Volume II Part 9 (1/2)

”Should thought she would,” answered Mrs. Davids, forgetting to sigh.

”However, I can't say that I feel any hankering after marrying a b.u.t.tery. I've got b.u.t.tery-room enough here, without the trouble of getting set up in a new place.”

”Just as you say,” returned the rejected. ”I ain't sure as you'd be exactly the one. I _was_ a thinking of looking for somebody a little younger.”

”Well, here is Persis Tame. Why don't you bespeak her? _She_ is younger, and she is in need of a good home. I can recommend her, too, as the first-rate of a cook,” remarked Mrs. Davids, benevolently.

Miss Tame had been sitting a little apart by the open window, smiling to herself.

But now she turned about at once. ”Hm!” said she, with contempt. ”I should rather live under an umbrella tied to a stake, than marry for a _hum_.”

So Captain Ben went home without engaging either wife or housekeeper.

And the first thing he saw was Captain Jacob Doolittle's old one-eyed horse eating the apples Loizah Mullers had strung and festooned from nails against the house, to dry.

The next thing he saw was, that, having left a window open, the hens had flown in and gone to housekeeping on their own account. But they were not, like Mrs. Davids, as neat as a new cent, and _not_, also, such master hands to save.

”Shoo! shoo! Get out. Go 'long there with you!” cried Captain Ben, waving the dish-cloth and the poker. ”I declare for 't! I most hadn't ought to have left that bread out on the table. They've made a pretty mess of it, and it is every spec there is in the house too. Well, I must make a do of potatoes for supper, with a bit of pie and a mouthful of cake.”

Accordingly he went to work building a fire that wouldn't burn. Then, forgetting the simple matter of dampers, the potatoes wouldn't bake. The tea-kettle boiled over and cracked the stove, and after that boiled dry and cracked itself. Finally the potatoes fell to baking with so much ardor that they overdid it and burnt up. And, last of all, the cake-jar and pie-cupboard proved to be entirely empty. Loizah had left on the eve of baking-day.

”The old cat! Well, I'd just as soon live on slapjacks a spell,” said Captain Ben, when he made this discovery.

But even slapjacks palled on his palate, especially when he had them always to cook for himself.

”'T ain't no way to live, this ain't,” said he at last. ”I'm a good mind to marry as ever I had to eat.”

So he put on his hat and walked out. The first person he met was Miss Persis Tame, who turned her back and fell to picking thoroughwort blossoms as he came up.

”Look a here,” said he, stopping short, ”I'm dreadful put to 't. I can't get ne'er a wife nor ne'er a housekeeper, and I am e'enamost starved to death. I wish you _would_ consent to marry with me, if you feel as if you could bring your mind to it. I am sure it would have been Lyddy's wish.”

Miss Tame smelt of the thoroughwort blossoms.

”It comes pretty sudden on me,” she replied. ”I hadn't given the subject any thought. But you _are_ to be pitied in your situation.”

”Yes. And I'm dreadful lonesome. I've always been used to having Lyddy to talk over things with, and I miss her a sight. And I don't know anybody that has her ways more than you have. You are a good deal such a built woman, and you have the same hitch to your shoulders when you walk. You've got something the same look to your eyes, too; I noticed it last Sunday in meeting-time,” continued the widower, anxiously.

”I do feel for you. A man alone is in a deplorable situation,” replied Miss Tame. ”I'm sure I'd do any thing in my power to help you.”

”Well, marry with me then. That is what I want. We could be real comfortable together. I'll go for the license this minute, and we'll be married right away,” returned the impatient suitor. ”You go up to Elder Crane's, and I'll meet you there as soon as I can fetch around.”

Then he hurried away, ”without giving me a chance to say 'no,'” said ”she that was” Persis Tame, afterward. ”So I _had_ to marry with him, as you might say. But I've never seen cause to regret it, I've got a first-rate of a hum, and Captain Ben makes a first-rate of a husband.

And no hain't he, I hope, found cause to regret it,” she added, with a touch of wifely pride; ”though I do expect he might have had his pick among all the single women at the Point; but out of them all he chose _me_.”--_The Atlantic Monthly_, March, 1870.

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT.

(BORN, 1832.)

STREET SCENES IN WAs.h.i.+NGTON.