The Grinder Papers — page 161: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

156 THE GRINDER PAPERS. “‘Qh, certainly,” sezshe. ‘‘I suppose you'll find suthin’ tu amuse you?” | ‘“Thank ye,” sez I, ‘‘I shall.” And I meant tu. The hull o’ ’em went, gal and all, Mr. and Miss Peeler, tu the Baptists’ meetin’, and the old ladies to a pecooliar kind o' a meetin’ ‘us, where they don’t approve o’ one person preachin’, but all speak in turns, : So the house was shut up with only me and the cat, and I begun tu look intu things. Purty soon I found what I wanted. There was a bottle in Partheny’s closet, and in the bottle there was whisky. I felt awful faint that night, sod made myself a glass and went tu bed—tickled tu think how I’d found out the old critter. Arter that, whenever I felt faint, and knowd Partheny was out o the way, I nat’rally helped myself. ) About a week from then it blew up awful cold, and I caught a influenzy. There ain’t nuthin’ fur the influenzy like toddy; so, while the family was down stairs at tea-time, I made some kind oan ex- cuse and got away. T'was quite dark, and there warn't no glass in my room, but I found one, half full o’ water, in Miss Miran- dy’s, and jest managed to get a drop o’ spirits out o’ Partheny’s bottle and back to my own room before I heard the old ladies comin’ up. Seein’ I had a cold, I mixed more’n usual and swallered it down. Land o’ Goshen, how skeered I was! There was suth-