Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1872-02-02
The Leisure Hour.
VyR .uE,vISTER'S HOUSEKEEP-
EK.

"But you know how it is in parishes,
there alters is women that thinks the min
ister's affairs belongs to them, and they
ought to have the rulin' and gudiu' OF 'em,
and if minister's wife dies, there's folks
that alters hes their eyes open on provi-
dence-lookin' who's to be the next one.
"Now there was Miss Amaziah Piper
idgc, widder with snappin' black eyes,
and hook nose-kind o. like a hawk-and
she was one o. them up and down COM
mandin sort o women. that feel that they
have q call to be SEEM to everything that
goes on in the parish, and specially to the
minister.
Folks did say that Miss Pipperidge sort
o. sot her eye on the parson for herself
wul-now, that might have been, or it
might not. Some folks thought it was a
very suitable connection-you see she had
good property of her own, right nigh to
the minister's lot, and was alters kind o
active and busy-So, taking one thing with
another, | SHOULDN'T wonder if Miss Pip
peridge should thought that providence
pointed that way. At any rate she went
up TO Deakn Blodgett's wife, and they two
sort o put their heads together mournin'
and condoling about the way things was
| likely to 90 on at the minister's now Mis-
| Carryl was dead. You see the parsons
wife, she was one o them women who he'd
| their eyes everywhere and on everything.
| She was little thin woman, bat tough as
| Inier rubber, and smart as steel trap, and
| there warnt hen laid an egg or cackled,
but Mis- Carryl was right there to see about
| it, and she had the garden ale in the
| spring, and the medders moved in the
summer, and the cider made, and the corn
| husked, and the apples got in the fall, and
| The doctor had nothing to do but jest sit
stock still meditatin' on Jerusalem and
Jericho and them things that ministers
think about-but Lordy massy he didn't
know nothin about where anything he eat
or drank, or wore, came from or went to-
his wife lest led round in temporal things
and took care of him like a baby.
"Wal, to be sure Mis- Carryl looked up to
him in spiriluals, and thought all the
world on him-ior there warn't smarter
minister nowhere round. Why, when he
preached on decroes and election, they used
| to come clear over from South Parish, and
| West Sherhurne and Old Town to hear
him, and there was sich row of wagons
tied along by the meetn' house, that the
stables were all full and the hitchin posts
was full, clean up to the tavern, that
folks said the doctor 1ade the town look
! like a general trainin' day Sunday.
"He was great on texts, the doctor was
When he'd pint toprovc he'd jest go thro'
the Bible and drive all the texts ahead of
| him like flock of sheppard then if
there was text that seemed agin him
why, he'd come out with his Greek and
Hebrew, and kind o. chaSeit round a spell,
lest as We see a fcllcr chase a contrary bel
welher, and make him jump the fence ar
ter the rest-I tell you there warn't no text
in the Bible that could stand agin the doc
tor when his blood was up. The year after
the doctor was.appointed TO preach the Ice
tion sermon in Boston, he made such fig
ger that the Brattle street church sent Il
committee right down TO see If they could
MT get him to Boston-and then the Sher-
burne folks, they up and raised his salary
-ye see there amt anything wakes folks
up like somebody else's wantin' what
you've got. Wal, that fall they made him
a doctor o. divinity at Cambridge college,
and 80 they set more by him than ever,
Wal, you see the doctor, Of course, he felt
kind o. lonesome and afflicted when Mis-
Carryl was gone but rally and truly, HUI
dy was so up to everything about tho
house that the doctor didn't miss nothin
in temporal way. His shirt bosoms wa,
pleated finer than they ever was, and them
ruiles round his wrists was KEEP like the
driven snow, and there warn't bracll In
his silk stockings, and his shoe buckles
KEEP polished up, and his coats brushed
and then there warn't no:bread and biscuit
like Huldy's, and her butter was like solid
] lumI o. gold, and there warn't no pies tC