News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1892-08-18

for an early wedding day, and Mary
was nothing 10th, for life with Jonas
and for him seemed like paradise in
anticipation. He lived three miles
away, on large farm-his father's
and grandfather's before him. His
father had been dead several years,
and his mother, though still active
and Industrious, was too old to work
as she always had done. Jonas was
her only child, and she favored his
marrying, expressing her anxiety to
give up the indoor management to
younger, ADLER hands than her own.
Everybody knew the Hinghams
were forehanded, free from debt, and
with money at interest. The Nor
tons, on the contrary, had always
lived from hand to mouth, Mr.. Nor
tons trade never having sufficed to
do much more than provide a home
with ample food and clothing, beside
educating the girls as they wanted
to be, with music and painting and
all the ornamentals which girls in
country villages sigh after. The
Morton's home, though small, was
really elegant, with all the knick-
knacks with which ladies of leisure
and taste contrive to surround them
selves. If things were not expensive
and luXuriant, they were tasteful and
comfortable, and that is sometimes
| better.
1t is safe to say that Mary never
for her to go from her snug, pretty
home into that great, bare farm
house-like changing from soft, musi-
cal poetry to plain, dry prose. She
knew, of course, that Jonas mother
could have no time for fancywork,
besides making the butter and cheese
and doing the other necessary things;
but she did not dream that Mrs. Nor
ton would consider it downright
sinful and waste of time to do up
fluted pillow-shams, or paint beer
jugs in shaded pink or blue. There
was a wilderness of rooms in the
house, most of them kept shut up the
year round, except when opened for
cleaning; all of them with bare, yel-
low-painted floors, spotless and shin
ing, except the parlor which had a
rag carpet made by Mrs. Morton
twenty years before. Summer and
winter the family had always worked
and ate, and sat in the great kitchen,
except when company came, then
they rolled up the green paper shades
in the sitting-room, and sat in there.
Few pictures adorned the walls some
antiquated cheap Autographs in ogee
frames, and various maps. Every
thing was stiff, bare, orderly and
scrupulously clean.
Mary had brought with her various
rugs and tides, also pictures, mats
and vases with which she had thought
to brighten up her room, but when
she found they were to occupy thelit
tie seven-by-nine bedroom off the
kitchen. she saw there was little OPP
pOrtunity to display them there.
Mrs. bingham, senior, took possess
ion of one of the chambers, and Mary,
in the generosity of her heart, would
have spread out her belongings there,
glad to have her mother-in-law have
the benefit of them, but the gentle old
lady firmly refused.
"Her life has been bare so long she
doesn't wish to have it otherwise"
Mary thought sadly to herself.
So she ended by scattering her
treasurers here and there about the
house, and tried to fatter herself they
took off little of the bare, comfort
less look.
Her greatest trial was to see that
Jonas didn't at all comprehend but
that his home was aspleasant as hers
had been. But as time passed on,
and she learned by hard experience
the eXactiDg nature of farm duties,
she no longer wondered that he had
"no time for nonsense" as she said.
stepping into Mother Hingham's
shoes" meant more real, downright |
hard work than Mary ever dreamed
of, but she was young and strong,
ard would not finch when she saw
that both Jonas and his mother eX-
pected her to be the notable, hard |
working housewife the elder woman
had always been. Mother bingham
helped Mary a great deal, showed her
how to do all sorts of farm work, to |
which she was wholly unaccustomed,
and was always as kind and consid-
crate as it was in the nature of things
she could be: but the care fell more
and more on Mary's young shoulders,
already STOPPING under their heavy
load. Her hands grew brown and
hard, her dresses grew old-fashioned,
and she had neither time nor care to
remodel them, as she seldom went |
anywhere only occasionally to church,
and more rarely still on brief visit |
to her fathers. Then babies came as
the years went by,-boys, always
boys.
"If l only had a girl" thought |
Mary sometimes, "she might grow
up to help me, and do all the light |
and pretty things that Ihave forgot
ten how to do; but these boys will
never care for such things"
Mother bingham lived but a few
years after Mary came there. To the
last she was happy and content, fond |
of Mary, and at home in the farm
house, still unchanged; the same tall,
old clock ticking away in the corner
of the great, clean, yellow-foored |
kitchen; the same long, wood table |
from which the family had eaten their
meals for fifty years, standing against |
the wall; the identical, old-fashioned
cooking stove with which the old peo-
pie had commenced housekeeping,
still in a fair state of preservation,
and good enough, because it always
had been.
"Jonas will have to hire help for
his wife, now that his motheris gone,"
people said.
But he didn't seem to think of that.
AS long as Mary did net complain,
he never dreamed she was OVERRIDING,
or needed anything she did not have.
She saw and felt every day of her
life how little of rest and comfort fell
to her lot, but she also saw no way
of escape.
81 did not begin right she often
sadly acknowledged to herself. "lf
Jonas and | had started in alone, l
could have said to him, We must
have this and that I'VE must ar
range thus and so,' but everything
was in the ruts when | came here,
and / couldn't seem to get them out
without hurting Mother Hingham's
feelings, and now they have gone so
long | certainly can't get them out.
One of the established traditions of
the house was that they must have a
hired girl through haying time, never
at any other time of the year, unless
in case of sickness. Jonas always
looked up hired girl as regularly as