Short stories and selections for use in the secondary schools
General
Short stories and selections for use in the secondary schools
English prose literature; Readers; Short stories
On the wedding day, we may suppose that honest John Hull dressed himself
in a plum-colored coat, all the buttons of which were made of pine-tree
shillings. The buttons of his waistcoat were sixpences; and the knees of
his smallclothes [Footnote: Smallclothes: knee breeches.] were buttoned
with silver threepences. Thus attired, he sat with great dignity in
Grandfather's chair; and, being a portly old gentleman, he completely
filled it from elbow to elbow. On the opposite side of the room, between
her bridemaids, sat Miss Betsey. She was blushing with all her might,
and looked like a full-blown peony, or a great red apple.
There, too, was the bridegroom, dressed in a fine purple coat and
gold-lace waistcoat, with as much other finery as the Puritan laws and
customs would allow him to put on. His hair was cropped close to his
head, because Governor Endicott [Footnote: Governor Endicott: governor
of the Massachusetts colony from 1647 to 1665.] had forbidden any man to
wear it below the ears. But he was a very personable young man; and so
thought the bridemaids and Miss Betsey herself.
The mint-master also was pleased with his new son-in-law; especially as
he had courted Miss Betsey out of pure love, and had said nothing at all
about her portion. So, when the marriage ceremony was over, Captain Hull
whispered a word to two of his men-servants, who immediately went out,
and soon returned, lugging in a large pair of scales. There were such a
pair as wholesale merchants use for weighing bulky commodities; and
quite a bulky commodity was now to be weighed in them.
"Daughter Betsey," said the mint-master, "get into one side of these
scales."
Miss Betsey--or Mrs. Sewell, as we must now call her--did as she was
bid, like a dutiful child, without any question of the why and
wherefore. But what her father could mean, unless to make her husband
pay for her by the pound (in which case she would have been a dear
bargain), she had not the least idea.
"And now," said honest John Hull to the servants, "bring that box
hither."
The box to which the mint-master pointed was a huge square, iron-bound,
oaken chest; it was big enough, my children, for all four of you to play
hide-and-seek in. The servants tugged with might and main, but could not
lift this enormous receptacle, and were finally obliged to drag it
across the floor. Captain Hull then took a key from his girdle, unlocked
the chest, and lifted its ponderous lid. Behold! it was full to the brim
of bright pine-tree shillings, fresh from the mint; and Samuel Sewell
began to think that his father-in-law had got possession of all the
money in the Massachusetts treasury. But it was only the mint-master's
honest share of the coinage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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