Litchfield enquirer., 1873-11-13
From Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine.
 ABBY'S HOSPITALITY.
BY MARY F. COMsTOCK.
*Ruth ii. 19.

BY MARY E. CoMsTOCK "JAcoB HOYT, I'm going to Deerfeld
 l shall start in just sixty minutes. If yot do not want to go will take Thomas tt
 drive for us. Katie you may help me pu up the lunch. Percy you may go anG
 ask Clarissa Knowles to please come righ over"
 Percy and Katie had stopped playing
 with the white kitten and stood speech less while their mother issued her man
 date. It took Percy several seconds tc
 comprehend his commission. When,
 however, it's full bearing flashed upon
 him he sped like an arrow from the bow
 with the ejaculation ''Oh, goodyr'
 Katie, who was her brothers veritable
 shadow, flew down the long, greasy lane
 after him, leaving MT. and Mrs. Jacob
 Hoyt and Master Ben, aged twelve months,
 to discuss the attitude of affairs.
 "What's the matter, Ellen ?' asked Ja- cob Hoyt. Seems to me you're taking a pretty high hand, ain't you? Never saw you set up so before. Didn't tell you I'd take you to Deerfeld ?"
 "Yes, Jacob, you did," said his wife to take us in the spring to see mother. First, the spring work delayed you and then the warm weather came, and, finally, I consented to wait till after 'haying. For three weeks now you have promised from time to time to take us, and I have been in readiness to start at an hours mo- tice. Yesterday the children and I sat all the morning with our things on, when you came in from the south meadow and had not thought of harnessing. Maybe we would have better weather if we wait ed day, you said. It's as fine as need be. We are ready. am going!"
 Well, this is something new. I'd no idea, Ellen, you were so spunky. To drive man so! What great difference is it going to make now whether you go to-day or tomorrow I wanted to see Jo Strong this afternoon about renting his barn."
 ''Very we'll, you can see Mir. Strong. Thomas can take us."
 ''Now see here, Ellen, this won't do" said Jacob Hoyt, his tone rising. "Do you suppose I'm going to pay Thomas tn drive around on pleasure and do his work myself?" :, :, ! i=l ken in set tone so unlike his wife's, that it startled stolid Jacob Hoyt in spite of himself
 The question why Ellen Deering was ever permitted to marry Jacob Hoyt would not be profitable one for discus sion here and now. It is left open to those interested in the general problem of unsuitable marriages, which in it's diff ferent phases is now agitating society. The more practical question is how one woman, among the many, solved her part of the problem. Educated, refined, love ly in person and winning in manner, FL len Deering, tired; spent, underpaid but successful teacher, weary of city walls came into the country to recruit, and the good-looking, well-informed, rich young farmer in some way won her. The fact stood, an enthusiastic lover of nature coming, after long hunger, among rural sights and sources, Ellen Deering's imagi- nation probably invested the selfish, stal- wart young votary of the soil with the myriad attractions of his surroundings. All the delicacy of spring violets. all the generosity of October's golden wealth, all the warmth and cheor of summers danc- ing sunshine, the trustful girl probably imagined inherent in the nature of the man so madly in love with her. There were uncouth ways that sometimes jared, but those would be, by-and-by, easily remedied, she believed, and she had not a suspicion that the heaviness of the clods of the earth might threaten to quenoh her mental life, and the flintiness equal to that of the picturesque rocks be pitiless to her finer needs.
 Jacob Hoyt saw a new look in her face day, heard new tone in her voice. In very bewilderment he went to the barn and harnessed his handsome horses before the double wagon.
 "What a woman is all the time wanting to leave such home as this for, every thing in prime order out doors and in, is more than can make out," soliloQuized Jacob. 'I told her all along was going to take her. can't see what she went and got in such fret for and engaged Clarissa Knowles. Clarissa is a good, careful hand, though p Jacob wondered at himself for his acquiescence.
 The springs of the fami!y-wagon were none of the most elastic; the road was none of the smoothest. The precious burden of Master Ben's avoirdupois was no mere feathers weight. But casting off the querulous complainings of her hus- band as birds wing sheds water-drops, Ellen's spirits rose with each new, fresh sight and sound, and her gay chatter with the children and her sportive reminis- eenses when they stopped for lunch by a running brook, charmed even Jacob himself.
 'Oh what nice, funny mamma you are r said Kitty. when an amusing narra- tive had made them all laugh.
 "You look re0l pretty, mamma" said Percy, observing her bright color.
 ''Come, come, we must bundle in again and jog on, said Jacob Hoyt. ssWe've got good three hours before us yet be- fore we get to your mothers"
 Mrs. Abby Maitland tried new dress just home from the makers, and found it faultless. She gave & parting, critical look at her pleasant, airy cham bers, where everything was in exquisite order. She rearranged flower here and there, Tn basket or in vase, altered the fold of 8 curtain, and descended to the inviting parlors.
 The light fell propitiously upon choice paintings; flowers breathed out their fra grance; statuettes lent an ar of calm re- pose. Mrs. Maitland changed the posi- ton of Clytie, moved a portfolio of drawings, and took up piece of new mu sic. She run over the opening passages, and recognized the theme.
 'That used to be a favorite of Ellen's, she said.
 Then her fingers sought for some of the remembered strains of last Sundays vol untary. She sought to revive the im- pression of the previous Sunday morn ing 8 service by means of association. She remembered how those low, deep chords,