they swarmed about me like bees, plying me pertinaciously with questions as to my age, husband, children, country, customs, possessions; and presently crowned the inquisitorial performance by asking, in all seriousness, if I should not like to be the wife of the prince, their lord, rather than of the terrible Chow-che-witt. * Here was a monstrous suggestion that struck me dumb. Without replying, I rose and shook them off, retiring with my boy into the inner chamber. But they pursued me without compunction, repeating the extraordinary question, and dragging the Malay duenna along with them to interpret my answer. The intrusion provoked me; but, considering their beggarly poverty of true life and liberty, of hopes and joys, and loves and memories, and holy fears and sorrows, with which a full and true response might have twitted them, I was ashamed to be vexed. Seeing it impossible to rid myself of them, I promised to answer their question, on condition that they would leave me for that day. Immediately all eyes were fixed upon me. "The prince, your lord, and the king, your Chow-che-witt, are pagans," I said. "An English, that is, a Christian, woman would rather be put to the torture, chained and dungeoned for life, or suffer a death the slowest and most painful you Siamese know, than be the wife of either." They remained silent in astonishment, seemingly withheld from speaking by an instinctive sentiment of respect; until one, more volatile than the rest, cried, "What! not if he gave you all these jewelled rings and boxes, and these golden things?" When the old woman, fearing to offend, whispered this test question in Malay to me, I laughed at the earnest eyes around, and said: "No, not even then. I am only here to teach the royal family. I am not like you. You have nothing to do but to play and sing and dance for your master; but I have to work for my children; and one little one is now on the great ocean, and I am very sad." Shades of sympathy, more or less deep, flitted across the faces of my audience, and for a moment they regarded me as something they could neither convince nor comfort nor understand. Then softly repeating Poot-thoo! Pootthoo! they quietly left me. A minute more, and I heard them laughing and shouting in the halls. "Dear God! dear God!" "YE OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. "MIS' ELDERKIN'S PITCHER." E see, boys," said Sam Lawson, as we were gathering young wintergreen on a sunny hillside in June, "ye see, folks don't allers know what their marcies is when they sees 'em. Folks is kind o' blinded, and when a providence comes along, they don't seem to know how to take it, and they growl and grumble about what turns out the best things that ever happened to 'em in their lives. It's like Mis' Elderkin's pitcher." "What about Mis' Elderkin's pitcher?" said both of us in one breath. "Did n't I never tell ye now?" said Sam; "why, I wanter know?" No, we were sure he never had told us, and Sam, as usual, began clearing the ground by a thorough introduction, with statistical expositions. n't take Miry myself," said Sam, his face growing luminous with the pleasing idea of his former masculine attractions and privileges. "Yis," he continued, "there was a time when folks said I could a had Miry ef I'd asked her, and I putty much think so myself, but I did n't say nothin'; marriage is allers kind o' ventursome; an' Miry had such up-and-down kind o' ways, I was sort o' fraid on 't. "But Lordy massy, boys, you must n't never tell Hepsy I said so, 'cause she'd be mad enough to bite a shinglenail in two. Not that she sets so very gret by me neither, but then women's backs is allers up ef they think anybody else could a had you, whether they want you themselves or not. "Ye see, Miry she was old Black Hoss John Brown's da'ter, and lived up there in that are big brown house by the meetin'-house that hes the red hollyhock in the front yard. Miry was about the handsomest gal that went into the singers' seat a Sunday. "Wal, ye see Mis' Elderkin, she lives now over to Sherburne in about the handsomest house in Sherburne, a high white house with green blinds and white pillars in front, and she rides out in her own kerridge, and Mr. Elderkin, he's a deacon in the church and a "I tell you she wa' n't none o' your colonel in the malitia, and a s'lectman, milk-and-sugar gals neither, she was and pretty much atop everything there 'mazin' strong built. She was the is goin' in Sherburne, and it all come