THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 71 



No. 24. TIM BUNKER ON THE CLERGY AND 

 FARMING. 



MR. EDITOR : I supppose you and the rest of the folks 

 have wondered some about Sally s marrying a minister. 

 It does look a little queer, at first sight, that a smart, 

 handy young woman, that knows all about the duties of 

 the dairy and the kitchen, and takes premiums at the fairs, 

 on bread and butter, should want to settle in a village. 

 It is perhaps just as queer that the smartest preacher in 

 the county should want to marry a farmer s daughter. 

 But wedlock is an unaccountable affair any way you can 

 fix it, and the particular attraction, I suppose, is in most 

 cases as great a mystery to the interested parties as to 

 people outside. 



But this match, it strikes me, is not so much &quot; out of 

 sorts&quot; as matches in general. Josiah Slocum, I guess, 

 knows on which side his bread is buttered. It strikes my 

 neighbors variously according to their characters. Uncle 

 Jotham Sparrowgrass dropped in the week after the wed 

 ding, and says he : 



&quot;What a fool you have made of yourself, marrying 

 your darter off to that Shadtown parson !&quot; 



&quot; A thousand pities, she was so smart !&quot; chimed in Seth 

 Twiggs, as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and look 

 ed across the room to Sally s mother, who was busy with 

 the needle. 



&quot; Why, what makes you think so ?&quot; inquired Mrs. Bun 

 ker, lifting the gold-bowed spectacles, given her by Josiah 

 on her fiftieth birthday. 



&quot; Why,&quot; said Uncle Jotham, &quot; did you ever know a 

 bookish man that wa n t lazy, and always running into all 

 sorts of nonsense ? And the clargy are ginerally the most 

 moonshiny of all bookish people. There was Parson Tyler, 



