"Haw, haw, haw," violently laughed the latter; "by G—, I thought you was smart—I thought you'd been to the State Fair before."
The smart man looked sad for a moment, but a knowing smile soon crossed his face, and drawing the young man who wasn't smart confidentially toward him, said—
"There wasn't only fifteen cents in coppers in my pocket—my MONEY is in my boot—they can't fool me—I'VE BEEN TO THE STATE FAIR BEFORE!!"
7.8. THE WIFE.
"Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry.
All her maidens, watching, said,
'She must weep, or she will die.'"
The propriety of introducing a sad story like the following, in a book intended to be rather cheerful in its character, may be questioned; but it so beautifully illustrates the firmness of woman when grief and despair have taken possession of "the chambers of her heart," that we cannot refrain from relating it.
Lucy M— loved with all the ardor of a fond and faithful wife, and when he upon whom she had so confidingly leaned was stolen from her by death, her friends and companions said Lucy would go mad. Ah, how little they knew her!
Gazing for the last time upon the clay-cold features of her departed husband, this young widow—beautiful even in her grief; so ethereal to look upon, and yet so firm!—looking for the last time upon the dear familiar face, now cold and still in death—oh, looking for the last, last time—she rapidly put on her bonnet, and thus addressed the sobbing gentlemen who were to act as pall-bearers:—"You pall-bearers, just go into the buttery and get some rum, and we'll start this man right along!"