"They'd been sweethearts more or less all their lives, and it was a settled thing that they expected to be married as soon as Henry got his farm paid for. But before the day was set, the war broke out and Henry enlisted. It went mighty hard with him to leave Emmeline, but a man that stayed out o' the army for the sake of a gyirl didn't stand much chance with the gyirl or anybody else them days. Him and Emmeline wanted to be married before he went, but the old folks said no. Emmeline's mother says, 'This'll give Emmeline a chance to know her own mind and change it--if she's goin' to change it--before it's too late. If Henry comes back, well and good; and if he don't come back, it'll be all the better for Emmeline that she didn't marry him, for,' says she, 'a young gyirl's chances o' gittin' married are better than a widder's.' "So Henry went, and Emmeline stayed and waited for him good and faithful. Towards the end of the war--I don't ricollect what battle it was--Henry got shot in the shoulder, and after stayin' some time in the hospittle he managed to come back home more dead than alive, and it was many a week before he was strong enough to be married. As soon as he was able to be up and walk around a little he begun to talk about marryin', and they said old lady Sanford took a lookin'-glass down from the wall and held it up before him and says she, 'Son, look at yourself. Do you think you can make a bridegroom out of a skeleton?' And says she, 'Son, there's jest two people in the world that wouldn't run from you if they saw you now, and one of 'em's your mother and the other's the undertaker.' Says she, 'Wait till you look like a human bein', and then it'll be time to set the weddin' day and bake the weddin' cake.' [Illustration: "'ONE MORNING SHE CONCLUDED SHE'D STRAIGHTEN OUT HENRY'S TRUNK.'" _Page 148._]