Year: 1874

Cyrus Ferriston and his mother were
all that remained OF the family. They
lived together in O snug farm house in
a district 80 rural that it hadn't so much
as a name; it had only number
Township Number One. The nearest
neighbor was five miles away, the only
religious exercises were held in Deacon
Crocket's kitchen, three miles further
them and the doctor. Cyrus was an en-.
ergetic fellow, who farmed in summer
and logged in the winter, that is, he
usually took q contract to bring the
drive of logs down from the woods
therefore he had been in the habit OF
borrowing Farmer Hutton's daughter
Jane to keep his mother company and
help her about the house, for small
consideration. Sometimes, too, Jane
staid on through the summer, or re-
turned for the harvesting when it was
heavy and at such times Cyrus always
observed that his butter and cheese
found a more ready market; that the
house was more cheerful and better
kept-for old Mrs. Ferriston was one OF
the slack kind that provisions went
further and relished better. But for all
this he felt no inclination to marry
Jane, as folks at Wheatfield had pre-
dicted when she first went up to The
Numbers. Jane was called plain and
Cyrus had a prepossession that his wife
should be rosy and dark-eyed, with the
smile that conquers men. Jane halted
in her gait the least bit in the world
his wife should have the step OF a pam
ther. She always dressed soberly, like
brown leaf, as if she would like to
melt into the landscape-his wife
should carry her fascination into the
knot of ribbon at her throat, or the slip
per on her foot. Therefore it was ut.
terly out OF the question, if we put any
faith in logic, that Jane should become
the wife Of Cyrus.


But, alas as it often happens, she
had not wintered and summered at The
Numbers for naught. When the neigh.
bors had hectored her as she was about
to leave home for the first season, and
prophesied, swell, Jane. dare say it
won't be long before you'll be changing
your name to Ferriston," Jane had
laughed at the notion, and had reckoned
that Cyrus hadn't enough schooling to
please her, and had thought that she
could never be reconciled to spending
her days in The Numbers.


"Folks as held their heads as high
as you, miss, hev he'd ter come ter it,"
they answered her. But when she be.
came acquainted with Cyrus in his
everyday life and thought, she found
that he knew more than she had
dreamed. He had little library of
books on swinging shelf that he had
made with his own hands, and had
carved with deers' heads and oak leaves;
he could talk with her about the heroes
of Plutarch and the empires of the Old
World, about election and free-will,
and seemed to enjoy it. Jane had a
taste for those things and SO it hap
pened that as she saw Cyrus in his
daily comings and goings, stripped of
disguises, in his genial freside humor,
he grew in her favor unawares; in
short, his manly attributes, his kind
illness and good temper, and his hand
some face won her heart without an
effort on either side. He had so grown
into her affections that one day when
she overheard Deacon Smiley joking
him about Agnes Price, her prophetic
soul stirred in her with mighty throe.
Everything seemed to revolve before
her eyes-the churn. dasher, the tins on
the kitchen wall, and the audirons on