The wimmen all blamed Tryphenia more or less.

The men mostly approved of savin' the sugar.
But good land! how I am eppisodin', and to resoom and go on.
As I say, it wuz jest after this that Uncle Ezra's folks moved up to Maine, Christopher Columbus bein' still onborn for years and years.
But bein' born in due time, or ruther as I may say out of due time, for Uncle Ezra and Aunt Tryphenia had been married over twenty years before they had a child, and then they branched out and had two, and then stopped-- But bein' born at last and growin' up to be a good-lookin' young man and well-to-do in the world, he come out to Jonesville on business and also to foller up the ties of relationship that wuz stretched out acrost hill and dale clear from Maine to Jonesville.
Strange ties, hain't they?
that are so little that they are invisible to the naked eye, or spectacles, or the keenest microscope, and yet are so strong and lastin' that the strongest sledge-hammer can't break 'em or even make a dent into 'em.
And old Time himself, that crumbles stun work and mountains, can't seem to make any impression on 'em.

Curious, hain't it?
But to leave moralizin' and to resoom, it was on Friday, P.M., that he arrove at our home.
I see a good-lookin' young chap a-comin' up the path from the front gate with my Josiah, and I hastily but firmly turned my apron the other side out--I had been windin' some blue yarn that day for some socks for my Josiah, and had colored it a little--it wuz a white apron--and then I waited middlin' serene till he come in with him.
And lo! and behold! Josiah introduced him as Christopher Columbus Allen, my own cousin on my own side, and also on hisen.
He wuz a very good-lookin' chap, some older than Thomas Jefferson, and I do declare if he didn't look some like him, which wouldn't be nothin' aginst the law, or aginst reason, bein' that they wuz related to each other.
I wuz glad enough to see him, and I inquired after the relations with considerable interest, and some affection (not such an awful sight, never havin' seen 'em much, but a little, jest about enough).
And then I learnt with some sadness that his father and mother had passed away not long before that, and that his sister Isabelle wuz not over well.
And there wuz another coincerdence that struck aginst me almost hard enough to knock me down.
Isabelle! jest think on't, when my mind wuz on a perfect strain about Isabelle Casteel.
Columbus and Isabelle!--the idee! Why, my reason almost tottered on its throne under my recent best head-dress, when I hearn him speak the name.

Christopher Columbus a tellin' me about Isabelle-- I declare I wuz that wrought up that I expected every minute to hear him tell me somethin' about Ferdinand; but I do believe that I should have broke down under that.
But it wuz all explained out to me afterwards by another relation that come onto us onexpected shortly afterwards.
It seemed that Uncle Ezra and Aunt Tryphenia, after they went to Maine, moved into a sort of a new place, where it wuz dretful lonesome.
They lost every book they had, owin' to a axident on their journey, and the only book their nighest neighbor had wuz the life of Queen Isabelle.
[Illustration: They lost every book they had, owin' to a axident on their journey.] And so Aunt Tryphenia for years wuz, as you may say, jest saturated with that book.

And she named her two children, born durin' that time of saturation, Christopher Columbus and Isabelle.