Transcriber’s Note
Archaic and variable spelling, as well as inconsistency in hyphenation, has been preserved as printed in the original book.
“Oh, Josiah,” sez I, “what a sight!”––Frontispiece. Page 125.
AROUND THE WORLD
WITH
JOSIAH ALLEN’S WIFE
BY
MARIETTA HOLLEY
Author of “Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition,” “My Opinion and Betsey Bobbets’,”
“Samantha at Saratoga,” “Samantha at the World’s Fair,” Etc.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
H. M. PETTIT
G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Copyright, 1899, 1900 and 1905, by
Marietta Holley.
Entered at Stationers’ Hall,
London, England.
(Issued September, 1905.)
Around the World with
Josiah Allen’s Wife.
J. J. Little & Ives Co.
New York
AROUND THE WORLD WITH
JOSIAH ALLEN’S WIFE
Our son, Thomas Jefferson, and his wife, Maggie,have been wadin’ through a sea of trouble.He down with inflamatory rumatiz so a moveor jar of any kind, a fly walkin’ over the bedclothes,would most drive him crazy; and shewith nervious prostration, brought on I spoze by nussin’ herpardner and her youngest boy, Thomas Josiah (called Tommy),through the measles, that had left him that spindlin’and weak-lunged that the doctor said the only thing thatcould tone up his system and heal his lungs and save hislife would be a long sea voyage. He had got to be gotaway from the cold fall blasts of Jonesville to once. Oh!how I felt when I heard that ultimatum and realized hisdanger, for Tommy wuz one of my favorites. Grandparentsort not to have favorites, but I spoze they will as longas the world turns on its old axletrys.
He looks as Thomas J. did when he wuz his age andI married his pa and took the child to my heart, and gothis image printed there so it won’t never rub off throughtime or eternity. Tommy is like his pa and he hain’t likehim; he has his pa’s old ways of truthfulness and honesty,and deep––why good land! there hain’t no tellin’ how deepthat child is. He has got big gray-blue eyes, with long darklashes that kinder veil his eyes when he’s thinkin’; his hair10is kinder dark, too, about the color his pa’s wuz, and wavesand crinkles some, and in the crinkles it seems as if therewuz some gold wove into the brown. He has got a sweetmouth, and one that knows how to stay shet too; he hain’tmuch of a talker, only to hims