Litchfield enquirer., 1876-06-01
(From the Atlantic Monthly.l lN THE oUANTlcK STAGE.

l tied off the pebble pavements of New I England capital, into the soothing si ence of the heavy, sandy pike leading sixteen. miles up hill to Quantick, having inside five passengers. all women, and all, save one, more or less famillarly knoMn to l each other. sas
 On the front seat, riding with her back to the horses, Ill supreme contempt of the
 feeble minded notion that headache and
 nausea are readily engendered in that
 position. sat Aunt Nabby Tanner, the Se-
 hannet tailoresss Sehannet being post village six miles this side of Quautick. and the trading and educational ceDtre of one of the sleepiest farming communities in
 New England.
 Aunt Nabby's surprisingly tall, thin
 figure was held erect with military preci- sion; her hair Was white as years and cares l could bleach 1t, but Tn her Strong-noSed, | keen, sensible old face there was no token
 that time had weakened high spirit and str ong will, or made serious ravages upon somewhat formidable powers of observa
 tion and judgment.
 Her dress, unaffected by any feeting fashion of the last dozen or fifteen years,
 was creaseless and spotless even her black cotton gloves refused to grow rusty, and snuff taking and the management of the snnff-taker terrible second handker- chief, the bandanna, or checked gingham one, she achieved with certain ste.n dignity that defied criticism. s-s. l Nobody was more respected than Amt Nabby in the whole Sehannet neighbor- hood, where for more than forty years she had yielded her shears, press-board, and goose, and sewed miles of heavy seams with ''blunts'' and ''betweens. Long ago she might have rested from her la- bors, for she had inherited one of the best farms in Sehannet: but unluckily. little after the farm came to her, there happened along clever, plausible widower, who pictured in violent colors the troubles that befall the lone woman who has land to l look after, descanted eloquently upon the ease, the sheltered lot, the happiness, of | that woman who should be protected, served by himself and his three or four half grown boys, and these considerations, | aided, certainly not hindered, by reported philandering of a nature almost too soft and moving for Sehannet credence, im- pelled Aunt Nabby to the commission of the sole great folly of her life, the install ing of this smooth-tongued stranger in her fathers scarce-cold great arm chair, master of herself and her possessions. The marriage was hardly week old be- fore, from the distant county that had been the bridegroom's home, there came flying cloud of debts for settlement, and well-attested stories of the hardships his first wife had endured through his hope less laziness- -hardships she was we'll con- tented to end. or change, by death.
 The man could do almost anything; his judgment in all farming matters was ex- cellent, he was good surveyor, and a good wheelright; he invented labor saving contrivances, could repair clocks. and watches, make tiddles, flutes, banjoes; he was really admirable musician, and a self-taught naturalist, and he could talk to vile the bird off the bough |; but he a0ouid do nothing that involved severe or even continuous labor.
 He was an imposing figure, after an el- der, huge-framed, muscular, yet massive type; his digestion accommodated itself perfectly to four mighty meals per day, and to as many collations as he could in- terpose between his newspapers, his maps upon the lounge, and long gossips' in the barns of certain favored neighbors; and he was unable to get through the night without several repasts to support ex- hausted nature He became the foremost man of the neighborhood in political and Masonic matters, represented the town for some years in the Assembly, and at election periods, whether he was or was not candidate, bestirred himself to much purpose, devoting such vigilance, so many persuasive visits, to a despised rocky fastness of the town where dweIt poverty -smitten population of Free Lan- ces. amongst whom the school master was forever abroad that not the booziest char coal peddling shack amongst them, whose most comprehensive views of town meetin' never stretched beyond it's being an occa- sion when little money and limitless rum and hard cider were easily come by, perhaps, too, broken head, and cer- tainly deal of tedious zigzagging into ditches on the route homeward. and many doleful pauses exacted by stomach sea- sick to utter rebellion,-failed to present himself punctually at the polls, prepared manfuliy to do his duty by his country.
 Meantime Aunt Nabby ,confessing frank ly to one or two old friends how woefuIly she had been deceived, how hopeless the error into which she had been. led, held her tongue bravely from self-lamentations and useless reproaches, rose earlier, lay down later, spent more hours at her neei- Ie, scrimped her own attire that her hus- bands vast bulk might be suitably clad, paid for his books newspapers, and costly tools and materials required for the many begun and never finished bits of fine work that cambered house and shop, and care fully consulted his despotic taste in the food prepared for him. even though she were obliged to cook it, and to keep her. self warm by a''aashy' fire of rotten chestnut rails robbed from the nearest fence, chopped into available lengths by her own busy hands, while cords of wood were crying for the ax in the forest that covered 8 third of her farm; she clothed, educated and started fairly in life her husbands boys, and had the one sweet drop in her cup in the affection, great as could have been given their own mother, with which the young men regarded her. But, brave as Aunt Nabby was, it is to be hoped no sympathizing friend ever related to her how, in moments when beverages more potent than coffee and tea had rem dered the senator more expansive, conG- dential, not to say sentimental, than bis wont was, he had been, heard to regret that his second matrimonial choice had been too rashly made; undoubtedly there was something severe, hash, in an old maids manner and habit of viewing things; he could not but feel, often, that younger, more affectionate woman would have made him a more suitable compan- ion. An, if he had his life to live over again People were too worldly in. their marriages. A woman might be likely, forehanded. and stirrin', and not make a wife man could live easily and happily with. The disposition, that as the main thing to consider; and the younger wo- man was, the less likely to be sot in her ways. And so on. a - Beside Aunt Nabby. overfowing all the ample remaining space of the seat intend ed for three persons, sat Mrs. Jubal Haw- kins, wife of a very well-to-do Sehannet publican Mrs. Hawkins had .iovial great face like peony, and pair of black eyes that as she herself put it, never | quailed before the face of mortial man; and her garments, of costly textures. bore a look of disarray not uncharacteristlc of the attire of people ho have sagged and buiged beyond all possibilities of getting other thap sectional views of themselves