The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1884-02-28
THE TWO MRS. fuckers.

The InO MRS.
"You can make the fire while I put
the boss out" said Amasa Tucker, as
he opened the back door of a gray
house, set on the top of a ~treeless hill,
tracked here and there with paths the
geese had made in their daily JOURNEYS
to the pond below, and only approached
at the back by a lane to the great red
barn and a rickety board gate set be-
tween two posts of the rail fence.
This was Wealthy Ann fuckers
homecoming. She had married Amasa
that morning at her fathers house, In
Stanton, a little village twenty miles
within whose wide limits lay the Tucker
farm, and had come home with him
this early spring afternoon in the old
wagon, behind the bony horse that did
duty for Amasa's family carriage.
Mrs. Tucker was a tall, thin young
woman, with a sad, reticent face, very
silent and capable. These last traits had
been her chief recommendation to her
husband. There was no sentiment
about the matter. Old Mrs. Tucker
had died two weeks before this mar
riage, but Amasa was '.forehanded,"
and knowing his mother could not live
long had improved his opportunities
had been "sparkin'" Wealthy Ann
Minor all winter, in judicious provision
for the coming event of his solitude.
He had thought the thing all over,
and concluded that a wife was cheaper
than a hired girl, and more permanent;
SO, when he found this alert, firm
jointed, handy girl living at her uncle's.
who vas a widower, on a great farm
the other side of the village, Amasa
made her acquaintance as soon as pos
sible and proceeded to further in
timacy. Wealthy liked better to work
for her uncle than for step-father with
six secondary children, but she thought
it would be better still to have a house
of her own; so she agreed to marry
Amasa Tucker, and this was her home
coming.
She opened the door into a dingy
room with an open fireplace at one
end, a window on the north and one on
the south side, small, PANIED with old,
green and imperfect glass, and letting
in but just enough light to work by.
One corner to b enorth was partitioned
off to make a pantry. and a door by
the fireplace led out into the wood
shed. The front of the house con-
tanned two oom One opened into the
kitchen and was a bedroom, furnished
sparsely enough; the other was a par
lor, with high-backed. rush-bottomed
chairs against the wall, a round table
in the middle, a fireplace with brass
andirons and tire-irons. a family Bible
on the table, and a mourning piece
painted in ground hair on the mantel.
Green paper shades and white cotton
curtains, a rag carpet fresh as it came
from the loom-if its dinginess could
ever be called fresh-and a straight
backed sofa covered with green and
yellow-glazed chintz, made as dreary
an apartment as could well be i'm
agined. Wealthy shut the door behind
her quickly and went to the shed for
material to make her fire. 1t was al
most shutdown, and she was hungry;
but she found only the scantiest supply
of wood and a few dry chips of kind
ling. However, she did her best, and
she had brought some provisions from
home, so that she managed to lay out
a decent supper on the rickety table by
the time Amasa came stamping in from
the barn.
He looked d~isapprovingly at the pie,
the biscuit, the shaved beef and the
Jelly set before him.
"Ihope We amt a waister, Wealthy"
he growled. .'There's vittles enough
for a township, and the amt but two of
vs."
"Well, our folks sent 'em over, and
you no need to eat EN-" she answered
rheerily.
AZ amt goin' to; don't We break into
that iell; set it by; sometime or nuther
somebody may be a comm and you'll
want of it."
Wealthy said no more; they made a
supper of biscuit and beef, for the pie
was also ordered ''set by"
She was used to economy, but not to
stinginess, and she excused this ex-
treme thrift il her husband more easily
for the reason that she had been always
poor, and she knew very well that he
was not rich, to say the. least. But it
was only the beginning.
Hard as Wealthy had worked at her
uncle's, here she found harder burdens;
she had to draw and fetch all the water
she used from an old-fashioned well
with a heavy sweep, picturesque to see,
but wearisome to use; woodw was scarce,
for though enough grew on the hundred
acres that Amasa owned, he grudged
its use.
81 sha'n't cut down no more than is
really needful," he said. when she urged
him to fetch her a load; woods alters
a CROWN when We don't cut it, and a
maxim for lumber, and lumber's better
to sell, a sight, than cord-wood. Ye
must git along somehow with brush:
mother used to burn next to nothin'."
She did not remind him that his
mother was bent double with rheuma-
tism, and died of the fifth attack of
pneumonia. Wealthy never wasted
words.
Then there were eight COWS to milk.
the milk to strain, set, skim, churn or
make into cheese, and nothing but the
simplest utensils to do it with. A cloth
held over the edge Of the pail served