"Give me beauty and economy hitched together in one team."

[Illustration: "What food for hens that would make."]

I sithed, and the sithe wuz deep, almost like a groan, and sez I--

"You tire me, Josiah Allen--you tire me almost to death."

"Wall," sez he, "I'm talkin' good horse sense."

Sez I, "I should think it wuz animal sense of some kind--nothin'
spiritual about it and riz up."

"Wall," sez he, "you'll see five hundred folks a-standin' round and
praisin' up them seed picters where there is one that gits carried away
as you do over Wattses 'Love and Death' and Elihu Vedder's dum picters."

"Wall," sez I, in a tired-out axent, "that don't prove anything, Josiah
Allen. The multitude chose Barrabus to the Divine One.

"Not," sez I reasonably, "that I would want to compare the seed picters
and the butter females to a robber.

"They're extremely curious and interestin' to look at, and wonderful in
their way as anything in the hull Exposition.

"But," sez I, "there is a height and a depth in the soul that them
butter figgers can't touch--no, nor the pop-corn trees can't reach that
height with their sorghum branches. It lays fur beyond the switchin'