Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1891-06-19
WHO DID THE WOOING?

1t somehow leaked out i'll the Big
Creek section that Martha Ann Todd
proposed to Jim Simpkins.
How the story got afloat no one
exactly knew, for Martha certainly
never told it herself and as for James,
he was never known in the whole
course of his existence to have told
anything. Anyhow, the report got
ailoat, and soon every one far and
near was talking about it, and at
every candy pull and "sugarin of,
some one was bound to bring up the
subject, and then the question was
asked, Did Martha Ann reall pro
pose?'
The facts in the case were that Mar
tha Ann and James were engaged.
Both Mrs Todd and Mrs. Simpkins
had given this news to the world at
Aunt Jane Wormley's meeting Of the
BIC Creek Ladies Aid. 1t was further
generally agreed that James never
had spunk enough to speak for him
self, so it really became an oppressive
mystery to the good people of the sec
ton.
But all these wonderings and sup
positions would have been cleared
up had they been able to look into
the generous heart of Martha Ann as
she sat by the western window of the
kitchen doing crochet work, and look
ing ever and anon over across the
snow fields to the Simpkins' farm
house, behind which sturdy figure
could be seen Justify swinging an aN.
And this was James.
Martha Ann was as comely Il girl as
any in the district, and as Uncle Billy
Mason, the master of the postollice
and village emporium, averred, by
far the likeliestn
Martha Ann was good TO look at.
She was not handsome. She was not
pretty Her eyes were neither bright,
black nor soft blue. Her hair had no
poetic tendencies. Her figure was
neither statuesque nor petite never
theless, Martha Ann was mighty
pleasant girl TO see. She seemed to
have way of growing on one, for
her voice was always musical, and
her smile ever cheerful and encour-
aging.
She wasnow probably twenty-seven
years of age-perhaps younger-it
doesn't matter She was a woman,
healthy, energetic, farmers daugh-
ter who had worked all her life and
was proud of it, who had twice taken
first prize at the county fair for bread,
and had won medal at the same in
stitution for II patchwork quilt. She
had made all the own clothes since
the day she was sixteen, and besides
that she could play an organ allround
the other girls.
That was a big day in the life of
Martha Ann when her father came
home with u six stop organ on the
wood sleigh. Such beauty as it was
too. with elegant bracket trimmings
and a cute little rack on topfOr books
and music. 1t wasn't five minutes
after that organ struck the parlor be
fore Coronation and The Battle
Of Waterloo were rolling through
the house with so sublime and al
together magnificent a tone that
Mother Todd dropped right down on
the haircloth sofa, all in her old
clothes, too, and cried, refusing TO be
comforted until Martha Ann played a
few bars OF Nearer My God, TO
Thee"
But self-confident as Martha Ann
was. she had for five years now been
foe ting on sea Of conjecture as TO
what jim Slmpkins really meant by
coming over TO the house and talking
politics with her father, and seeing
her home from church every Sunday
night. She somehow could not locate
James in her list of certainties.
For long time Martha Ann seri-
ously doubted whether he loved her
or not. and it was not till she felt in
her heart that she was all in all TO
him that she began to scheme how
to make it easy for James to propose.
For months she labored over this
problem. Every once and awhile OF
a Sunday evening, as they str0lled
home together by the creek, she would
throw out ''feeler,n but he never
understood. During all this time she
made herself as attractive as she
knew how, and played her sweetest
pieces on the organ, with no further
result than getting him used to sit
Lo;.oIotb chair xTithOur de-