Mr. Taintor pressed down the tobacco in his pipe to make it burn better, and said: "I can't stan' the trip. Y'see, when we was married we thought we'd cross the ocean on aour weddin'-trip. Father hed lef' me comfor'ble, an' Cynthy hed be'n dead-set on crossin' all through aour courtship. Fact is, her sister Sairy said 'at 'at was all she was marryin' fer; but of course Sairy was a great joker, an' I knowed better. Well, we went daown to Noo York the day before the steamer sailed, an' we put up at a hotel there on Broadway, an' durin' the evenin' some women got talkin' to Cynthy, an' told her haow awful sick she was like to be ef she hedn't never be'n on the ocean before. Well, it frightened her so that she backed plumb aout er the harness—said she guessed we'd better go to Saratogy instead; an' the upshot was we hed aour fust an' last quar'l then. I told her I'd bought the tickets fer Europe an' we'd hev to go, an' she said she would n' expose herself to two or three weeks of sickness under the idee it was a picnic party, an' all I could say to her couldn't shake her. Well, it was bad enough losin' the price of one ticket, but I couldn't lose the price of two, an' so we finally come to an agreement. She was to go up to Saratogy, although the season up ther' was over, an' I was to cross the ocean alone. It was too late to git my money back, an', to tell the truth, I allers did hate to give a plan up, 'thout I hed sufficient reason; so nex' mornin' we went daown to the dock, fer we'd made up, an' she was comin' ter see me off. She took on consid'able, an' I was cut up myse'f, partic'larly when I thought of the ticket thet was bein' thrown away. But she caught a glimpse of the waves behind a ferry-boat, an' she turned white as a sheet an' shook her head; so I kissed her good-by, an' the steamer sailed away with me on it, an' her a-wavin' her arms an' cryin' on the dock."
"Poor fellow!" said I, sympathetically.
"Well, the amount of seasickness she saved herself by stayin' to hum couldn't be reckoned 'thougt I was a scholar, which I ain't. I took to my berth before we was aout of sight of land, an' ef the brimstun of the future is any wuss 'an what I suffered, I don't want to die. But I wished I could die all the way over. I come right here to London, because there was a man I knew comin' here, too, an' I wrote to Cynthy to come right over as soon as she could, an' we'd live aour lives aout here; fer bad as it was here, nothin' on top of creation could temp' me to go back, not even her pretty face."
He stopped a minute and half closed his eyes, and I fancy he was calling her pretty face back through the thirty years.
"Well, well, that was hard lines," said I.
"Yes, but it was wuss when I got her reply. She told me she hed n't hed a happy minute sence I left, although she hed gone up to Saratogy, but the water tasted like something was into it, an' she'd come away after one day, an' was now on the farm at Goodspeed's Landing. An' she said thet ef I'd be'n so sick she 'd proba'ly die, an' she could n't bear to think of bein' heaved into the Atlantic, an' must stop where she was. Ah me! Sence then we 've be'n as lovin' as we could be, writin' reg'lar an' rememberin' each other's birthdays an' aour weddin' anniversaries; but we hain't sot eyes on each other, an' won't until we 're both safe on that other shore they tell us abaout. An' I hope thet trip 'll be a smooth one."
"And what does Mrs. Taintor do all alone?"
He knocked the ashes out of his pipe and put it into his pocket before he replied:
"She runs the old farm as I never could have run it. She's a born farmer, that wife of mine is. She has a hired man to help, but she does a good share of the work herself, an' every year she sen's me half the airnings; an' I live on here, hatin' it all an' hopin' for the time to come when the ocean'll either dry up or freeze over, or that Cynthy will overcome her dislike to the trip. Married life ain't e'zac'ly pleasant so fur apart, but I c'n truthfully say we 've never quar'led sence I come here, an' I ain't seen a woman sence I landed thet could hold a candle to Cynthy. Cynthy is a pretty gal."