1872 .] 
197 
AMERICAN AG-RICULT URIST 
brought the sun-bonnet in such a range that he could see 
the bright eyes and blushing face at the bottom of this 
camera oscura. He did not hasten to reply. While the 
vision lasted ho enjoyed the vision. Mot until the stin- 
bounot dropped did he take up the answer to her question. 
“ I don’t know much, but what I do know I have 
learned out of your Uncle Andrew's books.” 
“ I)o you know my Uncle Andrew ? What a strange 
man he is 1 He never comes here and we never go there, 
and my mother never speaks to him, and my father 
doesn’t often have anything to say to him. And so you 
have been at his house. 
They say he has all up¬ 
stairs full of books, and 
ever so many cats and 
dogs and birds and 
squirrels about. But I 
thought he never let 
anybody go up-stairs.” 
” He lets me 
August, when she had 
ended her speech and 
dropped her sun-bonnet 
again out of the range 
of his eyes, which, in 
truth, were too steadfast 
in their gaze. “ I spend 
many evenings up¬ 
stairs.” August had 
just a trace of German 
in his idiom. 
“ What makes Uncle 
Andrew so curious, I 
wonder? ” 
“ I don’t exactly 
know. Some say he was 
treated not just right by 
a woman when he was 
a young man. I don’t 
know. He seems hap¬ 
py. I don’t wonder a 
man should be curious 
though when a woman 
that he loves treats him 
not just right. Any 
way. if he loves her with all his heart, as I love Julc 
Anderson! ” 
These last words came with an.cffort. And Julia just 
then remembered her errand, and said, “I must hurry,” 
and, with a country girl’s agility, she climbed over the 
fence before August could help her, and gave him 
another look through her bonnet-telescope from the 
other side, and then hastened on to return the tea, 
and to tell Sirs. Malcolm that there was to be a Hit¬ 
lerite preacher at the school-house on Sunday night.. 
And August found that his horses were quite cool, 
while he was quite hot. He cleaned his mold-board 
and swung his plow round, and then, with a “ Whoa! 
haw! ” and a pull upon the single line which Western 
plowmen use to guide their horses, he drew the team 
into their place, and set himself to watching the turn¬ 
ing of the rich, fragrant black earth. And even as ho 
set his plowshare, he set his purpose to overcome all 
obstacles, and to marry Julia Anderson. With the 
same steady, irresistible, onward course would he over¬ 
come all that lay between him and the 'soul that shone 
out of the face that dwelt in the bottom of the sun- 
bonnet. 
From her covert in the elder-bushes Mrs. Anderson 
had seen the parley, and her cheeks had also grown 
hot, but from a very different emotion. She had not 
beard the words. She had seen the loitering girl and 
the. loitering plowboy, and she went back to the house 
vowing that she’d “ teach Jule Anderson how to spend 
her time talking to a Dutchman.” And yet the more 
she thought of it, the more she was satisfied that it 
wasn’t best to “make a fuss” just yet. She might 
hasten what she wanted to prevent. For though Julia 
was obedient and mild in word, she was none the less 
a little stubborn, and in a matter of this sort might 
take the bit in her teeth. 
And so Mrs. Anderson had recourse, as usual, to 
her husband. She knew she could browbeat him. She 
demanded that August Wehle should be paid off and 
discharged. And when Anderson had hesitated, be¬ 
cause he feared he could not get another so good a 
hand, and for other reasons, she burst out into the 
<jeelaration: 
“I don’t believe that you’d care a cent if she did 
•many a Dutchman! She might ns well as to marry 
some white folks I know.” 
CHAPTER II. 
An Explosion. 
It was settled that August was to be quietly dis¬ 
charged at the end of his month, which was Saturday 
night. Neither he nor Julia must suspect any opposi- 1 
tion to their attachment, nor any discovery of it, indeed. 
This was settled by Mrs. Anderson. She usually set¬ 
tled things. First, she settled upon the course to be 
pursued. Then she settled her husband. He always 
made a show of resistance. His dignity required a show 
of resistance. But it was only a show. He always 
meant to surrender in the end. Whenever his wife 
ceased her fire of small-arms and herself hung out the 
flag of truce, he instantly capitulated. Asia every other 
dispute, so in this one about the discharge of the “ miser¬ 
able, impudent Dutchman,” Mrs. Anderson attacked her 
husband at all his weak points, and she had learned by 
heart a catalogue of his weak points. Then, when he 
was sufficiently galled to be entirely miserable ; when 
she had expressed her regret that she hadn’t married 
somebody with some heart, and that she had ever left 
her father’s house, for her father was always good to 
her ; and when she had sufficiently reminded him of the 
lover she had given up for him. and of how much he had 
loved her, and how miserable she had made him by lov¬ 
ing Samuel Anderson—when she had conducted the 
quarrel through all the preliminary stages, she always 
carried her point in the end by a coup de partie somewhat 
in this fashion: 
“That’s just the way! Always the way with you men ! 
