Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1870-10-07
Gales aud Sketthes.
"MIS' ELDERKIN'S PITCHER"
One Of Mrs. stoves Fircside Stories.

uon | alieNS KNOW Wilat tntlf ElarcleS Is
when they sees 'em. Folks is kind o
blinded, and when Il providence comes
alonG, they don't seem to know to take it,
and they growl and grumble about what
turns out to be the best things that ever
happened to 'em in their lives. It's like
Mis- Elderkin's pitcher
"What about Mis- Elderkin's pitcher ?"
said both of us in one breath.
Didn't l ever tell ye now ?" said Sam;
"why | wanter know?'
No, we were sure he had never told us,
and Sam, as usual, began by clearing the
ground by thorough introduction with
statistical expositions.
oval, We see Mis- Elderkin she lives
now over to Sherburne, in about the
handsomest house in Sherburne,- a high,
white house with green blinds and white
pillars in front,-and she rides out in her
own kerridge, and Mr.. Elderkin, he's
deacon in the church and colonel in the
MALTA, and a s'lectman, and pretty much
atop everything there is goin' in Sher-
burne, and it all came out of that are
pitcher
"What pitcher?" we shouted in chorus
"Lordy massy! that ares just what I'm
gon' to tell We about; but We see fell
|
things"
Mis- Elderkn she thinks she's great
lady nowadays, | s'pose, but l member
when she was Miry Brown over herein
| Oldtown, and l used to be waitin' on her
to singing school.
Miry and | was putty good friends
along in them days,-we wac pretty con-
| side'able kind O. intimate. Fact is, boys,
there was times in them days when tho't
whether or no | wouldn't take Miry my
SELF" said Sam, his lace growing lumin-
Gus with the pleasing idea of his former
masculine attractions and privileges.
.'Yis,' he continued there was time
when folks said | could have had Miry eff
I'd asked her, and putty much think SO
myself, but didn't say nothin'; marriage
is alters kind o. venturesome an Miry
had such up-and-,lown kind O ways, | was
sort o'fraid ont.
But Lordy massy, boys, you mustn't
never tell Hepsy said so, cause she'd be
mad enough to bite single nail in two.
Not that she sets so very great by me
neither, but then womens backs is alters
up ef they think anybody else could had
you, whether they want you themselves or
| not.
Ye see, Miry, she was old Black Hoss
j Ohm Browns darter, and lived up there
in that are big brown house by the meet
in'-house that has the red hollyhock in the
front yard. Miry was about the hand
soonest gal that went into the singers
seat Sunday.
l tell you she want none o'your milk
and-sugar gals neither.-she was main
strong built. She was the strongest gal
in her arms that | ever see. Why, have
seen Miry take up barrel O. flour and lift
it right into the kitchen, and it would just
make the pink come into her cheeks like
two roses, but she never seemed to mind
it grain. She had good, strong back
of her own, and she was straight as a
popular, with swapping black eyes, and |
tell you there was snap to her tongue,
too. Nobody never got ahead o Miry ;
she'd give every fellow as good as he sent,
| but for all that she WAS a great fay orite.
NIiry was one o'your briery, scratchy
gals, that seem to catch fellows in thorns.
She alters fit and fouted her heauX, and
the more she fit and iiouted EN-, the
more thev'd be arter her. There want a
girl in Oldtown that led such string of
fellows arter her, cause you see she'd
now and then throw EN- a good word over
| her shoulder, and then they'd all fight who
should get it, and she would just laugh to
see them do it.
Why, there was Tom Sawin, he was
! one oher beauX, and Jim Moss, and Ike
Bachn; and there was a Boston boy, Tom
Beacon, he came up from cambridge TO
lusticate with Parson Lothrop, he thought
he must have his say with Mary, but he
got pretty well come up with. You see
he thought cause he was Boston born that
he was kind o aristocracy, and had right
Jest to pick and choose 'mong country gals
! but the way he got come up with by Miry
was too funny for any thing.
DO tell us about it, we said as sam
made an artiul pause, designed to draw
forth solicitation.
Wal, We see, Tom Beacon he told Ike
Bacon about it, and Ike he told me. Twas
this way. Ye see there was quiltin up 80
Mis- Capn Broad's, and Tom Beacon he was
there, and come to goin home with the
girls, Tom he cut Ike out, and got Miry
all to himself, and twas putty long piece
Of walk from Mis- Cap'n Broad's up pats
the swamp and the stone pastur' clear up
to old Black Horse Johns.
Wal, Tom, he was in high feather cause
| MiIy took him, SO that he didn't reely know
how to behave, and so as they were walkin
along past Parson Lothrop's apple orchard
| Tom thought he'd try bein' familiar, and he
undertook to put his arm round Miry.-
Wall, if she didn't jest take that little fel-
low by his two shoulders and whirl him
over the fence into the orchard quickern
no time, Why says Tom, the first
knew | was lynn on my back under the
apple trees, lookin' up at the stars Nliry,
she jest walked off home, and said nothin'
to nobody,--it wasn't her way to talk much
about things; # it hadn't been for Tom
Beacon himself nobody need IA known
nothin' about it. Tom was little fellow,
you see, and 'mazin' good natured, and one
of the sort that couldn't keep nothin' to
himself, and so he let the eat out of the bag
himself. Wall, there didn't nobody think
the worse O. Nliry. When tellers find gal
won't take sauce from no man they kind o
respect her, and then fellers think eff it had
been them, now things d "a been different.
That's jest what Jim Moss and Ike Bacon
said; they said, why, Tom Beacon WAS a
fool not TO know better how to get along