For a few minutes there was a rain of corn into the basket, when Caleb started up and said, “Cracky!” He put his hand into one pocket after another, then went up to the peg board and took down his fur overcoat and felt of the pockets in it. He came back to the place of the corn-shelling doubtfully, and began to trot, as it were, around the basket, still putting his hand into one pocket after another.
“Lost anything, Kalub?” asked Asenath.
“Yes, the stage-driver gave me a parcel directed to Asahel, in the care of Amanda, and I don’t know what I did with it. I meant to have told you about it, but you set me all into confusion over that there courtin’ stick.”
We know not how many old New England homesteads may have a courting stick among their heirlooms, but imagine that they are few. Such a stick used to be shown to the curious in the Longmeadow neighborhood of Springfield, Mass., and we think it may be seen there still. It was especially associated with the manners and customs of the Connecticut Valley towns, and it left behind it some pleasing legends in such pastoral villages as Northampton, Hadley, and Hatfield. It was a promising object-lesson in the domestic life of the worldly wise, and could have been hardly unwelcome to marmlet maidens and rustic beaux.
Caleb Short continued his shelling corn for a time, but he worked slowly. He at last turned around and looked at his wife, who was sewing rags for a to-be-braided mat.
“Well, what is it now, Kalub?” asked the latter.
“Asahel.”
“Yes—I know—I’ve been thinkin’ much about him of late. He came to us as a bound boy after his folks were dead, and we’ve done well by him, now haven’t we, Kalub? I’ve set store by him, but—I might as well speak it out, he’s too sociable with our Mandy now that they have grown up. It stands to reason that he can never marry Mandy.”
“Why not, Asenath?”
“Why not? How would you like to have people say that our Amanda had married her father’s hired man? How would it look on our family tree?” Asenath glanced up to a fruitful picture on the wall.