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38 Well, it warn't no easy matter to keep on saying No, An' disapp'intin' every one. Poor Rube he fretted so, When I told him the name I'd chosen, that he fairly made me cry. For I'd planned to name the darlin' Augustus Percival Guy. Ah! that was a name worth hearin', so 'ristocratic an' grand! He might 'a' held up his head then with the proudest in the land. But now—Well, 'tisn't no wonder, when I look at that blessed child, An' think of the name he's come to, that I can't be reconciled.

At last I coaxed up Reuben, an' a Sabbath mornin' came When I took my boy to meetin' to git his Christian name. Jest as proud as a peacock I stood a-waitin' there; I couldn't hardly listen to the readin' nor the prayer, For of half a dozen babies, mine was the finest of all; An' they had sech common names too! But pride must have a fall.

"What will ye call him?" says Parson Brown, bendin' his head, to hear. Then I handed a bit of paper up, with the names writ full an' clear. But Uncle Si, 'stead of passin' it, jest reads it over slow, With sech a wond'rin', puzzled face, as ef he didn't know. The child was beginnin' to fidget, an' Rube was gittin' red, So I kinder scowled at Uncle Si, and then I shook my head. "The name?" says Parson Brown agin; "I'm 'feared I haven't caught it." "Jee—hoshaphat!" says Uncle Si, out loud, before he thought it.

The parson—he's near-sighted—he couldn't understand, Though I p'inted to the paper in Uncle Silas' hand. But that word did the business ; an' before I got my breath That boy was named Jehoshaphat. I felt a' most like death. I couldn't keep from cry in' as I hurried down the aisle, An' I fairly hated Widder Green when I see her kinder smile. I've never, never called him by that name, an' never will, An' I can't forgive old Parson Brown, though I bear him no ill-will. E. T. Corbett, in Harper's.