me what it all meant, to not take the law into his own hands."

I poured out words like a flood, I wuz inkoherent in the extreme, and my
words wuz vain.

But Josiah Allen--oh, how that man loves me! He darted back, throwed a
paper at my feet, and hollered--

"That will explain, Samantha!" And then he wuz gone; I see 'em divide
into four parties, and go towards the woods, and towards the hills, and
towards the creek, and towards the beaver medder, each party havin' a
rope, and I sez solemn like, before I thought--

"May God have mercy on your poor soul!"

I spoze I meant the one they wuz after, and mebby I meant them that wuz
after him, I don't know; I wuz too inkoherent and wrought up to know
what I did mean.

But I know I sot down and read that paper as quick as I could find my
specks. And I well remember that after huntin' high and low for 'em and
all over the house with tremblin' knees and shaky hands cold as a
frog's, I found 'em on my own fore-top, and I sot right down in my
tracts and read.

Well, it wuz enough to melt the heart of a stun, a granit stun, and as I
sot there and read, the tears jest run down my face in a stream; why,
they fell so that they wet the front of my gingham dress wet as sop, and
ontirely onbeknown to me.