"Calvin is the right sort of a fellow for a frolic," added the young men.
Lydia admired the young man in common with the rest of her companions, and was far too young, too much of a child to dread the very smoothness which so often covers a wicked heart.
The Winter passed into Spring and Lydia returned to her home.
That Summer in her happy home was one long to be remembered by the girl who was fast hastening to so different an experience in life.
The rides with her brothers, the hunts in the forest for nuts, for cones, for flowers and for rare ferns, the quiet, happy talks with her mother, the lovely Sabbath evenings when Father Jesse would solemnly tell of the mysteries of God. All these home joys were hardly appreciated at the time, but long after remembered with sharp pangs of agony.
When the Winter came, she returned to her school, and now the acquaintance already began with young Bailey, ripened into a mutual attachment, and in the Fall of 1828 the couple were married.
For a little time all went well. But the old, old story was told again. The story of a man's cruelty and a woman's suffering.
The young man was one who "drank occasionally." Had he been accused of being a drunkard he would have been highly insulted! But the misery of the poor girl was just as real as though things received their right names and "a spade be called a spade." Shall I attempt to picture her sufferings? The long, lonely hours of waiting, the longing dread to hear the stumbling footsteps, the tortures of fear, the vile abuse, the bitter cursings heaped upon her head, the vain regrets, the puny hopes of a better life born but to be strangled by the next night's waiting agony, the gradual benumbing, crushed feeling that life was made but for suffering—shall I tell of this? No! for those who are waiting and watching for the unsteady step know all I can tell, and they who have never borne the dreadful burden would not understand me.
This firm, quiet wife endured it all in silence. The home they owned was some distance from her father's, and she was too sensitive to complain of one whom she called by the sacred name of husband.
In 1829, a little girl was born, and this great blessing soothed the aching heart of the youthful mother.