The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1878-08-16
TENSIONS BET.

When the widow Coe married Jason
Garter she brought him no money at all
only small, stony farm in Noppit, that
had been her fathers, and two wild boys
of 10 and II years growth. Jack and
Dan were hard subjects for STEP
father to rule, and Jason Carter found
his hands full. Naturally he was a
quiet, gentle, but persistent man; in his
youth he had run away to sea, and for
fifteen years had been q common sailor,
which had pretty well knocked the
quiet out of and the persistence into
him. In this time he had learned to
swear, as matter of course, though he
had been strictly brought up, and went
to church and Sunday school always.
His mother would have cried her eyes
out to hear him talk in this fashion, but
she never did; his father would have
used the rod, but he also was spared
the trouble, for both father and mother
had died before Jason came back, and
when he found they were gone he never
went back to Tolland, but after he got
tired of sea-going took to peddling no.
tions about the country, and at last mar
ried the widow Coe and settled down in
Neppit.
Ho had stopped swearing long ago,
for under dear old Father Taylor's
preaching he had been converted be-
tween his last two voyages, and, though
profanity had become habit with him,
he had conquered it at last, after years
of patient endeavor, and now was so
gentle, and pleasant, and pious, ttat
Phoebe Coe thought her last days would
be her best days.
He had come to know the widow Coe
from being an old shipmate of her brother,
John Wires, who had also left sea-
faring because he had injured knee,
and became too lame to climb rigging;
so he set up small shop in Boston,
where he sold tobacco, Irvine, and other
odds and ends; but he had been mar
ried, and had one son called Jenison.
This boy was about the age of widow
Goes youngest son, for her brother had
married soon after she did, while he was
still a sailot; and when Jason Carter be-
gan the peddling business John Wires
had told him to stop when he went
through Scranton and see his sister.
The children we're small and their father
living when Jason first saw them,
and they learned to look for "Uncle
Jase" every spring and fall with delight,
for he always brought them marbles,
tops, candy, string, and made them bows
and kites, sure passports to boys heart
So when their poor drunken father died,
and the widow found herself left with
out a penny, she moved over to Noppit
to live with her father, and when he
died too, leaving her all he had, the
farm from which he had scratched a
scanty living, and she found herself
alone and helpless, she listened favor
ably to Jason Carter's proposal, for he
was tired of his wandering life as she of
her loneliness, and married him. The
boys were glad, for they loved him, and
they never had loved their own father,
and Jason was as good to them as if
they were his own, though a certain
thrill of emotion shook him when his
baby daughter came, that never had
troubled that worn old heart in any
emergency of Jack or Dan. But then
Celia was girl; of course that made it
different Jason, when compared with
his predecessor. was as mild and pleas
ant about the house as a spring day
after stormy winter. He became
useful and prominent member in the
Noppit church, and never was heard to
utter a profane or impatient word.
Jack and Dan loved him as much as
healthy boys love anything but mis-
chief and meals, and Phoebe was entirely
happy.
True, they were poor Jason had a
few hundred DELAYS laid by, but the
Noppit farm was too sterile to produce
crops enough to support the family, so
he laid out his little capital, or part of
it, in good breed of sheep, which found
abundant living among mullins, hard
tack and huckleberry bushes, and
proved, in due time, profitable invest
ment. For in those days dogs, the curse
of New England, were by no means
common in the country there was no
reason for keeping them, and farmers
had money and mutton instead of hydro
phobia and horrors. The wool sold
well always and kept the family in socks,
for Jason's wife could spin and knit
xv;tb wopderful rapidity the lambs he