To THOSE WHO HAVE NO ONE TO SPEAK FOR THEM; TO THOSE WHO ARE IN BONDS (ANY KIND OF BONDS,) TO Those whose Hearts Ache, through Injustice and Oppression; TO THOSE WHOSE SAD EYES LOOK THROUGH TEARS FOR THE DAWNING OF A BRIGHTER, CLEARER DAY, _THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED, AND ALSO INSCRIBED_, BY THEIR SINCERE FRIEND AND WELL-WISHER,
MY REASONS TO THE KIND AND ALMOST GENTLE READER WHY I DON’T HAVE NO PREFACE TO THIS BOOK.
My companion, Josiah, knew that my book was all finished and completed, and so one lovely day about half past four, P. M. in the afternoon, when he see me walk with a firm and even step up to the mantletry piece and take down my bottle of ink and my steel mounted pen, he says to me:
“What are you goin’ to writin’ on _now_, Samantha?”
Says I mildly, “I thought I’d lay to and write a preface to my book, Josiah. I thought I’d tell ’em that I had wrote it all down about you and I goin’ on a tower to Filadelfy village to see the Sentinel.”
“I guess after you have wrote it all out in black ink in a book, about our goin’ to the Sentimental, folks that read it will find out we have been there, without your writin’ a preface to _tell_ ’em of it. They will unless they are dumb fools.”
He snapped out _awful_ snappish. I couldn’t think what ailed him, and says I firmly:
“Stop swearin’ instantly and to _once_, Josiah Allen!” And I added again in mild axents: “I guess I’ll lay to and write my preface, Josiah; you know there has got to be one.”
Oh! how fractious and sharp that “why” was. I never see a sharper, more worrysome “why” in my hull life than that “why” was. But I kep’ cool, and says I in calm tones:
“Because there _has_; Folks _always_ have prefaces, Josiah.”
“What _makes_ ’em have ’em? there’s the dumb of it. What _makes_ ’em?”
Says I mekanically,—for a stiddy follerin’ of duty has made reprovin’ my pardner in times of need, a second or third nature to me—“stop swearin’ to _once_, Josiah Allen! They have prefaces, Josiah, because”—again I paused half a moment in deep thought—“they have ’em, because they _do_ have ’em, that’s why.”
But even this plain and almost lucid statement didn’t seem to satisfy him, and he kep’ a arguin’ and sayin’,—“I’d be hanged if _I’d_ have ’em,” and so on and so 4th. And I argued back again. Says I: