Two gentle sheep upon the hills, How sweet the twain did run, As I meandered gently on And sot down on a stun; They seemed to murmur sheepishly Oh Betsy Bobbett, dear-- It is matrimony, it is matrimony, That is a woman's spear. Sweet wuz the honeysuckle's breath Upon the ambient air, Sweet wuz the tender coo of doves, Yet sweeter husbands are; All Nature's voices poured these words Into my willing ear, B. Bobbett, it is matrimony, That is a woman's spear. III I TALK ON WIMMEN'S DUTY TO MARRY Cephas Slinker stopped yesterday mornin' and had a little talk with me over the barnyard fence. I pitied Cephas; he don't live happy with his wife, she's hard on him, and they have frequent spells. They had one last night, and he got up and started for Jonesville quick as he'd had his breakfast. He said he never stopped to git a stick of wood or a pail of water (they bring their water from a spring under the hill) but he hurried away he said for fear she'd begin on him agin, and aggravate him. He wanted sympathy, and I see he needed it, so he told me about it. He's been out of a job for some time, and his wife has took in washin' and worked round for the neighbors to keep 'em goin'. He said he wuz to Jonesville all day yesterday lookin' for a job. He said he thought the best way to find one wuz to set right still in some place where men wuz comin' and goin' all the time, so they could see him handy if they wanted to hire him. But he said he never got a job, or no hopes of one, and he went home completely discouraged and deprested, and he said that if he ever felt the need of tender words from a comfortin' companion it wuz then; he said he felt so bad that he went in and busted these words right out to his wife, "I want to be soothed and comforted." And if you'll believe it she told him, "if he wanted to be soothed to soothe himself." Jest so hash and onfeelin' she spoke. He said she wuz splittin' kindlin' wood at the time to git supper, and she struck at that wood as if she would bring the woodhouse down. And I guess from his tell that he gin it to her hot and heavy. But 'tennyrate she refused outright to soothe and comfort him, and if that hain't a wife's duty what is? It has always been called so, as I told Samantha. She asked what Cephas and I wuz talkin' so long about, and I had to tell her. And she said she see Miss Slinker go home from Deacon Gowdey's where she'd done a two weeks washin'. She wuz pushin' the baby carriage in front of her with her twins in it, and a bag of potatoes, and little Cephas draggin' at her skirts and cryin' to be carried, and she looked as if she would sink down in her tracts. And it seemed, sez Samantha, "as tired as she wuz she had to split wood to git supper. And how could she soothe and comfort anybody droudgin' round as she had all day and all wore out? Under the circumstances it wuzn't reasonable in Cephas to ask it."