“I think I should be allowed to pick out my own husband,” said Louisa, a sudden light coming into her eyes. “Where’s your hat, dad? I want that.”
“Here, take mine, or mine,” said half a dozen.
“No, no, I must have dad’s, his old hat; I want that,” persisted the girl.
“Let her have her way,” said burly Timothy Forbes, “they all hev their notions.”
“That they have,” spoke up old Jabez with a smirk. “Might as well give ’em their own gait till you want to drive ’em double.” Ira frowned, but Pike Smith laughed loudly.
It was several minutes before Louisa returned with the hat. “Now blindfold her, Hannah Maria,” shouted John, “and see that there is no chance of her peeping.”
“I’ll cut off the slips first,” said Louisa quietly. “See, here, if anybody wants to look let ’em do it.” The numbers dropped from her scissors one by one into the old hat. Louisa tossed them lightly about. “I’ll mix them well,” she said carelessly. “How many times shall I draw?”
“Let the fifth drawing be the one,” said Jabez officiously.
No one objected, therefore Louisa took her place in a big rough chair by the fireside. “Now you can blindfold me, Hannah Maria,” she said, “and I’ll throw my handkerchief over the hat, too, so every one may be sure that I am not peeping.”
Then fell upon the company a great silence, broken only by the uneasy stir of a heel on the bare floor, by the snapping of the fire, by a dry cough from Jabez Manypenny. Louisa drew from under the handkerchief the first number and held it up.