“He oughter be ashamed of hisself marrying that poor crazed thing, even if the old lady is willing,” said farmer Jones’ wife, as Tom Shaw’s smiling face peered out of the carriage window, on his wedding day. “It hardens the heart awful to live in the city; riches can’t make that poor cretur happy; a pebble stun and a twenty dollar piece, are all one to her. Now my daughter Louizy is no beauty; she is clumsy and freckled, and brown as a butternut; but she is too fair in my eyes, to be sold that way. I wish I knew what crazed that Mary Ford. Ah—here comes parson Parish; maybe I’ll get it out of him.”
“Good day, sir—met the bridal carriage, I suppose, on the road—queer wedding that, of Miss Mary’s. Is it true, that Squire Ford’s house took fire, and Miss Mary lost her wits by the fright?”
“I never heard of it,” replied the parson—taking the Maltese cat in his lap, and manipulating her slate-colored back.
Mrs. Jones might have added, “Nor I either,” but nothing daunted, she tried another question.
“Scarlet fever p’rhaps, parson? that allers leaves suthing behind it, most commonly. My George would have been left blind, likely, if he hadn’t been left deaf. They say it was scarlet fever that done it.”
“Do they?” asked the parson.
“Confound it,” thought Mrs. Jones; “I’m sure the man knows, for he was very thick there at the cottage. I’ll see if my gooseberry wine won’t loosen his tongue a little;” and she handed the minister a glass.
“Sometimes I’ve wondered, parson, what made old Ford walk round so like an unquiet sperrit. He didn’t do nothing he hadn’t oughter, did he? It wasn’t that that crazed Miss Mary, I s’pose? That old man got up and sat down fifty times a minute.”
“So I have heard,” answered the impenetrable parson, sipping his wine.