Year: 1874

When nv 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 a class of the human family
more studiously maligued and abused
than the class assdenominated "old maids. 3"
And yet never could understand why.
What can be nicer than to sit down,
after hard days work, beside an old
maid and hear from her how. during
the day, Mrs. Francis walked out with
that old dress on which she wore all
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 front steps; Miller's wife
tried to get trusted for a carpet /;
Anderson's daughter passed young
Dennison on the street without speak
ing to him, and the various other little
incidents of the day?


There was Polly Perkins everybody
said she was dying for a man, and they
somefully misstated her motives. I
took little interest in finding out the
facts and setting her right in my own
estimation. Where they stated that
she had walked II miles to get fellow
to go home with her from protracted
meeting, found the distance only 10
miles and the going was good at that.
There they had gone and put four miles
on to that statement, and were trying
to bias the public mind when the real
truth was as handy to get at as hat Oh
a peg. Then they said she boasted of
having refused thirty-fve offers /; in
vestigated and found that the number
was only thirtyfour. One man on
list of marriage offers makes big
difference, but the gossips insisted on
perverting the truth.


There was Augusta Rathbone-an-
other quiet, mild-tempered single fe-
male. 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 promise, and settled it for
nineteen dollars. This was another
mis-statement she got nineteen dollars
and half. The gossips also charged
her with hiding under shed for two
hours to see if a certain man left GER
tain house where there was certain
pretty girl, at a certain hour. This
story went all over the village. much to
her detriment, until went to work and
elected the truth. / found that she
never hid under a shed at all-lt was
under a one-horse wagon, and she got
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 per
sistentfy maligned. They said she
went to protracted meeting for the sole
purpose of trapping the minister, who
was single man. 1 went right to her
and got the truth-she didn't care
copper for the minister it was Deacon
Smith she was after. They said she
knew everybody's business in the town,
and 1 went to work to nail that lie.
Come to find ont, 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-fashloaed
bureau, a lounge, a blue-edged set OF
crockery, a stove, paper window cur
tains, two tables, two feather beds,
three straw beds, an ax with the handle
broken off, an ingram carpet, an old |
fashioned clock, and that the woman
vas a Methodist and her husband
Baptist.


When 1 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 dispalr, and
hill conphOly or something.