“Nathan, kin you stand here an’ listen to a voice an’ a speech like that an’ then ask me if I realize the despritness of marriage?”
“It’s desprit, but who’d you advise me to marry,—Silas, that is, if I made up my mind to marry,—an’ I don’t jest see any other way.”
“Oh, I ain’t pickin’ out wives fur anybody, but it seems to me that you might be doin’ a good turn by marryin’ the Widder Young. The Lord ’ud have two special reasons fur blessin’ you then; fur you’d be mortifyin’ yore flesh an’ at the same time a-helpin’ the widder an’ her orphans.”
“That’s so.” He couldn’t admit to Silas that he had been thinking hard of the Widow Young even before he had of mortifying his flesh with a wife.
Once decided, it did not take him long to put his plans into execution. But he called Silas over to the fence that evening after he had dressed to pay a visit to the widow.
“Wall, Silas, I’ve determined to take the step you advised.”
“Humph, you made your mind up in a hurry, Nathan.”
“I don’t know as it’s any use a-waiting; ef a thing’s to be done, I think it ought to be done and got through with. What I want particular to know now is, whether it wouldn’t be best to tell Lizzie—I mean the widder—that I want her as a means of mortification.”
“Wall, no, Nathan, I don’t know as I would do that jest yit; I don’t believe it would be best.”