strongest gal in her arms that I ever of that are pitcher." see. Why, I've seen Miry take up a "What pitcher?" we shouted in barrel o' flour and lift it right into the chorus. "Lordy massy! that are 's jest what I'm a goin' to tell ye about; but ye see a feller's jest got to make a beginnin' to all things. "Mis' Elderkin she thinks she's a gret lady nowadays, I s'pose, but I 'member when she was Miry Brown over here 'n Oldtown, and I used to be waitin' on her to singing-school. "Miry and I was putty good friends along in them days, we was putty consid'able kind o' intimate. Fact is, boys, there was times in them days when I thought whether or no I would - kitchen, and it would jest make the pink come into her cheeks like two roses, but she never seemed to mind it a grain. She had a good strong back of her own, and she was straight as a poplar, with snapping black eyes, and I tell you there was a snap to her tongue, too. Nobody never got ahead o' Miry; she 'd give every fellow as good as he sent, but for all that she was a gret favorite. 'em the more they'd be arter her. There wa'n't a gal in all Oldtown that led such a string o' fellers arter her, 'cause you see she'd now and then throw 'em a good word over her shoulder, and then they'd all fight who should get it, and she 'd jest laugh to see 'em do it. "Why, there was Tom Sawin, he was one o' her beaux, and Jim Moss, and Ike Bacon; and there was a Boston boy, Tom Beacon, he come up from Cambridge to rusticate with Parson Lothrop, he thought he must have his say with Miry, but he got pretty well come up with. You see he thought 'cause he was Boston born that he was kind o' aristocracy, and had a right jest to pick and choose 'mong country gals, but the way he got come up with by Miry was too funny for anything." "Do tell us about it," we said, as Sam made an artful pause, designed to draw forth solicitation. "Wal, ye see, Tom Beacon he told Ike Bacon about it, and Ike he told me. 'T was this way. Ye see, there was a quiltin' up to Mis' Cap'n Broad's, and Tom Beacon he was there, and come to goin' home with the gals, Tom he cut Ike out, and got Miry all to himself, and 't was a putty long piece of a walk from Mis' Cap'n Broad's up past the swamp and the stone pastur' clear up to old Black Hoss John's. "Wal, Tom he was in high feather 'cause Miry took him, so that he did n't reelly know how to behave; and so as they was walkin' along past Parson Lothrop's apple orchard, Tom thought he'd try bein' familiar, and he undertook to put his arm round Miry. Well, if she did n't jest take that little fellow by his two shoulders and whirl him over the fence into the orchard quicker 'n no time. Why,' says Tom, the fust I knew I was lyin' on my back under the apple-trees lookin' up at the stars.' Miry, she jest walked off home and said nothin' to nobody, — it wa'n't her way to talk much about things, and if it had n't ben for Tom Beacon himself nobody need 'a' known nothin' about it. Tom was a little fellow, you see, and 'mazin' good-natured, and one of the sort that could n't keep nothin' to himself, and so he let the cat out o' the bag himself. Wal, there didn't nobody think the worse o' Miry. When fellers find a gal won't take saace from no man, they kind o' respect her, and then fellers allers thinks ef it had ben them, now, things 'd 'a' been different. That's jest what Jim Moss and Ike Bacon said; they said, why Tom Beacon was a fool not to know better how to get along with Miry, -they never had no trouble. The fun of it was that Tom Beacon himself was more crazy after her than he was afore, and they say he made Miry a right up-and-down offer, and Miry she jest would n't have him. "Wal, you see that went agin old Black Hoss John's idees,-old Black Hoss was about as close as a nut and as contrairy as a pipperage-tree. You ought to 'a' seen him. Why his face was all a perfect crisscross o' wrinkles. There wa'n't a spot where you could put a pin down that there wa'n't a wrinkle, and they used to say that he held on to every cent that went through his fingers till he 'd pinched it into two. You could n't say that his god was his belly, for he had n't none, no more'n an old file; folks said that he'd starved himself till the moon 'd shine through him. "Old Black Hoss was awfully grouty about Miry's refusin' Tom Beacon, 'cause there was his houses and lots o' land in Boston. A drefful worldly old crittur Black Hoss John was; he was like the rich fool in the Gospel. Wal, he's dead