“Well, that is a hard question, Judge,” replied H.—“but perhaps Mary can answer that question better than I can;” and calling his wife away from a boquet of flowers which she was arranging in a vase; he took her hand in his, as she leaned affectionately over his shoulder, and repeated the inquiry—“Who am I, Mary?—the Judge wishes to know.”
“I think I can inform you, Judge,” replied the wife, “for he is not a whit changed since the day he taught me my first lesson in the 'free school' of L. He is Henry H.—formerly assistant teacher in a down-east free school, and now, the Hon. Henry H., of M.; moreover, the husband of Mary H., formerly a factory girl in that same town, but now, I need not tell you, Judge, the Hon. Mrs. H., also of M.; I have really become quite enamored of this title.”
“It is true, Judge,” continued Mr. H., “I first beheld Mary at a free school, taught her her first lesson, learned another from her eyes, and never became satisfied until I possessed the book, that throughout life I might continue to peruse the beauties of the page. But come, Judge,—now that you have traced our pedigree, give some account of yourself; from what ancient stock have you sprung?—Who are you?”
“I am the son of Adam!” (a laugh here interrupted him,) “not the Adam spoken of in the Bible; I mean old Adam W., a shoemaker of Albany, who once used his stirrup rather lavishly upon me, and for which good office, I left him one fine morning, without bidding good by. I will not relate to you the many changes of fortune which befel me, until I found myself upon the bench, in a United States' court, instead of the bench in my father's shop. Suffice it to say, that my good parent, until his dying day, expressed the opinion that it was a good thing I took to the law early, for I was fit for no useful purpose.”
At Secretary E.'s on the next evening, a crowd surrounded the Judge, but all wore upon their countenances an air of incredulity—the Judge's story of the “factory girl” “wouldn't go down.”
“It's a fact, ladies,” said the Judge; “just about the time I was learning to make shoes these people were in the situations I tell you.”
They all pronounced the Judge a wag, and would not believe the story. A matron, more resolved than her friends to sift the truth of the matter, applied to Mrs. H., herself, and told her what a fib the Judge had been telling them.
“I assure you it is true,” replied Mrs. H.
“Yes, but my dear, the best of families have been reduced,” says Mrs. Enquiry, “you are, no doubt, descended from the 'Pilgrim Fathers.'”
“I have every reason to believe so,” answered Mrs. H. “I told you so,” said Mrs. Enquiry, exultingly, to her circle of acquaintances; “she is a daughter of one of the 'Pilgrim Fathers.'”