“I talked a good deal, bein’ so mad at the Nation for makin’ such dretful hard work partakin’ of a gnat, and then swallerin’ down Barnum’s hull circus, side-shows and all.

“Why didn’t the Nation shet up the saloons?” sez she, in bitter axents.  “Folks can have their doubts about Sunday openin’ bein’ wicked, but the Lord sez expressly that ‘no drunkard can inherit Heaven.’  The nation wuz so anxious to set patterns before the young—­why wuzn’t it afraid to turn human bein’s into fiends before ’em, liable to shoot down these dear young folks, or lead ’em into paths worse than death?

“And it wuz so anxious to show off well before foreign nations.  Wuz it any prettier sight to reel round before ’em, drunk as a fool, a-committin’ suicide, and rapinin’, and murder, and actin’?  I wuz so mad,” sez Arvilly, “that I felt ugly, and spoze I talked so.”

“Wall,” sez I, “they’ve acted dretful queer about Sunday openin’, take it from first to last.

“But,” sez I, reasonably, “takin’ such a dretful big thing onto their hands to manage would be apt to make folks act queer.

“I spoze,” sez I, fallin’ a little ways into oritory—­“I spoze that if Josiah and me had took a rinosterhorse to board durin’ the heated term, our actions would often be termed queer by our neighbors.  To begin with, it’s bein’ such new business to us, we shouldn’t know what to feed it, to agree with its immense stomach; we should, I dare presoom to say, try experiments with it before we got the hang of its feed, and peek through the barn doors dretful curious at it to see how it wuz a-actin’, and how its food wuz agreein’ with it.

“We shouldn’t dast to ride it to water, or holler at it, as if it wuz a calf; and if it should happen to break loose, Heaven knows what we should do with it!

“And I spoze every fence would be full of neighbors a-standin’ safe on their own solid premises, a-hollerin’ out to us what to do, and every one on ’em mad as hens if we didn’t foller their directions.

“Some on ’em hollerin’ to us to mount up on it and ride it back into the barn, when they knew that it would tear us to pieces if we went nigh it when it wuz mad.  And some on ’em orderin’ us to git rid of it.  And how could we dispose of a ragin’ rinosterhorse at a minute’s notice?  And some on ’em a-yellin’ at us to kill it.  How could we kill it, when the creeter didn’t belong to us?

“And some on ’em, not realizin’ that our rinosterhorse boardin’ wuz new business to us, and we wuz liable to make mistakes, standin’ up on the ruff of their own barns, safe and sound, a-readin’ the Bible to us and warnin’ us, and we tuggin’ away and swettin’ with this wild creeter on our hands, and tryin’ to do the best we could with it.

“And then, right on top of this, Jonesville might serve a injunction onto us, that we had no right to let such a dangerous creeter into the precincts of Jonesville; and then we, feelin’ kinder sorry, mebby, that we had ondertook the job, tried to git rid on’t; and the rinosterhorse owner serves another injunction on us, makin’ us keep it, sayin’ that he’d paid its board in advance, and that he wouldn’t take it back.