"Have I bent my bunnet much?"
And he sez, "Dum the bunnet!" And I didn't blame him a mite when I come to think it over. How sure it is that sudden reverses of fortune brings out the flower of love in full bloom! As I lay there kinder stunted I felt that I loved my companion and wuz well aware how he worshipped me.
I spoze my remark about the bunnet had took the edge off from his anxiety, and he felt that I wuz alive and considerable comfortable. And at that very minute the mair, bein' hit on the heel by the thill Josiah wuz liftin' up, kicked up both of the hind ones (heels) and sot off back to Jonesville, my pardner runnin' after her as he still had holt of the lines. As I said I laid there feelin' dretful curious, for I couldn't for my life git up, I spoze I wuz stunted by my fall.
But as I looked back the way we had come and beheld my pardner disappearin' round the bend of the road in the wake of the mair, I see comin' towards me from that direction a queer lookin' tall chap with long, small limbs and a high collor and cane, and, as he approached me, he stopped and looked down on me through a eyeglass that hung round his neck, in a queer way, though polite, and sez he:
"You got out sudden, you know."
"Yes, I know it," sez I faintly, "but if I had a little help I could git up agin."
But he didn't offer to help me. He looked at me through that eyeglass and sez he, holdin' tight to his cane and kinder jabbin' it into his mouth now and then:
"You fwightened me, you know; I pwespiah now from fwight."
