Patty Bean was not the first I run against, by a long short. I never lost anything for the want of asking; and I was plagy apt to talk turky always when I get sociable, if it was only out of politeness. Now and then one would promise, and then fly off at the handle; but most all contrive some reason or other for giving me the bag to hold. One had taken a firm resolve never to marry—“No, never, never!” and the next Sunday morning she was published! Another chicken thought she was a great deal too young to undertake to manage a family. At last, I took a great shine to the school-marm, Huldah Hornbeam, though she was ten years older than I, and taller by half a yard of neck; and when I offered her heart and hand, she fixed up her mouth, and, says she, “I’ve a great respect and esteem for you, Mr. Beedle, but—” and so forth. Nothing will cool a man quicker than respect and esteem, unless it is a wet blanket. But let Huldah alone, she had her eyes upon Deacon Carpenter all the time. Well, as I was going moping along home, from Squire Jones’s, I fell in with Doctor Dingley. The Doctor saw in a minute that something was the matter, and he went to work and pumped the whole secret out of me. Then he seemed so friendly, that I up and told him all my experience with the women, from the beginning to the end. “Well, John,” says he, “I advise you now to wait till the twenty-ninth of February, when the gals turn round and courted the fellows. It’s none of my business, but, I wouldn’t let the women make a fool of me any more.” Well, I took a resolution, and I stuck to it firm; for when I once set up my ebenezer, I am just like a mountain. I stuck to it along pretty well into January, when I had to go to singing school. I must go to singing school, for I was leader in treble, and there was no carrying on the parts without me. But this was nothing, if it hadn’t fell to my lot to go home with Hannah Peabody, four times running. Politeness before everything. Well, she kept growing prettier and prettier every time, but I only grit my teeth and held on the harder. By and by, Sabbath-day night came round, and I felt a sort of uneasy, moping about home; and, says I, this resolution will never set well on my stomach without air and exercise; and before I had done thinking of this, I was more than half way to Captain Peabody’s. It was about daylight down as I was passing by the kitchen; but hearing a sort of snickering inside, I slipped up and peeped into the window, just out of curiosity. There was no candle burning, for Mrs. Peabody is saving of tallow, but I could see Hannah and Pol Partridge, the help, telling fortunes in the ashes by firelight. I turned round to go off, and run right against Jack Robinson. Jack was come to sit up with the help, and would insist upon it, I should go in and see Hannah—“She hasn’t had a spark this month,” says he, “and in you shall go, or I’ll lick ye.”