“Well, you know how boys an’ gals somehow git to likin’ each other afore they know it.  Me an’ Rachel was more an’ more together, the more we growed up, only more secret-like; so by the time I was twenty an’ she was nineteen, we was promised to one another as true as could be.  I didn’t keep company with her, though,—­leastways, not reg’lar:  I was afeard my father ‘d find it out, an’ I knowed what he ’d say to it.  He kep’ givin’ me hints about Mary Ann Jones,—­that was my wife’s maiden name.  Her father had two hundred acres an’ money out at interest, an’ only three children.  He’d had ten, but seven of ’em died.  I had nothin’ agin Mary Ann, but I never thought of her that way, like I did towards Rachel.

“Well, things kep’ runnin’ on; I was a good deal worried about it, but a young feller, you know, don’t look fur ahead, an’ so I got along.  One night, howsever,—­’t was jist about as dark as last night was,—­I’d been to the store at the Corners, for a jug o’ molasses.  Rachel was there, gittin’ a quarter of a pound o’ tea, I think it was, an’ some sewin’-thread.  I went out a little while after her, an’ follered as fast as I could, for we had the same road nigh to home.

“It weren’t long afore I overtook her.  ’T was mighty dark, as I was sayin’, an’ so I hooked her arm into mine, an’ we went on comfortable together, talkin’ about how we jist suited each other, like we was cut out o’ purpose, an’ how long we’d have to wait, an’ what folks ’d say.  O Lord! don’t I remember every word o’ that night?  Well, we got quite tender-like when we come t’ Old Emmons’s gate, an’ I up an’ giv’ her a hug and a lot o’ kisses, to make up for lost time.  Then she went into the house, an’ I turned for home; but I hadn’t gone ten steps afore I come agin somebody stan’in’ in the middle o’ the road.  ‘Hullo!’ says I. The next thing he had a holt o’ my coat-collar an’ shuck me like a tarrier-dog shakes a rat.  I knowed who it was afore he spoke; an’ I couldn’t ‘a’ been more skeered, if the life had all gone out o’ me.  He’d been down to the tavern to see a drover, an’ comin’ home he’d follered behind us all the way, hearin’ every word we said.

“I don’t like to think o’ the words he used that night.  He was a professin’ member, an’ yit he swore the awfullest I ever heerd.”—­Here the man involuntarily raised his hands to his ears, as if to stop them against even the memory of his father’s curses.—­“I expected every minute he’d ‘a’ struck me down.  I’ve wished, sence, he had:  I don’t think I could ‘a’ stood that.  Howsever, he dragged me home, never lettin’ go my collar, till we got into the room where mother was settin’ up for us.  Then he told her, only makin’ it ten times harder ’n it really was.  Mother always kind o’ liked Rachel, ’cause she was mighty handy at sewin’ an’ quiltin’, but she’d no more dared stan’ up agin father than a sheep agin a bull-dog.  She looked at me pityin’-like, I must say, an’ jist begun to cry,—­an’ I couldn’t help cryin’ nuther, when I saw how it hurt her.