Humorous stories; Love stories; Villages -- Fiction
"When this was going on, he still lived with his Aunt Pacewalk. He did
not want to go to his own house until everything was finished and ready.
Of course, everybody supposed he would take a wife there, but he never
said anything about that, and gave a sniff when the subject was
mentioned. During the summer in which Cobhurst was finished--he named the
place himself--he told his aunt that in the fall he was going there to
live, and that he wanted her and Judith to come there and make him a
visit of a month. He said he intended to have his relations visit him by
turns, and that was the sort of family he would have. Now it struck me
that if Judith went there and played her cards properly, she could stay
there as mistress. Although she was a girl very much given to keeping her
own counsel, I knew very well that she had something of the same idea.
"As I said before, the Pacewalks were poor, and although they lived well
enough, money was scarce with them, and it was seldom that they were able
to spend any of it for clothes. But about this time Judith came to me--I
was visiting them at the time--and talked a little about herself, which
was uncommon. She said that if she went to Matthias' fine new house, and
sat at the head of his table,--and of course that would be her place
there, as it was at her mother's table,--she thought that she ought to
dress better than she did. 'I do not mean,' she said, 'that I want any
fine clothes for company; but I ought to have something neat and proper
for everyday wear, and I want you to help me to think of some way to buy
it.' So we talked the matter over, and came to the conclusion that the
best way to do was to try to gather teaberries enough to pay for the
material for a chintz gown.
"In those days--I don't know how it is now--Pascalville was the greatest
place for teaberries. They used them as a flavor for candy, ice-cream,
puddings, cakes, and I don't know what else. They made summer drinks of
it, and it was used as a perfume for home-made hair-washes and
tooth-powder. So Judith and I and a girl named Dorcas Stone, who was a
friend of ours, went to work gathering teaberries in the woods. We worked
early and late, and got enough to trade off at the store for the ten
yards of chintz with which that gown is made.
"As for the making of it, Judith and I did all that ourselves. Dorcas
Stone might be willing enough to go with us to pick berries, but when
she found what was to be bought with them, she drew out of the business.
She was not a girl who was particularly sharp about seeing things
herself, or keeping people from seeing through her; but she wanted to
marry Matthias Butterwood, and when she found Judith was to have a new
gown she would have nothing to do with it, which was a pity, for she was
a very fine sewer, especially as to gathers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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