Under these strange and almost apaulin’ circumstances, is it any wonder that I stood stun still, and said, out of the very depths of my heart, the only words I could think of, that would any where nigh express my feelins, and they was “Good land!”
But as my senses begun to come back to me, my next thought was, as I looked round on every side of me, “Truly did my Josiah say, that I could see enough with one eye;” and jest then a band commenced playin’ the “Star Spangled Banner.” And hearin’ that soul stirrin’ music, and seein’ that very banner a wavin’ and floatin’ out, as if all the blue sky and rainbows sense Noah’s rainbow was cut up into its glorious stripes, with the hull stars of heaven a shinin’ on ’em,—why, as my faculties come back to me, a seein’ what I see—and hearin’ what I heerd, I thought of my 4 fathers, them 4 old fathers, whose weak hands had first unfurled that banner to the angry breeze, and thinks’es I, I would be willin’ to change places with them 4 old men right here on the spot, to let ’em see in the bright sunshine of 1876, what they done in the cloudy darkness of 1776.
I felt these feelin’s for I persume most a minute. But nobody—however strong principle may soar up in ’em—can be willin’ to die off when it haint a goin’ to be any particular benefit to anybody; they can’t feel so for any length of time, especially in such a strange and almost curious time as this was; souls may soar, but heart clings to heart—I thought of Josiah and without sayin’ a word to him, or askin’ his consent, I jest reached out my arm and locked arms with him for the first time in goin’ on thirteen years—not sense we had went to grandfather Smith’s funeral, and walked in the procession.
He begun to nestle round and wiggle his arm to make me leggo, but I hung on tight and never minded his worrysome actions, and finally he come out plain and says he:
“What is the use of lockin’ arms Samantha, it will make talk.”
Says I in a deep warnin’ voice, “Do you keep still, or you will be a lost Josiah.” Says I, firmly, “I think more of my pardner than I do of the speech of people, and if this endless host and countless multitude swallers us down, and we are never heard from again in Jonesville or the world, we will be swallered down together Josiah Allen,—a sweet thought to me.”