THE REUNION.
The mornin’ of the fourteenth of September dawned fair and peacefully. The sun rose up considerable early in the mornin’, and looked down with a calm and serene face upon Jonesville and the earth. And not fur from the same time, I too, rose up and with as calm and serene a face as hisen, I went to work and got a excellent breakfast for my Josiah and me. It was the day we had looked forred to for a year. The deed that was to give our Tirzah Ann and her pardner a handsome home lay in security in the depths of my Josiah’s vest pocket, and in the buttery was a big basket full of as good vittles as was ever baked by woman—enough to last ’em a week. The new carpets and housen stuff had been privately carried into the house, unbeknown to them; and that very afternoon was the time we was a goin’ to make ’em almost perfectly happy. Oh! how serene and noble I felt as I poured out my dish-water and washed my breakfast dishes.
And as I washed and wiped I thought of the childern; thought how well Thomas J. was a doin’, and how Tirzah Ann and Whitfield had been prospered ever sense they took their bridal tower. I s’pose they had a dretful hard time then; I s’pose they suffered as much agony on that bridal tower, as any two bridals ever suffered in the same length of time. Tirzah Ann haint got over that tower to this day, and Whitfield looks mad every time he hears the word mentioned. They have both told me sense (in strict confidence) at two separate times, that if they was a goin’ to be married twenty-five times a piece, they had gone off on their last tower.
You see the way on’t was, Tirzah Ann—not bein’ used to travellin’—got lost. Whitfield left her a minute on the platform to go back after her parasol, and she heerd ’em say “All aboard,” and she thought she must git on that minute or die. He, seein’ she was gone, thought she had went back after him, and he went searchin’ after her. The train went on; he took the next train up, and she the next train down, and they passed each other; and then she took the next train up, and he the next train down, and they missed each other again. And so they kep’ it up all the first day and night. Finally, the next mornin’ the conductor—bein’ a old gentleman, and good hearted—telegraphed to Whitfield that he would be to the upper depot at 10 o’clock, and told him to come on instantly and claim his property and pay charges, or it would spile on his hands. I s’pose she did take on awfully, not bein’ used to trouble; she fainted dead away when Whitfield come on and claimed her and paid charges; and the old gentleman bein’ crazy with trouble deluged a mop-pail full of water onto her, and spilte every rag of her clothes, bunnet and all. Thirty dollars wouldn’t have made her whole; I s’pose she looked like a banty hen after a rain storm.
BRINGIN’ HER TO.
A BRIDAL TOWER
When they got to Whitfield’s cousins—where they expected to stay—they was away from home. Then they went to a second cousins; they was havin’ a funeral. Then they went to a third cousins, and they had the tyfus. Then they went to the only tarvern in the place; they was all right there, only the whoopin’ cough; and they never havin’ had it, took it, and come down in nine days—coughed and whooped awful.
They laid out to stay a fortnite on their tower, and they did; but they have both told me sense (in confidence, and I wouldn’t want it told of from me,) that their sufferins durin’ that time, can be imagined, but never described upon. The first cousin come home and sent for ’em, but she was of a jealous make, and kinder hinted that Tirzah Ann run away from Whitfield a purpose—didn’t come right out and say it, but kep’ a hintin’—made them feel as uncomfortable as if they was raked up on a coal. And then she would look at Tirzah Ann’s clothes that was spilte—when she fainted away, and was fetched to by water—and kinder hint that she had fell into some creek. I s’pose she kep’ Tirzah Ann on the tenderhooks the hull time, without sayin’ a word they could resent or make her take back.