Year: 1874

When my two children, Small Plea and Long
Primer, grow up so that they can judge society
as society should be judged, know they will
reflect my sympathy for old maids.


Never was class of the human family more
studiously malgned and abused than the class
nominated cold maids" And yeti never could
understand why. What can be nicer than to
sit down, after a hard days work, beside an
old maid and hear from her how, during the
day, Mrs. Francis walked out with that old
dress on that she wore last year; Mrs. Green
came out with blue tie on her bonnet in the
place of the old purple one; Turner's boy ran
away; Carter commenced building new pair
of steps; Mllers daughter passed young Den
n son on the street without speaking to him,
aud the various other little incidents the day :?


There was Polly Perkins; everybody said she
vas dying for man, and they shameGuliy mis-
-tated her motives. took little interest in
;inIing out the facts and setting her right in
~ own estimation. Where they stated that
,ne had walked IA miles to get fellow to go
home with her from protracted meeting,
found the distance only 10 miles and the gong
was good at that. There they had gone and
put four miles on to that statement, an were
trying to bias the public mind when the real
truth handy to get at hat peg.
Then they said she boasted of having refused
35 offers; 1 Investigated and found that the
number was only 81. One man a list of
marriage offers makes large difference, but
the gossps insisted perverting the truth.


Thara A u1ueto pot bar af
mild tempered single female. They said she
had proposed marriage to seven different men,
when the real number was only five. Then
they said she had once sued man for breach
of pro omise, and settled it for nineteen dollars
This was another mis-statement; she got nine
teen dollars aud half. The gossps also
charged her with hiding under a shed for two
hours to see if 4 certain man lefta certain house
where there was cciia'u pretty girl at a GER
tain hour. This story went all over the village,
much to her detriment, until ! wet 70 wori.
and elected the truth. l found Lnot shc never
hid under woodshed at all-it was under
one-horse wagon, and she got a sore throat and
had to wear red rag around her neck for six
weeks.


Let me also recall the sad manner in which
Symantha Evergreen was persistantIy malign-
ed. They said she went to protracted meeting
for the sole purpose of trapping the minister,
who was single man. went right to her and
got the truth-she didn't care copper Tor the
minister, it was Deacon Smith she was after.
They said she knew everybody's business in
town, and l went to work to nail that lie
Come to lad it OUT she didn't know any such
thing. There was a new family just arrived
the day before, and all she knew about them
was that they had four children, three dogs,
two cats, three cows, one horse, wagon, three
bedsteads, seven chairs, an old fashioned bu-
reau, lounge, blue-eds sed set of crockery,
stove, paper window curtains, an ak with the
handle broken off, an ingram carpet, an old
fashioned clock, and that the woman was a
Methodist and her husband Baptist.


When get to thinking over how much abuse
is constantly heaped upon this class of forlorn
females, l wonder that they don't give way to
despair, and kill somebody or something.-M
Quad