1884.] THE TWO MRS. TUCKERS. 305 



The fat, round, placid pigs, that now enjoyed themselves in the 

 new pen, he took care of himself. 



" ' Tant work for women folks," he said. 



"You've got enough to do, Mary; there's the garden you'll have 

 an eye on, and the chickens, if you're a mind to; I'm going to 

 build a hen-house and a yard to it right off, that'll be good enough 

 for you as well as the chickens; and I want you should promise if 

 any time the work gets a mite hefty and worries you, you'll speak 

 right out. I can afford to have everything else worn out rather 

 than my wife." 



Eeally, it paid ! It does pay, my masculine friends, to give any 

 woman a kindly word now and then ; if you had done it of tener, or 

 your fathers had in the past, the rights of women never would 

 have angered or bored you as they do now, or unsexed and made 

 strident and clamorous that half of creation which is and always 

 was unreasonable enough to have hungry hearts. Try it, and see. 



Amasa was wise above his generation; he had seen his mother 

 suffer, and learned a lesson. Mary never pined for kindly appre- 

 ciation of her work, or help in it. When she had a door cut 

 through into the parlor, the stiff chairs and sofa banished, the 

 flowery curtains hung at either window, the gay carpet put down, 

 and the new furniture set in place, with her wedding present — an 

 easy stuffed rocker — drawn up to the table, on which lay two 

 weekly papers and Harper's Magazine, she had still sense enough 

 left to make this hitherto sacred apartment into a real sitting room, 

 where every evening she and Amasa rested, read, or talked over 

 the day's doings; and when the first fat, rosy baby came, and 

 Mary was about again, it added another pleasure to have the old 

 cradle beside them all the evening with its sleeping treasure. 



Can I tell in words what a sense of peace and cheer pervaded 

 this hou^hold, in spite of some failures and troubles ? If the rye 

 did blast one year, the two best cows die another; if a weasel once 

 invaded the new and wonderful hen-house and slaughtered the 

 best dozen Plymouth Eocks ; if sweeping storms wet the great crop 

 of hay on the big meadow, or an ox broke its leg in a post-hole ; 

 still there was home to come back to, and a sensible, cheerful 

 woman to look on the bright side of things when Amasa was 

 discouraged. 



But, on the whole, things prospered; and as Amasa heard the 

 sweet laughter of his happy children, and met the calm smile of 

 20 



