Year: 1875




"You see," said my great t-aunt, adj
dressing us girls, sit is well nigh thirty
years that l followed sewing for living
could do tailoring and dressmaking
and mending and quilting, and such, as
well az the best, and so | was sent for
far and near. Now, suppose l had
allowed myself to fetch and carry from
house to house whatever might happen
to hear of peoples affairs, like some
folks, | should have got myself into a
muss many's the time. My mother
taught me better. Now, Sally, says
she, when | first went out to work, 'be
mighty careful how you carry news from
house to house, or tell what you know
of peoples private matters, even when
it doesn't seem as if it could do the least
mite of harm. And she went ON to
say that some people never liked to have
q tailoress or seamstress or even washer
woman around, because some of them
are apt to be full of gossip, and to fetch
and carry from house to house. Even
when there isn't single thing they are
ashamed to have known, people like to
feel that they can keep their private
business TO themselves. SO my mother
said, and / found it to be exactly so. /
thought all the more of it after my
mother was dead and gone. Most people
seemed to like my way of keeping my
self to myself, and again there were 9TH
ers who acted az if they were really pro-
voked because they couldn't get any
more ont of me, and they pestered me
to death, limiting around to see if by
putting that and that together they
couldn't make out something without
asking me outright. There were the
two Snuffer girls, Lyddy Ann and Betsy
Jane; they wanted to know everybody's
business, and were always trying to find
out something. And sUch ridiculous
things - how many table-cloths the
Snowdons used i'll a week (that was our
minister's family, and how much they
paid their hired girl a week, and if she
ate at the table with the family. If a
stranger came to church with any of the
girls, they couldn't listen to the sermon
until they had found ont who and what
he was, and the next day they made
business of collecting information about
his family, his property, and all such.
/ always hated to go there to work when
any of the girls in Shrewsbury or i'll the
towns round were to be married. They
most generally sent for me to help
a spell, and of course / knew
pretty much their affairs. But |
wasn't going to tell what the wedding
dress was to be, nor just how much it
cost yard, whether they bought it in
Boston or nearer home, nor how many
pounds of cake they were going to make,
and all such. The girls said it kind of
took the edge off to tell every thing be-
forehand; they had rather come out new.
Well, when it came time for Deacon
Goodmans s daughter TO be married, there
was great stir among the girls. Ma
Tidy had lived in Boston considerable
with her uncle Joshua, who was rich and
lived in good deal of style, and so the
girls all expected that her outfit would
be something pretty handsome and so
it was. Why, her wedding-dress, with
her gloves and slippers and little notions,
cost well nigh thirty dollars! Matildy
said herself that she thought part of
the money ought to be given to the mis-
sioDaries, but then it was present from
her uncle, and so there was nothing to
be said. / was going there to help about
some matters, and so happened to say
that there would be a great curiosity
among the young people to know the
particulars of the wedding.


"'Lawful sakes : says Mrs. Goodman,
do dear, tell them all they want to
know : and Matildy said the same, for
she wasn't in the least stuck up. They
were only waiting for Spring to get home
from Ohio. That was cousin of Matil-
dy's who was going to stand up with her.
He was named Aminadab, after his
grandfather but as people who had
known him from a baby would keep on
calling him Minny, and the young men
called him Dab, his folks concluded to
call him by the last name-Spring. |
said to Mrs. Goodman that she would
miss Matildy wnen she came to go away
for good. Oh yes, of course but she
went on to say that she and the deacon
might go with the young folks to Bos-
ton, and that would make il seem not