As may often be observed, under such circumstances, the vivacious young lady possessed great attractiveness in the eyes of the young man, but held back by his natural diffidence, he failed to make his admiration definitely known to the girl. She was not lacking in other admirers and so it happened that when the young man in question finally developed sufficient courage to ask the young lady to marry him, he was informed in the most gracious manner that while she had always esteemed him highly as a friend and might have even had a greater interest in him, a more self-confident rival had secured her promise to marry him.
The young man was naturally very much cast down. The apparent admission on the young lady’s part that his answer might have been different had he been a little more prompt in making his wishes known, was especially depressing to him.
A few years passed and the young woman, who had apparently lived happily with her husband, was unfortunately left a widow. Her former admirer decided that he would not be backward this time, but just as soon as any decent period had passed, he would resume paying his addresses and thereby forestall any of the other eligibles of the community. He called upon the young woman and was graciously received and thus encouraged proceeded to carry on his courtship with a vigor and enthusiasm that to his own highly developed sense of the fitness of things, seemed to border upon impropriety. Finally he brought matters to a climax by again offering his hand and fortune to the blooming widow. Greatly to his chagrin he was informed, as before, that she was promised to another man.
This was hard luck indeed and the disappointed wooer was almost inclined to resort to that quite common rural expedient and marry some other girl “out of spite.” But somehow this did not seem to square with his conscientious scruples and in fact there was no other girl about who seemed to attract him. It was a depressing situation indeed.
But, as sometimes happens, she who had been maid, wife, widow and again wife, once more became a widow. The twice disappointed devotee decided this time there would be no delays due to a fantastic sense of what was suitable and proper.
Accordingly the very next evening he called to see the doubly bereaved woman. She met him very cordially and his hopes arose high. Feeling that he had already made his regard for her sufficiently clear so that there need be no time lost in preliminaries, he gave but a few minutes’ consideration to discussing the weather and other common topics before proceeding to the matter at hand. He asked her to marry him.
The young woman gazed at him sympathetically a moment and then murmured:
“I am so sorry but I am already engaged; Deacon Harris proposed at the grave!”
CHAPTER XI
Tales of Rural Thrift
There are probably few better schools for the development of thrift than the small New England farm, which although necessarily limited in its capacity to produce an income, still requires a considerable investment in necessary equipment. Those courageous, hard working couples who bring up a family upon one of these small homesteads, find it exceedingly hard to make ends meet and may quite likely often find themselves at the end of the year in the state of mind shown by the humble tiller of a Vermont farm who when asked what kind of a season he had had, replied: