"I think he was, Seth!" said Mr. Bliss, laughing. "I am rather glad, do you know, that I only knew him later, when age had--in a degree--mellowed his disposition." At this moment Will Jaquith put his head out of the post-office window. "Good morning, Mr. Bliss!" he said. "There's another story about Old Man Butters that Seth must tell you, if you have not already heard it,-- about the trouble with his second wife." Seth twinkled more than ever. "Sho!" he said. "That's last year's p'tetters. I make no doubt Elder Bliss has heard that a dozen times." "Not once, I assure you, Seth," said Mr. Bliss. "I shall be glad to hear it, and then I really must--" he checked himself. Was not this an opportunity, come to him unsought? Seth Weaver was not as regular at church as could be wished. "Pray let me hear the anecdote!" he said, heartily. "And yet," he added to himself, "I caution my people against listening to gossip,--life is a tangled skein." "That was before I was born or thought of," said Seth. "Uncle Ithe's second wife was Drusilly Sharp (his fust was a Purrington), and she was a Tartar. Gra'm'ther Weaver told me this; she was own sister to Uncle Ithe. Gra'm'ther used to say there warn't another man under the canopy could have lived with Drusilly Sharp only her brother Ithuriel. As I was sayin' a spell back, he had a kind o' large way of lookin' at things. Gra'm'ther says to him once: 'I don't see how you stand it, Ithuriel,' she says. 'I don't stand it,' says Uncle Ithe. 'I git out from under foot, and wait till the clouds roll by,' he says. 'Spells she gets out of breath, and them's the times I come into the kitchen. There's where a farmer has the pull,' he says. 'Take a city man, and when he's in the house he's in it, and obleeged to stay there. But take a farmer, and, if it's hot in the kitchen, he's got the wood-shed, and, when you're choppin', you can't hear what she's sayin',' he says. 'Somebody's got to put up with Drusilly,' he says, 'and I'm used to it, same as I am red pepper on my hash.' "Wal, one day Uncle Ithe come home, and she warn't there. He found a note on the dresser, sayin' she warn't comin' back, she couldn't stand it no longer. Land knows what _she_ had to stand! She had baked bread and pies, she said (she was a master good cook), and the beans was in the oven, and that was all there was to it, from his truly Drusilly Butters. "Wal, Uncle Ithe studied over it a spell, and then he sot down and _he_ wrote a note, and this was the way it read: "'Whereas my wife Drusilly has left my bed and board while I was down to Tupham diggin' clams, and whereas I never give her reason good for so doin', resolved that all persons is warned to pay no bills of her contractin' from now on; but the cars will run just the same.' "Signed his name out in full, and sent it to the paper. I got it now to home, in Gra'm'ther's scrap-book. Yes, sir, that was Uncle Ithe all over." "And what was the outcome of it, Seth?" asked Mr. Bliss.