P. A. AND P. I.
Last Tuesday, Thomas J. took Maggy Snow over to Tirzah Ann’s a visitin’, and they stayed to the Debatin’ school; and it was that evenin’ that Josiah and me first talked it over about goin’ to the Sentinal.
Thomas J. and Maggy haint married yet; when they will be I don’t exactly know, but before long I think. Josiah can’t bear the thought of havin’ Thomas J. goin’ away from home, and Squire Snow wants to keep Maggy jest as long as he can. He has been awful sot, the old Squire has, on havin’ ’em live there right in the family after they was married. But Thomas J. is as determined as a rock in one thing, that when he and Maggy are married they are goin’ to keep house by themselves. And I don’t blame him a mite. The Squire’s folks are well off and have got everything nice and convenient, hot and cold water comes right up into the chambers, and other things for their comfort. But his sister Sophronia Snow, lives with ’em; has got to have a home there always accordin’ to old Mr. Snow’ses will. And I’ve heerd, and haint a doubt of it in my own mind, that she is a meddlesome critter, and grows worse as she grows older. You know time affects different natures different, etcetery, and to wit:—it will make wine softer, and sweeter, and mellower, and make vinegar sour, and sharper than a serpent’s tooth, if serpents have got teeth, which I never believed for a minute.
I don’t blame Thomas J. a mite for not wantin’ to settle down and live with ’em, neither do I blame ’em for not wantin’ to come and live with us, though it would be dretful agreeable to me and Josiah. Thomas J. talks about goin’ west to live, when he gets married, and if he does it will be a awful blow to me, but still I want him to do what is best for him, and I tell Josiah that we all ort to use reason if we have got any to use. Let the young birds build a nest for themselves, even if the old birds are lonesome. Says I to Josiah:
“We left two old birds lonesome Josiah Allen, when we built our own nest and feathered it out on the inside to our own comfort and likin’, with the pure white feathers of love and content;” (I meant by the two old birds father Smith and mother Allen, though they don’t look a mite like birds either of ’em.) “and them feathers we feathered it out with, are warm and soft now as anything.”
“Well,” says Josiah, “we didn’t go west.”
TESTING A MAN’S TEMPER.
That thought seems to plague him the most of anything, and it does me too, I don’t deny.