Asaph Hall.
This hardly sounds like the epistle of a reluctant lover; and yet tradition says the young carpenter hesitated to marry; and for a brief season Angeline Stickney remembered tearfully that other McGrawville suitor who loved her well, but whose bashful love was too tardy to forestall the straightforward Mr. Hall. “The course of true love never did run smooth.” In this case, the trouble seems to have been the lady’s feeble health. When they were married she was very weak, and it looked as if she could not live more than two or three years. But her mental powers were exceptionally strong, and she remembered tenaciously for many a year the seeming wrong.
However, under date of April 2, 1856, Angeline wrote to her sister Mary, from Ann Arbor, Michigan:
Mr. Hall and I went to Elder Bright’s and staid over Sunday. We were married Monday morning, and started for this place in the afternoon. Mr. Hall came here for the purpose of pursuing his studies. We have just got nicely settled. Shall remain here during the summer term, and perhaps three or four years.
And so Asaph Hall studied astronomy under the famous Brünnow, and French under Fasquelle. And he used to carry his frail wife on his back across the fields to hunt wild flowers.
CHAPTER X.
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ANN ARBOR AND SHALERSVILLE.
Do you know the beautiful legend of St. Christopher, the strong man who served his masters well, but was dissatisfied in their service until he heard of the Lord and Master Jesus Christ?—how he then served gladly at a ford, carrying pilgrims across on his back—how one day a little child asked to be carried across, and perching on his broad shoulders grew heavier and heavier till the strong man nearly sank beneath the weight? But he struggled manfully over the treacherous stones, and with a supreme effort bore his charge safely through the waters. And behold, the little child was Christ himself!
I think of that legend when I think of the poor ambitious scholar, literally saddled by his invalid wife. For three years he hardly kept his head above water. At one time he thought he could go no further, and proposed that she stay with his mother while he gained a better footing. But she pleaded hard, and he struggled through, to receive the reward of duty nobly done.
They remained at Ann Arbor about three months. But in that time Asaph Hall had made so favorable an impression that Professor Brünnow urged him to continue his studies, and arranged matters so that he might attend college at Ann Arbor as long as he chose without paying tuition fees. Angeline made plans for her sister Ruth and husband to move to Michigan, where Asaph could build them a house.