"Well, suppose we hide behind those coats, and just as she comes along, both of us make a spring at her?—won't that be fun?"
"Capital!" said Louise, "but won't Mamma punish us?"
"Of course, if she finds us out; but we mustn't get found out. What is the use of having feet, if you can't scamper with them? Betsey of course will be too frightened to see who did it, and before anybody else comes, we shall get out of the way."
The new cook, "Betsey," whom these two little sisters were talking about, was a widow. Her husband was an industrious, temperate man, a carpenter by trade. He loved Betsey very much, and they lived in a snug, comfortable little house, which they hoped to be able to buy some day, when Tom had earned money enough at his trade.
Betsey made Tom a good wife. If he worked hard in the shop, she worked hard in the house. Everything was just as neat as a new pin. You might have eaten off her floors, they were scrubbed so white and clean. There were no finger marks on her doors or windows, no broken panes of glass, with paper or rags stuffed in, to keep out the air, and her closets and cupboards would bear looking at, in the brightest sunlight that ever found its way into a kitchen. Her dishes and tumblers never stuck to your fingers; her table never had on soiled table-cloths; her walls were never festooned with cobwebs; her hearth never was littered with ashes. Well might Tom work cheerfully for such a wife; for he knew that every penny he saved, and gave her, was put to the best possible use. It didn't go for tawdry finery, I can tell you; and she knew how to turn a coat for Tom, or re-line the sleeves, or seat a pair of pants, as nicely as a tailor.
Tom was a good looking fellow. He had a fine broad chest, and a straight, well formed figure; a large, clear, black eye, and a fine Roman nose, besides a set of teeth that would have made a dentist sigh. The truth was Tom was one of Nature's gentlemen; he always did and said just the right thing, and made everybody about him feel perfectly satisfied with the world in general, and himself in particular.
Well, they lived together as contented as two oysters. Tom didn't grit his teeth when a carriage rolled by with a rich man in it, or when another man passed him in a finer suit of broadcloth than his own. Not he. He stepped off to his shop, on the strength of Betsey's nice coffee and biscuit, as grand as the President. Why not? He owed nobody a cent, and that's more than many a man can say, who would knock you down as quick as a flash, if you should intimate he wasn't a gentleman.
One fine day, Tom proposed to Betsey to go a fishing, he said she needed something of that sort, by way of change, for she was quite worn out. Betsey said, "No, Tom, I am well enough; besides, the water will make me sick; but I want you to go; you and Phil Dolan; you need it more than I, a great deal."
Tom didn't like to go without Betsey; he didn't believe in husband's frolicking about, and leaving their poor tired wives to mend their old duds, at home. No; he knew that there is no woman, be she ever so kind and good, who does not sometimes want to see something beside a mop, a gridiron, and a darning needle; so Tom said, "No, I'll think of some pleasure you can share with me."
But Betsey persuaded him to go without her. She fancied, (good kind soul,) that Tom was looking less well than usual, and the thought of his getting sick, made her quite miserable; so Tom said he'd go. Then Betsey got Tom his fishing tackle, and put him up some biscuit, for he and Phil intended to get out on a little island to make some chowder; and then Tom——kissed her; (as true as you are alive, though she was his wife!) and then he went for Phil, and they got into a little boat, and floated off down the river.