V.
It was high noon at Jefferson, and Ben Wade brought his fist down upon the cover of the volume of Blackstone he had closed, as he arose to go to dinner, and ejaculated, “Who the d—l is that, Gid?”
The pleasant, bland countenanced gentleman to whom these words were addressed looked up, and there in front of the little office bearing the unpretentious sign,
“GIDDINGS & WADE,
ATTORNEYS AT LAW.”
were two plump, rosy-cheeked girls, each engaged in hitching a horse.
“Zounds, Ben, you ought to know your Trumbull county friends. It hasn’t been so long since you taught school at the Center of Hartfort that you should have forgotten the Bushnells and the Plumbs.”
“The h—ll! I wonder if those two lasses can be the little Mollies I used to enjoy so much.”
“They are the Miss Bushnell and Miss Plumb I met at Sutliff’s a few days ago, though I do not know their names.”
The two attorneys, as yet unknown to fame, attended, without fees, to the consultation of the young ladies, treated them and theirs to the best fare of him who was afterwards well known in Railroad circles as “Anno Mundi,” and then sent them forward with a kind letter of introduction to “Doctor” Henry Harris, the most likely man to greet them.