Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1874-06-03
The Doctors Wife.

DIR. Moves married, l think, somewhere
about '6S or 9. There is very little to be
said about his WIFE Mrs. Sarah Tanning,
indeed, gave decisive verdict upon her
at first sight She is one of the rank and
file of Humanity" said she; "one of the
weichtless molecules that 90 to make up
the mass" Mrs. Tanning was that bril-
liant little woman from Andover, Mass,
who essayed to take the well known Mrs.
Rushs place in Philadelphia that winter.
She used to give weekly reunions-without
supper; she cannot understand, even now,
WHY she could not form a literary nucle
us y there.) Nobody contradicted her YER
dict; she always claimed Humanity as her
own pre-empted property; and besides,
there really was so little to say about the
Doctors wife! Mrs. Tanning remarked
that an American woman, If no other,
ought to have some salient points, good or
bad to Justify her right to live, and this
woman was an American of the Americans.
descended on one side from the colonial
Maryland family, and on the other, of
Pennsylvania Quaker stock, n race of re-
But there was absolutely nothing in the
creature-nothing. 1t was ineXplicable,
by all the rules of racen' The little lady s
speciality, by the by, was trace +" and
.:strains of blood" She could lay her
finger on the very great-grandfather from
whom you inherited your long upper-lip
or gluttonous propensities, and reason for
YOU, out of these inheritances, such Sc
auences of fatalism that your Christianity
tottered quite to its foundation.
Now there had been no salient points
about the Doctors wife when she was fat
baby. or a girl at school, Dode Near was
daily set down as Ounce in every class
from spelling up to International Law, anC
daily took up her book with cheerful So II
really is too bad in me" and went out
with fresh zeal to skate and run races witt
the bows. If she had been one of the del
icate "Lilys" and "Violets " whom the
other girls set apart to adore, her lack o
brains could have been overlooked; bu
: she was a short, thick set little body, witt
shock of red hair tied back from a freck
/ led face which was lighted by laughing
| blue eves,-eyes in which there was III
l undeniable cast She never, however, CAV
7 hint of her opinion of herself, and alway
: seemed to be in high good humor with he
lot in life, stupidity and squint included
a A certain indefnable something about tn
. girl, would prevent any one from hintin
: disagreeable truth to her. The sam
|. impalpable reserve or old fashioned coul
!; tesy in her, too, made the boys who skate
l and raced with her treat her with a respet
p which they did not show to the Lilys an
$ Violets. Her condition on graduation-da
d would have been pitiable if her placi
y good humor had not made it exasperatins
h One of the class was going to sail as mi
r sionary to Africa; we all made hero
n martyr of her; we all looked forward wit
!" hysteric enthusiasm to speedily becomin
5. famous authors, leaders in society, or
p least wives and mothers. Trustees an
;" faculty spoke and prayed at us, the vel
1 air kindled with hope and fervor; and the
t. sat that plump little Ounce at the foot
c. the bench, smelling a bunch of the n
n- Burgundy roses, of which she was so fon
he quite contented to be cipher now and
d, the future!
al Here she was again, DR.. Moves wifi
be shapeless and freckled and bright-ey