But if her principles was as hefty as cast-iron, and her intellect as bright as it is t’other way—if it was bright as day—she would be a sort of a drawback to happiness—anybody would, whether it was a he or a she. Home is a Eden jest large enough to hold Adam and Eve and the family, and when a stranger enters its gate to camp down therein for life with you, a sort of a cold chill comes in with ’em. You may like ’em, and wish ’em well, and do the best you can with ’em, but you feel kinder choked up, and bound down; there is a sort of a tightness to it; you can’t for your life feel so loose and soarin’ as you did when you was alone with Josiah and the childern. But I am determined to put up with her and do the best I can. She hadn’t no home, and was a comin’ on the town, so Josiah thought for the sake of Tim—that was his brother—it was our duty to take her in and do for her. And truly Duty’s apron strings are the only ones we can cling to with perfect safety. Inclination sometimes wears a far more shining apron, and her glitterin’ strings flutter down before you invitingly, and you feel as if you must leggo of Duty, and lay holt of ’em. But my friends, safety is not there; her strings are thin, and slazy, and liable to fall to pieces any minute. But hang on to Duty’s apron strings boldly and blindly, get a good holt and have no fear; let her draw you over rough pathways, through dark valleys, up the mounting side, and through the deep waters; don’t be afraid, but hang on. The string won’t break with you, and the country she will lead you into is one that can’t be bettered. Her first husband was Josiah’s only brother. He died a few years after they were married, and then she married to another man, David Doodle by name and a shiftless creeter by nater—but good lookin’, so I hearn. Howsumever, I don’t know nothin’ about it only by hearsay, for I never laid eyes on none of the lot till she come on to us for a home. They lived out to the Ohio. But she fairly worships that Doodle to this day, talks about him day and night. I haint heerd her say a dozen words about Josiah’s brother Timothy, though they say he was a likely man, and a good provider, and did well by her. Left her a good farm, all paid for, and Doodle run through it; and five cows and two horses; and Doodle run through them, and a colt. [Illustration: DAVID DOODLE.] But she don’t seem to remember that she ever had no such husband as Timothy Allen, which I know makes it the more wearin’ onto Josiah, though he don’t complain. But he thought a sight of Tim—they used to sleep together when they was children, and heads that lay on the same mother’s bosom, can’t git so fur apart but what memory will unite ’em. They got separated when they grew up; Tim went to the Ohio to live, as I say, but still, when Josiah’s thoughts git to travelin’, as thoughts will,—I never see such critters to be on the go all the time—they take him back to the old trundle-bed, and Tim.