Connecticut western news., 1883-03-21
VOL. XII.

Emmons an hour to go courting, and that he was always obliged to leave his own home at seven ill order to reach Maria's at eight, and there was stand ing joke that the meeting-house passed him one morning on his way to the shop. David heard the chafing of course there is very little delicacy 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, I don't know how 'tis, but it don't seem to be in my natur' to do any other way. I suppose I was born without the faculty of gittin' along quick in this world. You'll have to git behind an push me -leetle, I reckon.',,.s& zsz
 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 half-acre or so of land beside his house, which he used for 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 surpassed his in luxuriant growth. His corn tasselled out and his potato patch | was white with blossoms as soon as anybody's.
 Amongst the younger and more irrev- erent portions of the community there was considerable speculation as to the mode of courtship of these old lovers of twenty-five years standing. Was there ever kiss, a tender clasp of the hand those usual expressions of affection be- tween sweethearts?
 Some of the more daring spirits had even gone so far as to commit the mani fest impropriety of peeping in Maria's parlor windows but they had only seen David sitting quiet and prim on the little, slippery horse-hair sofa, and Maria by the table, rocking slowly in her little cane-seated rocker. Did Maria ever leave her rocker and sit on that slippery horse-hair sofa by David's side? They never knew but she never did. There was something Imaginable, and at the same time rather pathetic, about Maria and David's counting. All the outward appurtenances of keeping company" were as rigidly observed as they had been twenty-five years ago, when David Emmons first. cast his mild blue eyes shyly and lovingly on red-cheeked, quick-spoken Maria Brewster. Every Sunday evening, in the winter, there was fire kindled in the parlor, the par | Tor lamp was lit at dusk all the year round, and Maria's mother retired early, that the young people might ''sit up. ;" The "sitting up" was no very formidable affair now, whatever it might have been in the first stages of the courtship. The need of sleep over-balanced sentiment in those old lovers, and by ten o'clock at the latest Marias lamp was out, and David had wended his solitary way to his own home.
 | know if David had ever actually popped | the question to Maria, or if his natural slowness was at fault in this as in other things. Their curiosity had been long exercised in vain, but Widow Brewster, as she waxed older, grew loquacious. and one day told 8 neighbor, who had
 dropped in in her daughters absence,
 that " David had never reely come to
 tie pint. She supposed he would some
 time for her part, she thought he had
 better; but then, after all, she knowed
 Maria didn't care, and maybe twas jest
 as well as twas, only sometimes she was
 afeared she should never live to see the
 weddin', if they wasn't spry." Then
 there had been hints concerning a cer-
 tain pearl -colored silk which Maria, hav-
 ing good chance to get at 8 bargain,
 had purchased some twenty years ago.
 when she thought, from sundry remarks that David was coming to the point
 and it was further intimated that the silk
 had been privately made up ten years since, when Maria had again surmised that the point was about being reached The neighbor went home in state O
 great delight, having by skillful ma , noeuvring actually obtained glimpse O
 the pearl-colored silk.
 It was perfectly true that Maria diI
 not lay David's tardiness in putting tn l important question very much to heart r She was too cheerful, too busy, and to f much interested in her daily duties t q fret much about anything.
 l. There YVES never at any time much ( r the sentimental element in her compos Y tion, and her feeling for David ws e eminently practical in its nature. Sht Is although the woman, had the stronge 7, character of the two, and there wt s something rather mother-ike than love d like in her affection for him.
 o It was through the protecting cal ,t which chiefly characterized her love tn e the only pain to her came from their Tor of courtship and postponement of marriag ,r It was true that, years ago, when Dav
 had led her to. think, from certain he's ,e tating words spoken at parting one Su V day night, that he would certainly as 1T the momentous question soon, her hea er had gone into happy futter. She hI y bought the pearl-colored silk then. l. Years after, her heart had futter' le again, but little less wildly this tim le David almost asked her another Sund, le night. Then she had made up the pea