In the "Stranger People's" country

by Charles Egbert Craddock

"Yes, 'm," he drawled, taking up the thread of the gossip where the victualling interlude had left it; "Adelaide's been left. That's mighty bad. An' I reckon it hurts her pride too." He showed himself thus not insensible to æsthetic considerations.

"I'll be bound it do," Mrs. Pettingill agreed, as she seated herself. She cast a speculative look upon her husband, silent and grum as if he had been thus gruffly carved out of wood. He had been a stumbling-block in many respects in his conjugal career. He was "set" in his ways, and some of them she felt were ways of pure spite. She had never before realized, however, that his continued presence was a thing to be thankful for. Such as he was, she had him at hand. Public pity, which the sensitive feel as public contempt, had never been meted out to her because of his desertion. Thus, although she could with convenience have dispensed with him, and his loud harangues, and his overbearing ways, and his dyspepsia—the cove said he had been fed till he foundered—which placed an embargo on three fourths of the dishes on which she loved to show her skill, he was revealed to her suddenly as a boon in that he would yet stay by her, and the phrase "a deserted wife" had no affinity with her fully furnished estate.

"Waal, Steve always 'peared ter me a good match whenst he war young"—she meant unmarried—"though riprarious he war, an' sorter onstiddy an' dancified, but I never 'lowed he'd hev done sech a mean thing. An' that thar baby o' theirn! well growed, an' fat, an' white, an' strong, but, I will say, bad ez the Lord ever makes 'em. Waal, waal, a body dun'no' how thar chil'n will turn out; them with small famblies, or none, oughter thank the Lord—though that ain't in the Bible. 'Blessed be the man with a quibble on 'em.' That's what the Good Book say."

This was a new view with Mrs. Pettingill. She had often floutingly wished she had a "sure enough fambly," as if her own were so many rag dolls. "Jes' one son," she would say; "an' him, through being in love, hed ruther eat his meals at the Gossams'—'long o' Malviny Gossam—whar they don't know no mo' how ter cook a corn puddin' or a peach cobbler 'n ef they war thousand-legs; an' jes one darter, ez will pick a chicken bone an' call it dinner! an' a 'speptic husband ez hev sech a crazy stommick that jes' 'Welsh rabbit' will disagree with him!"

What sort of chance was there here for a woman who knew what good cooking was? "Ef 'twarn't fur the visitors ez kem ter the house," she often declared, "I'd git my hand out."

"Folks raise thar chil'n wrong," said old man Pettingill in a dirge-like tone—"raise 'em for the devil's work like I raise my cattle fur the plough. Marryin' is a mighty serious business. Yes, sir!"

"A true word!" interpolated his wife, desirous of not seeming behindhand in this view of the seriousness of matrimony, in order to intimate that whatever reason he had to be solemn upon the subject, she too had cause to be sobered by it. She knitted a trifle faster, and her needles clicked resentfully.

"Yes, sir," he reiterated. "An' steddier singin' o' psalm tunes over the bride an' groom, an' a-prayin' over 'em, an' hevin' a reg'lar pray'r-meetin', repentin' o' sins an' castin' o' ashes on thar heads, we hev dances, an' dancin' Tucker, an' all manner o' eatables, an' infairs, ez ef they war a-goin' ter dance through life, when married life is mos'ly repentance."

"That it is!" exclaimed Mrs. Pettingill, forgetting her gratitude that she too had not been "left." "Repentance o' ever bein' married. Sackcloth an' ashes is the word!"

Old Pettingill took no notice of this confirmation of the letter if not the spirit of his dogma, save by a surly baited glance, and went on: "Church members though we all war, we stood round an' watched them young folks dance ter the devil till he fairly riz up through the floor an' smit one of 'em down."