The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1897-11-10
SELECTED STORY.
A Tardy COurtship.

III ueT 6Xp6IleuC6 dS q houoOhONpoi3
and the next day the minister was COM
ing to tea. And he had little suspi-
cion of dyspepsia, and he had TO exer-
else care in the selection of food, and
the only kind OF bread he could eat was
"salt rising" bread.
And in the second place Deacon Pop
ham had proposed to her.
The deacon had already proposed to,
married and buried three estimable wo-
men, and as he often said in the
Thursday evening prayer-meetings, he
had more near and dear friends on the
other side than he had on this side.
Mary Aun lived in the square white
house which had been her fathers, with
no companion but her cat, Bartimus
Toots, and the old man who MIXED the
cow and took care of the garden. One
after another of her family had gone
away never to come back, and the old
house had grown silent and lonely as
the change went on; but Mary Ann
was attached to the place, and it seemed
to her that nowhere in the world did
the sun shine brighter and warmer than
it shone into the many paned windows
of the old house, and nowhere was the
grass greener or the clover blossoms
sweeter than in the meadows sloping
down to the river from the yellew-
painted front door of the Davis home
stead.
Mary Ann had been pretty girl, and
though she was now past forty, her hair
was still soft and abundant and lay
against her white, unwrinBled forehead
in little golden-colored crinkles, and the
bloom on her cheek was still delicate
and dainty, as the blush in the heart of
a wild rose.
The time had been, and not 30 far
away either, when the people of Har-
denis Corners had fully expected and
believed that Mary Ann Davis and
Eben Meader would be made one
and would live out their quiet and
uneventful lives side by side, as the
majority of Harden's Corners people
had done before them.
Eben was "well .to-do," and the
Meader farm, one of the best in the vi.
cinity, had come to him at the death of
his father; and the Meaders had always
been noted for keeping the best breed
of COWS, the finest horses, the hand
soonest sheep in the neighborhood -
and Eben fully sustained the family
reputation in this respect. But time
went on and he still continued paying
Mehitable Briggs three dollars week
for doing his homework, and ii Greatly
did seem that he didn't get on one mite
nor gain with his courtship," so the
wise women of the Corners said as they
talked the matter over at some quilting
party or neighborhood tea drinking.
The Meaders were slow people
Eben's father and grandfather had been
VIGOROUSLY slow--and if Eben had any
designs on the heart of Mary Ann
Davis he probably thought there was
time enough. No use to be in hurry
was the motto which should have been
inscribed on the family coat of arms of
the Meaders, if they had ever INDUCED
in such superfuity as a coat of arms.
Mary Ann herself had not been with
out some expectations in Eben's direc-
ton, but now it had been 30 long and
nothing had come of it that she had
about given up the idea.
Eben had practice of coming to her
house every other Tuesday evening
regularly and stayed until nine O'Clock,
mainly about the weather, past and
present-the meetings at the school
house and the crops round about Har-
denis Corners.
And whenever he came, after he mad
seated himself in the chintz-covered
rocking. chair and stroked the back of
Bartimus Toots, he took out his pocket
book and extracted therefrom large
yellow envelope which seemed TO con-
tain something bulky. He would hold
it in his hand, feel of ii as if TO make
sure that nothing had been lost out of
it, and then returned it TO his pocket,
and he always sighed when he put it
away.
This performance had become so
much a matter of course that Mary Ann
had ceased to wonder at il or to feel
any curiosity in respect to it. 1t was
just one of Eben's absent minded hab.
its, she told herself, and that was all
there was TO it..
But now, as stated in the beginning,
Mary Ann was IN sore perpleXity. First,
there was the bread
Salt-risin' bread, such as mother
used to make for company" she said in
conversation with Bartimus Toots, who
was engaged in putting some finishing
touches TO his toilet on top of the bu-
reau, and was at leisure to listen, and
she got the rule for making it from
Mrs. Colonel jones' cook, in Boston
And it never failed before. Never
And if l do say it, Bartimus, every.
body in Harden's Corners knows thai
/ can't be beat for 'salt-risin' bread"
Bartimus nodded assent, and criti
cally examined the bottom of his fore
paw, and gave it a vigorous scrubbing
with bis tongue.
"Why, the last time that Elder Tut
tie was here to tea, says he, Sister Da
Wis, do think you make the very bes
bread / ever tasted. And though
never eat much bread ON account of my
dyspepsia, and he had just finished hil
fifth slice, Il will try one more small
piece, thank you.' And now that breaC
is as fiat as a board, and as heavy a
heavy as lead. l declare, Bartimus,
could cry with good relish"
Bartimus winked his yellow eyes sol
EMMY and tackled the other foot. N,
domestic calamity ever fell heav,
enough to make Bartimus Toots forge
the duty he owed to his personal up
pearance