For it did seem as if his deep ambitions dammed up for a time by furnaces and Jabezeses, had broke loose into a wider, deeper current than ever.

He talked incessantly about it day and night, laid on his plans, and reached out onto new ones.
The children sez to me agin: "Mother, it must be stopped at all hazards!" And agin I wep', and sez to 'em: "How can it be stopped ?" Tirzah Ann looked completely squelched and could do nothin' only weakly ask: "If I spozed I could git him to play on a accordeon, she kinder thought that some time she'd hearn of some man, somewhere havin' his mind soothed by one." "Accordeon!" sez I."You couldn't git his mind offen that plan if you gin him one of the golden harps we read about." Tirzah Ann subsided, only sayin': "We would all be the town's talk, and it would probable kill her with mortification." Thomas J.sot still with his brow knit in deep thought and sez "I will try one thing more." I never knew exactly how Thomas J.worked it, or what he paid 'em, but I know that a day or two after, the prices them livin' statutes asked Josiah for bein' whitewashed, wuz sunthin' perfectly exorbitant, and so with the Powers and the Peaceful Inventors.

He never could stood it with his closeness.
Thomas J.didn't appear outwardly, but wuz the power behind the thrones, so I spoze.

When Josiah wuz taxed with these fearful expenses (they writ it in letters to him) his plan tottled ready to fall.

And of course I stood ready and follered it up with eloquent arguments, tenderness and the very best of vittles.