90 THE TIM BUNKEK PAPERS. 



don t know as this is quite orthodox, but wife and I have 

 made up our minds on this point, and are too old to 

 change. 



Well, things come to such a pass that Mrs. Bunker de 

 clared she would not stand it any longer. She laid down 

 her gold-bowed spectacles, the same that Josiah gave her, 

 one evening last December, and says she : &quot; Timothy, our 

 house is getting to be a tavern, and I should like to go off 

 and have a rest this winter.&quot; 



&quot; Well,&quot; says I, &quot; where will you go ? &quot; 



&quot; Anywhere to get out of Hookertown, where you are 

 not known.&quot; 



&quot; Very good, pack up the trunks, and we will be off down 

 South next week.&quot; 



I had no idea of her going, but I see in a day or two 

 that she was in earnest, and when a Connecticut woman 

 has made up her mind, you know there is no use in talk 

 ing. So we started on our trip, and to make certain of 

 getting into a place quiet enough for Mrs. Bunker, we 

 fetched up on a cotton plantation. There was not any 

 other house in sight, and no neighbors within a mile. It 

 was mighty woodsy and lonesome, mail once a week, and 

 preaching once in two weeks, and about eight miles off. 

 Thinks I to myself &quot; if Mrs. Bunker wants a quiet time I 

 guess nothing will hinder her here.&quot; It was mighty nice 

 for a week or two, and she was delighted with the woods 

 and flowers, the dogs and pigs, the poultry and negroes. 

 The third week she began to miss the papers, and to in 

 quire about the mails. The fourth week she wondered 

 why they did not have preaching every Sunday. The 

 fifth week, she began to talk about John and Sally. By 

 the time two months were up, she spoke of Hookertown, 

 very peaceably. At the close of the third month it was a. 

 very handsome place, indeed the prettiest village she had 

 seen in all her journeyings. Now that she has got home, 

 she declares it is the centre of the world, and the tip-top 



