My little place of business (I am the goldsmith of our village) has long been the daily resort of several of my particular cronies.  They are men of good minds,—­some of them quite literary; for we count, as belonging to our set, the lawyer, the schoolmaster, the doctor, men of business, men of no business, and sometimes even the minister.  As may be supposed, our discussions take a wide range:  I can give no better notion of how wide than to say that we discuss everything in the papers.  Yesterday was a snow-storm, but the meeting was held just the same.  It was in the afternoon.  The schoolmaster came in late with a new magazine, from which he read, now and then, for the general edification.

“Ah!” said he, “if this be true, we can all write for the papers.”

“How’s that?” we asked.

“Why, it says here, that, if the true experience of any human heart were written, it would be worth more than the best tale ever invented.”

It was a terribly stormy day.  The snow came whirling against the two windows of my shop, clinging to the outside, making it twilight within.  I had given up work; for my eyes are not what they were, and I have to favor them.  Nobody spoke for a while; all had been set to thinking.  Those few words had sent us all back, back, back, thirty, forty, fifty years, to call up the past.  We were gazing upon forms long since perished, listening to voices long ago hushed forever.  Could those forms have been summoned before us, how crowded would have been my little shop!  Could those voices have been heard, how terrible the discord, the cries of the wretched mingling with the shouts of the happy ones!  There was a dead silence.  The past was being questioned.  Would it reply?

At last some one said,—­

“Try it.”

“But,” said another, “it would fill a whole book.”

“Take up one branch, then; for instance, our—­well, our courting-days.  Let each one tell how he won his wife.”

“But shall we get any money by it?”

“To be sure we shall.  Do you think people write for nothing? ’Worth more’ are the very words used; ‘worth more’ what? Money, of course.”

“But what shall we do with all our money?”

“Buy a library for the use of us all.  We will draw lots to see who shall write first; and if he succeeds, the others can follow in order.”

And thus we agreed.

I was rather sorry the lot fell upon me; for I was always bashful, and never thought much of myself but once.  I think my bashfulness was mostly owing to my knowing myself to be not very good-looking.  I believe that I am not considered a bad-looking old man; indeed, people who remember me at twenty-five say that I have grown handsome every year since.

I do not intend giving a description of myself at that age, but shall confine myself principally to what was suggested by my friend, as above mentioned,—­namely, how I won my wife.