The least thing we could do or say that wuz not jest so would throw her into a fit—a nervous fit you know—she would have spazzums, and all sally away, and faint like, and act.

And then I would have to soothe her with catnip, and bring her up with mustard poultices, and apply a soap-stone to her.

Why, one night Josiah happened to throw he bootjack down kinder hard (he had a corn and hit it, bein’ the cause).

Wall, I stood over Melinda more’n two hours after that, three poultices bein’ applied in vain for relief, till arneky softened the blow to her.

And one night the slats came out of the hired man’s bed, jest acrost the hall from hern, and it took more’n a quart of catnip to make her hull agin.

And the cat fell through the suller winder—we have got a blind cat that acts like fury, always a fallin’ round and a prowlin’—wall, I thought Melinda Ann would never come to.

She thought it wuz Injuns; and the cat did scream awful, I’ll admit; it fell onto some tin ware piled up onto a table under the winder, and it skairt even the cat almost to death, so you can imagine the condition it throwed Melinda into. I thought it wuz ghosts, and so did Josiah, and felt riz up in my mind and full of or.

But I am a eppisodin’, and to resoom.

Wall, I guess Melinda Ann had been there about a week, and as well as I liked Aunt Melinda, and as well as I loved duty, I wuz a beginnin’ to feel perfectly beat out and fearfully run down in my mind and depressted, for fits is depresstin’, no matter how much duty and nobility of soul you may bring to bear onto ’em, or catnip.

Wall, I wuz a beginnin’ to look bad, and so wuz Josiah, although Josiah, though I am fur from approvin’ of his course, yet it is the truth that he seemed to find some relief in givin’ vent to his feelin’s out on one side, and blowin’ round and groanin’ out to the barn and in the woodhouse, more than I did, who took it calm, and considered it a dispensation from the first, and took it as such.

Wall, if you’ll believe it, right on the top of these sufferin’s come a letter from a relation of Josiah’s, a widowed man by the name of Peter Tweedle.

He wuz a distant relation of Josiah Allen—lived about two hundred miles away.

He writ that he wuz lonesome—he had lost his companion for the third time, and it wore on him. He felt that the country air would do him good. (We found out afterwards that he had rented his house sence his bereavement and had lived in a boarding-house, and had been warned out by the crazed landlady and the infuriated boarders, owing to reasons which will appear hereafter, and had to move on).

Wall, he wanted to come and visit round to our house first, and then to the other relations.

And I sez to myself, it is one of ’em on his side, and not one word will I say agin the idee, not if I fall down in my tracks.

And Josiah was so kinder beat out with Melinda, and depressted and wore out by havin’ to go round in his stockin’ feet so much and whisperin’, that he said, “That any change would be a agreeable one, and he should write for Peter to come.”

And I, buoyed up by my principle, never said a word agin the idee, only jest this:

“Think well on it, Josiah Allen, before you make the move.”

And sez Josiah, “It will be a comfort to make a move of any kind.”

He had been kep’ awful still, I’ll admit. But I couldn’t see how it wuz goin’ to make it any better to have another relation let in, on whomsoever’s side they wuz.

Howsomever, I see that Josiah wuz determined, and I felt a delicacy about interferin’, knowin’ well that I had one of the relations on my own side in the house. Who wuz I, I sez to myself—who be I, to set up agin hisen? No, I never will. So the letter of acceptance wuz writ, and in less than a week’s time Peter Tweedle come.

We spozed he would bring a satchel bag with him; mebby a big one, but—good land! Josiah had to go after his baggage with the Democrat wagon. We see he had come to stay; it wuzn’t a evenescent visit, but a long campane.

We didn’t know at the time that they wuz most all musical instruments; we thought they wuz clothes.

I see a black shadder come over my companion’s face as he shouldered the fifth trunk and took it up two flights of stairs into the attick.

He had filled the bedroom and hall.

Wall, I guess Peter Tweedle hadn’t been in the house over half an hour before he walked up to the organ and asked me if it wuz in good repair.

I sez, “I guess so.”

Sez he, “How many banks of reeds is in it?”

I sez, “I don’t know.”

Sez he, “Have you any objections to my tryin’ it?”

I sez, “No.”

Sez he, “Sence my last affliction I have turned my mind agin towards music, I find it soothes.” Sez he, “After my first bereavement I took up the pickelo—I still play on it at intervals; I learned that and the snare drum durin’ them dark hours,” sez he. “And I still play on ’em in lonesome moments. I have ’em both with me,” sez he.

“Durin’ my next affliction I learned the clarinet, the fife, and the base violin. Now,” sez he, “I am turnin’ my mind onto the brass horn in various keys. But I have brought all my instruments with me,” sez he, in a encouragin’ axent. “I frequently turn from one to another. When I get lonesome in the night,” sez he, “I frequently run from one to another till I have exhausted the capabilities of each, so to speak.”

I sithed and couldn’t help it, but I held firm on the outside, and he turned to the organ.

“I love the organ,” sez he; and with that he sot down on the music-stool, opened up all the loud bases, the double octave coupler, blowed hard, and bust out in song.

Wall, it all come jest as sudden onto Melinda as a thunder-clap out of a parlor ceilin’, or a tornado out of a teacup, it wuz as perfectly onexpected and onlooked for as they would be, and jest as skairful.

For this wuz one of her bad days, and bein’ a old maid, we thought mebby it would excite her too much to know a widower wuz in the house, so we had kep’ it from her.

And the first intimation she had of Peter’ses presence wuz this awful loud blast of sound.

His voice wuz loud in the extreme, and it wuz “Coronation” he bust out in.

He is pious, there hain’t a doubt on’t, but still “Coronation” is the loudest him in the him-book.

Wall, the very first time he blasted forth I knew jest as well as I knew afterwards what the result would be.

I hastened upstairs, and there she wuz, there sot Melinda Ann in a fit; she hadn’t had time to get onto the bed, and there she sot bolt upright in her rockin’ chair in a historical fit. We had better let her known he wuz there.

Wall, I histed her onto the bed as quick as I could, and hollered down the back stairs for catnip.

And as soon as I had brung her to a little, she would clench right into me, and groan and choke, and sort o’ froth to the mouth.

And I’ll be hanged if I didn’t feel like it myself, for right down under our feet I heard that loud, thunderin’ organ, for his legs wuz strong, and he blowed hard.

But yet so curius is human nater, specially wimmen’s human nater—right there in my agony I couldn’t help bein’ proud o’ that instrument. I had no idee, I said to myself, not a idee, that it had such a volume of sound.

But loud as it wuz, Peter’ses clarion voice rung out loud and high above it.

It wuz a fearful time, very. But even at that moment I sez to myself agin:

“He is a relation on his side—be calm!” and I wuz calm.