FOREST AND STREAM 
429 
mighty tickled at the gift, somehow), and pulled 
out for home, where we got laughed at “con- 
sumedly,” but we kept our own counsel and 
quietly made our litle arrangements for a rather 
protracted absence. 
Now, it frequently happened that it became 
necessary to confer with Ned concerning said 
arrangements, and I always had to go over to 
'his mother’s for the purpose of finding him. It 
further usually happened that Ned wasn’t at 
home, but was to be found half a mile further 
on at the widow Needham’s. The widow was 
a decidedly good looking, well-preserved woman 
of thirtysix, and her daughter Hannah was a 
rustic beauty of the first water. Round and 
shapely about the waist, plump in the bows, a 
clear, rosy complexion and good teeth, with a 
dark, wicked looking eye, she was well calcu¬ 
lated to upset the mental equilibrium of soft¬ 
hearted fellows, such as Ned was at that time. 
Moreover, she had an appetite, and wasn’t 
ashamed to eat—a good sign of common sense 
in a young woman, as you may have had occa¬ 
sion to observe. She had a pleasant knack of 
getting good dinners, too, and was not ashamed 
of that, either. On the whole, few families got 
along more pleasantly or comfortably than the 
widow Needham’s, consisting of herself, daught¬ 
er, and a hired man, one Jonas Sprague from 
“C’netticut,” as he always pronounced it. 
There was no good reason why the widow and 
her lively daughter should not get on comfort¬ 
ably and enjoy life to the utmost. They were 
industrious, healthy, had the good will of the 
whole country side, and were “well-to-do.” Also, 
they were both indisputably good-looking, and 
never quarreled. At church you would have 
taken them for sisters rather than mother and 
daughter, and premising that matrimony is a 
predestined and necessary evil (which admits 
of a doubt) a man might have been excused for 
falling in love with either, or both. 
Deacon Needham, peace to his manes, had 
made his advent into this wicked world some¬ 
where in Connecticut, had there learned to tan 
and curry hides and skins, had worked faith¬ 
fully at it until the age of thirty, at which time 
he was the possessor of fifteen hundred dollars 
and a deaconcy in “the Fusst P’esbyteeian 
Chuuch,” as the Connecticut Yankees (who 
-can’t sound an r in the middle of a word, 
though they think they can) usually pronounce 
it. About this time the deacon's mind became 
sorely exercised on the high and increasing 
price of bark—a subject that lay near his heart 
—and he thought long and deeply on it. The 
result of his cogitations was that although bark 
would not bear transportation, hides and leather 
would. So the deacon turned his wordly 
possessions into hard cash, bestrode the ewe- 
necked old mare that had been the motive 
power of the bark mill for ten years, and tak¬ 
ing his papers from the church wended his way 
westward. Land, particularly hemlock land, was 
cheap on all the upper streams of the Susque¬ 
hanna. at that day, and the deacon bought 300 
acres, erected a tannery, sent for his man Jonas, 
Who was then a youngster of sixteen, put out 
a sign offering “cash for Hides and Skins,” and 
settled quietly into a thrifty, paying business. 
Nearly twenty years of the deacon’s life had 
'been passed away in improving his land, en¬ 
larging his business, and attending to his social 
duties like a good citizen and a Christian, when 
his man Jonas, now advanced to old bachelor¬ 
hood received a letter from a niece in the land of 
wooden nutmegs requesting information as to 
the chances for a school teacher, or, the letter 
added, a good housekeeper. She could keep 
house, teach school, sew or weave. Inclosed 
was a recommendation from the minister setting 
forth the good qualities and piety of Hannah 
Sprague, and declaring her “capable of manag¬ 
ing a school, a dairy, or a well ordered house¬ 
hold.” A pretty strong recommendation for a 
damsel of seventeen summers, and as it turned 
out a well-deserved one. Jonas conferred with 
the deacon and showed him the letter. Now the 
deacon had, like a true Yankee that he was, 
built a large shingle palace as soon as the state 
of his finances would warrant it; for more than 
twelve years he had “kept house,” and one of 
his chief troubles had been the difficulty of ob¬ 
taining and retaining the proper sort of person 
as housekeeper. It seemed to him that the 
handmaid could not do better than to come on 
at once and take charge of his household mat¬ 
ters, in which case the deacon could promise 
her good home, and he even ■ hinted something 
about being a father to her, should she prove 
equal to the minister’s recommend. Jonas wrote 
back accordingly, and in due course of time 
arrived at the deacon’s fine mansion, imprimis, 
the handmaiden, Hannah Sprague, rosy, blush¬ 
ing, and neat: item, one bandbox, item, one hair 
trunk. That was all. 
Goody Brown, Who had mis-kept the deacon’s 
house for a year, and whom Jonas irreverently 
styled an “old gnawpost,” was discharged at 
once, and the tidy, quiet Hannah installed as 
mistress of the house. No plumper, whiter 
hands were ever seen mixing 'bread or working 
'butter; no prettier turned arms or ankles ever 
gladdened the eye of a deacon (supposing dea¬ 
cons ever notice such trifles, which they prob¬ 
ably don’t), and no lonely deacon’s ear was 
ever cheered by the dulcet notes of Old Hun¬ 
dred from a sweeter voice than Hannah’s. 
Why spin it out? I am not writing a novel, 
and the reader 'has already guessed the sequel. 
At the end of a year people had begun to 
surmise that Hannah Sprague was “settin’ her 
cap for the deacon,” when, one fine June morn¬ 
ing, the deacon and Hannah put a sudden stop 
to all further scandal or surmise by standing up 
in church and 'being duly married. People 
talked, of course; they always will. Slatternly 
mothers with frowsy daughters who would have 
jumped at the chance of sharing the deacon’s 
bed and board declared that it was a shame; “a 
young gal like that to marry a man old enough 
to be her father, ’cause he had property!” 
Three old maids of the most husky and primi¬ 
tive pattern left the church and went over soul 
and bones to the Wesleyans, 'because they 
“couldn’t conscientiously countenance any sich 
venal proceedin’s;” the truth being that each 
one of them had been making a dead-set at the 
deacon any time for the last ten years. On the 
whole, however, the marriage made less talk 
than such marriages usually do in a country 
town, and the deacon took it all so meekly. His 
youthful, pretty wife took to her new honors 
so naturally, and everything went on so much 
after the old style, that after the conventional 
nine days were past and each had had his or 
her say on the matter, people began to see that 
it was not such a mesalliance after all. For 
my part, I think the marriage was a right and 
proper one for both parties. If the deacon could 
become the possessor of sudh a nice, thrifty 
piece of calico through being able to support, 
protect and care for her, it was a fair reward 
for a life of probity, industry, and self-denying 
economy. And, on the other hand, if the habits 
of industry, prudence, cheerfulness and virtue, 
which had been instilled in the soul of the pretty 
Hannah, could win a virtuous, upright, truth- 
loving man for a helpmate—a devoted, doting, 
well-to-do husband and a most comfortable 
home—I, for one, think the investment not such 
a bad one. 
I know such things are of a past age—people 
The Point, Drawn for “Forest and Stream” by George C. Cross. 
