"'I've picked out a wife for you. It's Squire Parsons' daughter, Susan Jane Maria. She'll be an excellent wife to you, and mother to your children.'
"If I had been anything else than what I was, I should have sprang up and declared my own ability to choose a wife for me and 'a mother for my children;' but I did n't do any such thing. I nodded a calm assent to all he said; for you know, sir; I was an Automaton.
"I was to go with my father, that night, and see Susan,—she that was to be my Susan,—O, no, not so; I was to be her Jacob. So, when tea was over, and I had been 'fixed up,'-I was fixed, I tell you,—father led the way over Higginses' rough pasture. I should have gone round, in the road, where it was decent walking, if I had been anybody; but I was n't any one; I was a—well, you know what. I got one of my boots full of water, and father fell down and bruised his nose; but I took off my boot and poured the water out, and he put a piece of court-plaster on his nose,—a great black piece,—and we did n't look as bad as we might, so he said; and so I said, 'of course.'
"Susan was at home, seated in the middle of a great room, as if on exhibition; and perhaps she was,—I thought so. I had seen Susan before, and always disliked her. There was nothing in her personal appearance, or her mind, that pleased me. I never met her without marking her future life as that of an old maid. But she was to be my wife; father said so, mother shouted amen; and I was to love her, and so I said I did, 'of course.'
"It seemed to me that she knew all about what I came for; for she put out her little slim hand, that never made a loaf of bread nor held a needle, but had only fingered the leaves of Greek and Latin Lexicons, and volumes of Zoology and Ornithology, and thrummed piano-keys,—all very well in their place (don't think I depreciate them), but very bad when their place is so large that there's no room for anything else,—very bad, sir.
"As she took my hand she attempted to kiss me; but, being rather shy, I dodged when I saw her lips a-coming, and they went plump on to father's nose, and exploded on his piece of court-plaster.
"It was all fixed that night, and I was to be married one week from the ensuing Sunday.
"We went home. I received a smile from those who were so considerate as to hunt me up a wife.
"If you'd seen the Greentown Gazette a fortnight after, and had looked at the list of marriages, you might have read, 'Married: In this town, by Rev. Ebenezer Pilgrade, Mr. Jacob Jenkins, Jr. (recently from college), to Susan Jane Maria Parsons, estimable daughter of Nehemiah Q. Parsons; all of this place.'
"We lived at home. My wife soon found out what I was, found out that I was an Automaton, and she pulled the wires and put me in motion, in any way she wished. I opened an office, put out a sign, and for a time practised law and physic, and when the minister was sick took his place and preached. I preached just what they wanted me to. I felt more like an Automaton than ever, stuck up in a high box, talking just what had been talked a thousand times from the same place. It would n't do, I was told, to have any ideas of my own; and, if had them, I must n't speak them. So my parish and me got along pretty well.