News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1883-04-12
TWO OLD LOVERS
BY MARY E. WILKINS.

Leyden was emphatically village o
cottages, and each of them built afte
one of two patterns: either the from
door was on the right side, in the corne
OF little piazza extending third of til,
length of the house, with the main roo
Jutting over it, or the piazza stretched
across the front, and the door was in the
centre.
Years before, when one Hiram Strong
put up his three factories for the manu-
facture of the rough shoes which the
workingman of America wears, he hardly
thought he was also gaining for himself
the honor of founding Leyden.
The men worked peacefully and evenly
in the shoe shops all day; and the women
staid at home and kept the little white
cottages tidy, cooked the meals, and
washed the clothes, and did the sewing.
For recreation the men sat on the piazza
in front of Barker's store of an evening,
and gossiped or discussed politics; and
the women talked over their neighbors'
fences, or took their sewing into their
neighbors' of an afternoon.
People died in Leyden as elsewhere:
and here and there was q little white
cottage whose narrow foot-path leading
round to its back door its master would
never tread again.
In one Of these lived Widow Martha
Brewster and her daughter Maria. Their
cottage was one of those which had its
piazza across the front. Every summer
they trained morning glories over it, and
planted their little garden with the flower
seeds popular in Leyden. There was
not cottage in the whole place whose
surroundings were neater and gayer
than theirs, for all that they were only
two women, and two old women at that:
for Widow Martha Brewster was in the
neighborhOod of eighty, ard herdaughter
Maria Brewster, near sixty. The two
had lived alone since Jacob Brewster
died and stopped going to the factory,
some fifteen wears ago. He had left
them this particular white cottage, and
a snug little sum in the savings bank
besides, for the whole Brewster family
had worked and economical all their
long lives. The women had corded
boots at home, while the man worked in
the shop, and never spent q cent with
out thinking of it overnight.
Leyden folks all thought that David
Emmons would marry Maria Brewster
when her father died. David can rent
his house, and go to live with Maria and
her mother, said they, with an affection
ate readiness to arrange matters for
them. But he did not. Every Sunday
night at eight o'clock punctuaIIy the
form of David Emmons, arrayed IN his
best clothes, with his stiff white dickev.
and nosegay in his button-hole, was
seen to advance up the road toward
Maria Brewster's, as he had been seen to
advance every Sunday night for the last
twenty-five years. but that was all. He
manifested not the slightest intention of
carrying out peoples iudicious plans for
his welfare and NIaria's.
She did not seem TO pine with hope
deferred; people could not honestly
think there was any occasion to pity her
for her lovers hardness. A cheerier
woman never lived. She was literally
bubbling over with joIlity. Round
faced and black-eyed, with a funny little
bounce of her whole body when she
walked, she was the merry feature of the
whole place.
Her mother was now too feeble, but
Maria still corded boots for the factories
as Of old. David Emmons, who was
quite sixty, worked in them, as he had
from his youth. He was a slender. mild
faced old man, with a fringe of gray vel
low beard around his chin: his head was
quite bald. Years ago he had been
handsome, they said, but somehow
people bad always laughed at him a
little, although they liked him. 'rThe
slOwest Of all the slow Leydenites" out
slders called him, and even the ''slow
Leydenites" poked fun at this exaggera-
ton Of themselves. It was an old and
well-worn remark that it took David
EmmOns an hour to go counting, and
that he was always obliged to leave his
own home at seven IN order to reach
Maria's at eight, and there was n stand
ing joke that the meeting house passed
him one morning on his way to the shop.
David heard the chatting of course
there Is very little deIicacy in matters Of
this kind among country people-but he
took it all in good part. He would laugh
at himself with the rest, but there was
something touching in his deprecatory
way Of saying sometimes, "Well, [ don't
know how It's, but it don't seem to be
In my natur' to do any other way. [
suppose [ was born without the faculty
of gittin' along quick in this world
You'll have to git behind an push me a
leetle, reckon"
He owned his little cottage, which was
one of the kind which had the piazza on
the right side. He lived entirely alone.
There was a haIf-acre or so Of land beside
his house, which he used for a vegetable
garden. After and before shop hours,
in the dewy evenings and mornings. he |
dug and weeded assiduOusly between the |
green ranks of corn and beans. If David !
Emmons was slow, his vegetables were |
not. None of the gardens in Leyden
his in luzuriant growth. His /
corn tasselled out and his potato patch .
was white with blossoms as soon as
Amongst the younger and more irrev-
arent portions of the community there