and gone now, poor crittur, and what good has it all done him? It's as the Scriptur' says, 'He heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.' "Miry had a pretty hard row to hoe with old Black Hoss John. She was up early and down late, and kep' everything a goin'. She made the cheese and made the butter, and between spells she braided herself handsome straw hats and fixed up her clothes; and somehow she worked it so when she sold her butter and cheese that there er, the old Widdah Elderkin, she was was somethin' for ribbins and flowers; jest about the poorest, peakedest old you know the Scriptur' says, 'Can a body over to Sherburne, and went out maid forget her ornaments?' Wal, to days' works, and Bill Elderkin he Miry did n't. I'member I used to lead was all for books and larnin', and old the singin' in them days, and Miry she Black Hoss John he thought it was used to sing counter, so we sot putty just shiftlessness; but Miry she thought near together in the singers' seats; and he was a genius, and she got it sot in I used to think Sunday mornin's when her mind that he was goin' to be Presishe come to meetin' in her white dress dent o' the United States, or some sich. and her red cheeks and her bonnet all tipped off with laylock, that 't was for all the world jest like a June sunrise to have her come into the singers' seats. Them was the days that I did n't improve my privileges, boys," said Sam, sighing deeply. "There was times that ef I'd a spoke, there's no knowin' what might n't 'a' happened, 'cause you see, boys, I was better lookin' in them days than I be now. Now you mind, boys, when you grow up, ef you get to waitin' on a nice gal, and you're 'most a mind to speak up to her, don't you go and put it off, 'cause ef you do, you may live to repent it. "Wal, you see from the time that Bill Elderkin come and took the academy, I could see plain enough that it was time for me to hang up my fiddle. Bill he used to set in the singers' seats, too, and he would have it that he sung tenor. He no more sung tenor than a skunk blackbird, but he made b'lieve he did, jest to git next to Miry in the singers' seats, and then they used to be a writin' backward and forward to each other till they tore out all the leaves of the hymn-books, and the singin'books besides. Wal, I never thought that the house o' the Lord was jest the place to be courtin' in, and I used to get consid'able shocked at the way things went on atween 'em. Why, they'd be a writin' all sermon-time; and I've seen him a lookin' at her all through the long prayer in a way that wa' n't right, considerin' they was both professors of religion. But then the fact was, old Black Hoss John was to blame for it, 'cause he never let 'em have no chance to home. Ye see old Black Hoss he was sot ag'in Elderkin 'cause he was poor. You see his moth "Wal, old Black Hoss he wa' n't none too polite to Miry's beaux in gineral, but when Elderkin used to come to see her he was snarlier than a saw; he had n't good word for him noways; and he'd rake up the fire right before his face and eyes, and rattle about fastening up the windows, and tramp up to bed and call down the chamber-stairs to Miry to go to bed, and was sort o' aggravatin' every way. "Wal, ef folks wants to get a gal set on havin' a man, that are's the way to go to work. Miry had a consid'able stiff will of her own, and ef she did n't care about Tom Beacon before, she hated him now; and if she liked Bill Elderkin before, she was clean gone over to him now; and so she took to goin' to the Wednesday-evening lecture, and the Friday-evening prayermeetin', and the singing-school, jest as regular as a clock, and so did he; and afterwards they allers walked home the longest way. Fathers may jest as well let their gals be courted in the house, peaceable, 'cause if they can't be courted there, they'll find places where they can be: it's jest human natur'. "Wal, come fall Elderkin he went to college up to Brunswick; and then I used to see the letters as regular up to the store every week, comin' in from Brunswick, and old Black Hoss John he see 'em too, and got a way of droppin' on 'em in his coat-pocket when he come up to the store, and folks used to say that the letters that went into his coat-pocket did n't get to Miry. Anyhow, Miry she says to me one day, says she, 'Sam, you 're up round the postoffice a good deal,' says she. 'I wish if you see any letters for me, you'd jest bring 'em along.' I see right into it, |