Mary Brand—Mary Brand—Mary Brand! the old Dutch clock ticked it. Mary Brand! his head throbbed it when he lay down to sleep. Mary Brand! his riflelock spoke it plainly when he cocked it, to raise a shaking sight at a deer. Mary Brand, Mary Brand! the whip-poor-will sang it instead of her own well-known note; the bull-frogs croaked it in the swamp, and mosquitoes droned it in his ear as he tossed about his bed at night, wakeful, and striving to think what ailed him.
Who could that strapping young fellow who passed the door just now be going to see? Mary Brand: Mary Brand. And who can big Pete Herring be dressing that silver-fox skin so carefully for? For whom but Mary Brand? And who is it that jokes and laughs and dances with all the "boys" but him; and why?
Who but Mary Brand: and because the lovesick booby carefully avoids her.
"And Mary Brand herself—what is she like?"
"She's some now; that is a fact, and the biggest kind of punkin at that," would have been the answer from any man, woman, or child in the county, and truly spoken too; always understanding that the pumpkin is the fruit by which the ne plus ultra of female perfection is expressed amongst the figuratively-speaking westerns.
Being an American woman, of course she was tall, and straight and slim as a hickory sapling, well, formed withal, with rounded bust, and neck white and slender as the swan's. Her features were small, but finely chiselled: and in this, it may be remarked, the lower orders of the American woman differ from and far surpass the same class in England, or elsewhere, where the features, although far prettier, are more vulgar and commonplace. Mary Brand had the bright blue eye, thin nose, and small but sweetly-formed mouth, the too fair complexion and dark-brown hair, which characterize the beauty of the Anglo-American, the heavy masses (hardly curls) that fell over her face and neck contrasting with her polished whiteness. Such was Mary Brand; and when to her good looks are added a sweet disposition and all the best qualities of a thrifty housewife, it must be allowed that she fully justified the eulogiums of the good people of Memphis.
Well, to cut a love-story short, in doing which not a little moral courage is shown, young La Bonté fell desperately in love with the pretty Mary, and she with him; and small blame to her, for he was a proper lad of twenty—six feet in his moccasins—the best hunter and rifle-shot in the country, with many other advantages too numerous to mention. But when did the course, &c., e'er run smooth? When the affair had become a recognized "courting" (and Americans alone know the horrors of such prolonged purgatory), they became, to use La Bonté's words, "awful fond," and consequently about once a-week had their tiffs and make-ups.
However, on one occasion, at a husking, and during one of these tiffs, Mary, every inch a woman, to gratify some indescribable feeling, brought to her aid jealousy—that old serpent who has caused such mischief in this world; and by a flirtation over the corn-cobs with big Pete, La Bonté's former and only rival, struck so hard a blow at the latter's heart, that on the moment his brain caught fire, blood danced before his eyes, and he became like one possessed. Pete observed and enjoyed his struggling emotion—better for him had he minded his corn-shelling alone;—and the more to annoy his rival, paid the most sedulous attention to pretty Mary.
Young La Bonté stood it as long as human nature, at boiling heat, could endure; but when Pete, in the exultation of his apparent triumph, crowned his success by encircling the slender waist of the girl with his arm, and snatching a sudden kiss, he jumped upright from his seat, and seizing a small whiskey-keg which stood in the center of the corn-shellers, he hurled it at his rival, and crying to him, hoarse with passion, "to follow if he was a man," he left the house.
At that time, and even now, in the remoter States of the western country, rifles settled even the most trivial differences between the hot-blooded youths; and of such frequent occurrence and invariably bloody termination did these encounters become, that they scarcely produced sufficient excitement to draw together half-a-dozen spectators.