Litchfield enquirer., 1876-01-20
Thanksglving Reggars.

7"' Thanksglving BeRgars. ''* sEIH3 Gs;f t3 s4Df ----- tl't +t ra kF" ! .s-4 LOT, your, Thanksgiving beggars ain't nothing new !. We used to rig ourselves up in old rags when I vas a girl, and many's the good laugh we've he'd when some of the neighbors was took in by us, and filled our baskets with Thanksgiving fare, Your spelling matches ain't nothin' new neither. We used for to have 'em out to ,Pike's Clearing, jest for recreation like ;,cold winters evenings they warmed you up bit,f and begot many a heart burning, I'll warrant. In the summer time, you see, we could hev a fgger in the barn. if Ben he'd his violin mended i; | but winters there want nothing we, could do but just get together and cultivate our dance in the school house on account of the seats. Seems to me can see Sybyl Jones now waiting on the sitAee fllr to be chose on one side or t'other for, you see, Jack Rhett, Square Rhet's son, used to come and join us while heo was studying with parson Paul to keep upwith his class at Yale the year he was rusticated i; and the way of 1t was, he always led one side of the spelling match and Matthew Nor ris, Farmer Morris's Matt, led the other, and there sat Sibyl as still as mouse, ,on- ly her hands working together under her shaw, for the schoolhouse want always as warm as loye-and her two soft eyes a-glittering !; and p'r'aps it wouldn't be till there want nobody else left to choose that young Rhett would say, saucy l enough. IT
 "WelI, now I'll take Miss SibyI Jones. D
 ''Last, but not least," Matt Morris ! would call out For the truth was, Matt | would have chose her furst himself, but he knew that she wouldn't do anything spelling against Jack Rhett, and that she d sooner be last with Jack than first with anybody else. That's what I call self-denial, or else never come across the thing. But. you see, Jack was a-play- ing sort of fast and loose with Sibyl he hankered after her pretty face and pretty manners. but he couldn't quite bring him. self to overlook the distance between Square Rhett's son and farmer Jones's daughter, specially as Farmer Jones was ne'er- -do-well, and loved his own cider barrel bettern all the rest of mankind. Now with Matthew Morris it was differ ent, as everybody knows He loved Si- byl jest for herself, and it didn't make no ] odds to him who or what her father was, so long as she was nobody but herself. But then he was only farmers son him. self, and p'r'aps he didn't know no better. Well, we kept, up the spelling matches pretty much all winter, and sometimes Rhett would choose Sibyl the very furst, and then again he'd contrive not to choose her at all, and she'd be that cut up by it for Slbyl never had much proper spirit that she'd be the furst to miss on words that a baby could spell, ana Rhett would be sure to laugh and chaH her, till the tears was just ready to gush out of her two dove eyes; for the rogue knew it was all his work. Heavens only knows why she cared 0 soumarkee for the young saucebox. He wasn't so handsome as Matt Morris, but he he'd the Hall and. the l Square behind him, to be sure, and he pore store clothes, and had such airs as women folks take to. You see, he'd carry your umbrell and quote pretty verses to l you if you was young and pretty yourself, and he he'd mustache that sort of droop- ed at the ends and give him sad look, which was quite contrary to his feelings. I've always noticed that girls take to mustache as a duck takes to water. He was full of mischief, too, and that's what gurls don't object to in the leastest the kind that gets rusticated and expelled, and that proper sort of mothers don't coun-
 
 mostly lose their hearts to. Not that Si- byl was one to like fast young men she was so innocent herself that she did mt as much as suspect anything about the wick edness of this wicked world, and she thought Rhett was all that fancy painted him, and maybe good deal more. His fine airs was so many virtues, and she be- lieyed him if he said black was white Sibyl was good and pretty enough for 8 dukes son, and she he'd bin sent to school by her great-aunt Gower to the seminary at Great Guns, and want no ways lacking in book learning she could pass any word in the language, and she didn't murder the Kings English as I've heerd some do that's he'd more chances and she was master-hand at reading, and could tell you all about turin parts, and do the biggest sums in the arithmetic Nobody needn't bin ashamed of Sibyl, she was that lady-like and fit for the kingdom of heaven. But the trouble was, she had set her poor heart on Jack Rhett. When he neglected her. all the light in her world become darkness when he was kind, the darkness divided, and it was day. Many's the time I've seen Rhett lettering in the bit of wood near the school-house, waiting for Sibyl, who taught the district school that summer and then, when the scholars'd come trudg- ing out, he'd seem to happen near all by accident, and raise his hat and kiss his hand and walk along by her, and it didn't need spectacles to see that the longest way round was the shortest way home at ! such times. We'll, when he went back to college, he'd used to correspond with Si- byl, and when heecome home on vacation, he'd contrive to meet her either by the trout brook or the Witches Pool-a pret- ty puddle enough, that didn't seem to lead nowhere, nor to come from anywhere, all hung with trees that reached across and knit together and darkened the place with shadders. 1t was such lonesome place that you couldn't hire gurl in all Pike's Clearing to go there alone, yet it was a favorite spot for young folks a-keeping company such as ain't afeard of ghosts it ain't any thing but rivals as will make their hair stand on end. Che time Jack 1 come home and didn't go a-nigh Sibyl for several days, and she set in the porch in her best pink gown, with sweet-pease in her hair, and watched the road stretching out to Square Rhett's and grew rosy and l trembled when team or man hove in sight, and fidgetted in school hours, and didn't sleep O nights, and got blue as a l bank of clouds. On Sabbath day there he was, in the family pew. as fine as silk, ,e kid gloves and patent leather shoes, a-hold- l ing hymn book along of strange gurl, who he'd on morey antique gown and a blue bonnet like flower garden, and was all glitter with beads and bugles and things. fl She he'd a plaguy ugly face, for | all her good clothes and she was a-singin0 of of Rhetts face instead of the hymn book; and when meeting was over, .se give her his arm. and never looked at Sia byl no more'n she'd bina post. We was at singing g-school the following Saturday might, and somebody says 7'" f'
 'I reckon how that there'll te wed- I ding at Pike's Clearing afore hundred years. ,, <, .- .3g,i .laf .,..f :ss.Ia sa.l ..ft
 ''I should hope so, says Lucy Ladd. "And it won't be Lucy's nor Sibyls," says Ben. sFe5la3 5#T .saoi. #gr. ii
 Time enough for that, {" said Lucy. t
 '1 joked Rnett about 1t myself O Fri | l. s+S a