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“Now, gals,” says old Mister Brown, “Uncle Josh has just this very day been at his dirty work; by this time he has spread the news all over the town, that Miller’s wife has gone off with Yardstick’s clark. I don’t believe a word of his tale, and if Miller’s wife ain’t really gone off, Uncle Josh ought to be soused in the mill-race.”

Next morning Miller’s wife came home; she had been down to her sister’s, a few miles off, to see a sick child; her husband had been away at a law-suit, in a neighboring town, and so Miller nor his wife knew nothing of the report of her elopement with Bob Tape, until their return.

Miller was in a rage, but couldn’t find out the author of the report. Miller’s wife was deeply mortified that such a suspicion should arise of her; she had been making Bob Tape some new clothes to go to Boston in, and here was the gist of Bob and Miller’s wife’s intimacy! There was a great time about it–Miller swore like a trooper, and his wife nearly cried her eyes out.

A few evenings afterwards, it being cool, clear weather in October, Polly Higgins and Sally Smith called in to see Miller’s wife, and asked her to join them in a little party that some of the neighboring women had got up that evening, for a particular purpose. Miller’s wife not having much to do that evening, her husband said she might go out a spell if she chose, and she went, and soon learned the purport of the call–old Uncle Josh was to be ducked in the mill-race! and Miller’s wife, disguised as the rest, was to help do it. When she heard that old Josh had circulated the report of her elopement, Miller’s wife did not require much coaxing to join the watering committee.

It was so planned that all the women, some ten or twelve in number, were to put on men’s clothes and lay in wait for Uncle Josh at his lane gate, about a quarter of a mile from the mill-race. Old Josh always hung around the tavern, Heeltap’s shoe-shop, or the grocery, until 9 P. M., before he started for home, and the girls determined to rush out of a small thicket that stood close by old Josh’s lane gate, and throwing a large, stout sheet over him, wind him up, and then seizing him head, neck and heels, hurry him off to the mill-race, and duck him well.

Mind you, your country gals and women are not paint and powder, corset-laced and fragile creatures, like your delicate, more ornamental than useful young ladies of the city; no, no, the gals of Frogtown were real flesh and blood; Venuses and Dianas of solidity and substance; and it would have taken several better men than Uncle Josh to have got away from them. It was a cool, moon-shiny night, but to better favor the women, just as old Josh got near his gate, a large, black cloud obscured the moon, and all was as dark as a stack of black cats in a coal cellar. Miller’s wife acted as captain; dressed in Bob Tape’s old clothes he had left at her house to be repaired, she gave the word, and out they rushed.

“Seize him, boys!” said she, in a very loud whisper. Over went the sheet, down came old Josh, co-blim! Before he could say “lor’ a massy,” he was dragged to the mill-race, tied hand and foot, blindfolded, his coat taken off, and he was ca-soused into the cold water! Fury! how the old fellow begged for his life!

“O, lor’ a massy, don’t drown me boys! I–a, I–” ca-souse he went again.

“Give him another duck,” says one–and in he’d go again.

“Now, we’ll learn you to carry tales,” says another.

“And tell lies on me and Miller’s wife,” says Bob Tape–ca-souse he went.

“O, lor’ a mas–mas–e, do–do–don’t drown me, Bob; I’ll–I’ll promise never to–” in they put him again; the water was as cold as ice.

“Will you promise never to take or carry a story again?”

“I d–d–d– do promise, if–yo–yo–yo–you–don’t–duc–” and in he went again.

“Do you promise to mind your own business and let others alone, Uncle Josh?”

“Ye–ye–yes, I d– do, I–I–I’ll promise anything–bo–boys, only let me go,” says Uncle Josh.

“Well, boys,” says Polly Higgins, rousing, jolly critter she was, too, “I owe Uncle Josh one more dip: he lied about my gal, Polly Higgins, and–“

“O, ho, Seth Jones, that’s you, ain’t it?–Well–we–well, I said nothing about Polly; it was Heeltap said it, ‘deed it was.”

Then they let old Josh off, vowing they’d give Heeltap his gruel next night, and the moment Josh got clear of his sousers, he cut for home. Next day Heeltap cleared himself.–Uncle Josh soon found out that he had been ducked by the women, and, for his own peace, moved to Iowa, and Frogtown has been a happy place ever since.