“It wa’n’t more’n two weeks afore I was took down with a fever. Pamely nursed me night and day, and every time I see her I said to myself, ‘Jest the first time I’ve got strength to walk to the dominee’s house we’ll be made happy.’ Dear little soul! What a good supper she laid on the table the night I was so tired out with doin’ of the milkin’, havin’ done nothin’ fer so long.
“‘Ezra,’ she says, and her face flushed up; ‘Ezra eat. I’ve cooked it fer you.’
“I wanted to blurt right out then that I loved her, but I didn’t.
“I had to tuck myself up mighty early, for I was clean beat out, and I declare fer it, but I was jest fallin’ into a doze like when I heard Jim Whiffles come. Pamely wa’n’t done the dishes, so she clattered away, and at last sot down to knittin’. Nary one spoke much, only to tell a word or two about the snow storm that was a-brewin’. And I was comforted ag’in, but it was short measure. When the clock had struck nine Jim got up, and while he was puttin’ on his top coat I heard him say:
“‘Pamely, I was a-tellin’ ye last time I was here about Jim Whiffles paying the preacher?’
“‘Jest so.’
“‘And you was the gal that the dominee told to love and obey her man.’
“‘Jest so.’
“I was breathless! Was there nothin’ more to come? I had almost made up my mind that Jim was gone, when I caught the sound of a very decided smack. Good Lord forgive me, but I fought with the devil that night!
“Pamely and Jim Whiffles was made one April 6, 1850. He fell heir to some property, and she got a thousand dollars when her uncle died, and a couple thousand more—in land—when Mrs. Hinman went off. So things prospered with them. He was hardworkin’ kind of a putterer, but she was a master hand to save, and them children all was like her—smart as a steel trap.