voylently in love with and tried to make us the same.
"Wall," sez I, "that is a good reason why I should keep on with it; the girls can help me if I don't get it off before they get here." And then he sez, "Miss Minkley is a-comin', too, and the Elder." "Why'ee," sez I, "Josiah Allen, why didn't you tell me before, so I could have baked up somethin' nice? What a man you are to keep things; how long have you known it?" "Oh, a week or so!"
But Sister Minkley; sister in the church and sister-in-law by reason of Wbitefield, sez to me, that she should think I would think twice before I danced and waltzed round waltzes. And I sez, "I haint thought of doin' it, I haint thought of dancin' round or square or any other shape." Sez she, "You have got to, if you go to Saratoga." Sez I, "Not while life remains in this frame."
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."
A hull load of 'em. And old Miss Minkley, she wuz acquainted with the visitor's mother, used to go to school with her. And Drusilly Sypher, she wuz the visitor from the West's bosom friend, or used to be. Wall, they had all come down to spend the afternoon and visit with each other, and with me and Josiah, and stay to supper.
She come to our house one day, and Elder Minkley, good old soul, come in just after she did for a all-day's visit, poor creeter! I guess he wuz sorry enough he come, some of the time; I guess he wished he wuz back in his study perusin' the book of martyrs or anything else deprestin', and would have thought 'em fur livelier than what he got into.
Elder Minkley looked too dazed and agitated to speak, and Arvilly continued: "Do you pretend to say, Elder Minkley, that there is an evil law on the face of the earth that the Church of Christ couldn't overthrow if it chose to do so?" He sez, "The power of the Church is great, Sister Arvilly, but no-license laws don't stop drinking; liquor is sold somehow; folks that want it will get it."
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