I suppose I must give up to you as usual. You've lorded 
it over me from the start. I can’t even have the manage¬ 
ment of my own daughter. But I do think that after I’ve 
let you have your way in so many things, you might 
turn off that fellow. You might let me have my way in 
one little thing, and you would if you cared for me. 
You know how liable I am to die at any moment of ! 
heart-disease, and yet you will prolong this excitement 
in this way.” 
Now, there is nothing a weak man likes so much as to 
be considered strong, nothing a henpecked man likes so 
much as to be regarded a tyrant. If you ever hear a 
man boast of his determination to rule his own house ; 
you may feel sure that he is subdued. And a hen-pecked \ 
husband always makes a great show cf opposing every¬ 
thing that looks toward the enlargement of the work or 
privileges of women. Such a man always insists on the 1 
shadow of authority because he can not have the sub¬ 
stance. It *is a great satisfaction to him that his wife 
can never be president, and that she can not make 
speeches in ‘ prayer-meeting. While he retains these 
badges of superiority, he is still in some sense head of 
the family. 
So when Mrs. Anderson loyally reminded her husband 
that she had always let him have his own way, he be¬ 
lieved her because he wanted to, though he could not. 
just at the moment recall the particular instances. And 
knowing that he must yield, he rather liked to yield as 
an act of sovereign grace to the poor oppressed wife who 
begged it. 
“ Well, if you insist on it, of course, I will not refuse 
yon,” he said; “and perhaps you are right.” He had 
yie! led in this way almost every day of his married life, 
and in this way he yielded to the demand that August 
should be discharged. But ho agreed with his wife that 
Julia should not know anything about it, and that there 
must be no leave-taking allowed. 
The very next day Julia sat sewing on the long porch 
in front of the house. Cynthy Ann was getting dinner 
in the kitchen at the other end of the hall, and Mrs. 
Anderson was busy in her usual battle with dirt. She 
kept the house clean, because it gratified her combative¬ 
ness and her domineering disposition to have the house 
clean in spite of the ever-cneroaching dirt. And so she 
scrubbed and scolded, and scolded and scrubbed, the 
scrubbing and scolding agreeing in time and rhythm. 
The scolding was the vocal music, the scrubbing an 
accompaniment. The concordant discord was perfect. 
Just at the moment I speak of there was a lull in her 
scolding. The sym- 
phonious scrubbing 
went on as usual. Julia, 
wishing to divert the 
next thunder - storm 
from herself, erected 
what she imagined 
might prove a conver¬ 
sational lightning-rod, 
by asking a question 
on a topic foreign to 
the theme of the last, 
march her mother had 
played and sung so 
sweetly with brush and 
voice. 
‘ ‘Mother, what makes 
Uncle Andrew so 
queer ? ” 
“I don’t know. He 
was always queer.” 
This was spoken in a 
staccato, snapping- 
turtle way. But when 
one has lived all one’s 
life with a snapping- 
turtle, one doesn’t 
mind. Julia did not 
mind. She was curious 
to know what was the 
matter with her uncle, 
Andrew Anderson. So 
she said: 
“I’ve heard that 
some false woman treated him cruelly; is that so?” 
Julia did not see how red her mother’s face was, for 
she was not regarding her. 
“Who told you that ? ” Julia was so used to hearing 
, her mother speak in an excited way that she hardly 
] noticed the strange tremor in this question. 
“ August.” 
The symphony ceased in a moment. The scrubbing- 
brush dropped in the pail of soapsuds. But the vocal 
storm burst forth with a violence that startled even 
Julia. 
“August said that , did he? And you listened, did 
you? You listened to that? You listened to that? 
You listened to that ? Hey ? He slandered your motV.er. 
You listened to him slander your mother! ” By this 
time Mrs. Anderson was at white heat. Julia was 
speechless. “/ saw you yesterday flirting with that 
Dutchman , and listening to his abuse of your mother ! 
And now you insult me ! Well, to-morrow will be the 
last day that that Dutchman will hold a plow on this 
place. And you’d better look out for yourself, miss 1 
You-” 
Here followed a volley of epithets which Julia received 
standing. But when her mother’s voice grew to a 
scream, Julia took the word. 
“Mother, hush! ” 
It was the first word of resistance she had ever uttered. 
The agony within must, have been terrible to have 
wrung it from her. The mother was stunned with anger 
A LITTLE RUSTLE BROUGHT HER TO CONSCIOUSNESS. 
