Now, where my aunt’s affection was concerned she was, as the reader will have already surmised, a rather determined woman; and the extraordinary marrying epidemic having left but one eligible male in all that county, she had set her heart upon that one eligible male; then she went and carted him to her home.  He turned out to be a long Methodist parson, named Huggins.

Aside from his unconscionable length, the Rev. Berosus Huggins was not so bad a fellow, and was nobody’s fool.  He was, I suppose, the most ill-favored mortal, however, in the whole northern half of America—­thin, angular, cadaverous of visage and solemn out of all reason.  He commonly wore a low-crowned black hat, set so far down upon his head as partly to eclipse his eyes and wholly obscure the ample glory of his ears.  The only other visible article of his attire (except a brace of wrinkled cowskin boots, by which the word “polish” would have been considered the meaningless fragment of a lost language) was a tight-fitting black frock-coat, preternaturally long in the waist, the skirts of which fell about his heels, sopping up the dew.  This he always wore snugly buttoned from the throat downward.  In this attire he cut a tolerably spectral figure.  His aspect was so conspicuously unnatural and inhuman that whenever he went into a cornfield, the predatory crows would temporarily forsake their business to settle upon him in swarms, fighting for the best seats upon his person, by way of testifying their contempt for the weak inventions of the husbandman.

The day after the wedding my Aunt Patience summoned the Rev. Berosus to the council chamber, and uttered her mind to the following intent: 

“Now, Huggy, dear, I’ll tell you what there is to do about the place.  First, you must repair all the fences, clearing out the weeds and repressing the brambles with a strong hand.  Then you will have to exterminate the Canadian thistles, mend the wagon, rig up a plow or two, and get things into ship-shape generally.  This will keep you out of mischief for the better part of two years; of course you will have to give up preaching, for the present.  As soon as you have—­O!  I forgot poor Phoebe.  She”——­

“Mrs. Huggins,” interrupted her solemn spouse, “I shall hope to be the means, under Providence, of effecting all needful reforms in the husbandry of this farm.  But the sister you mention (I trust she is not of the world’s people)—­have I the pleasure of knowing her?  The name, indeed, sounds familiar, but”——­

“Not know Phoebe!” cried my aunt, with unfeigned astonishment; “I thought everybody in Badger knew Phoebe.  Why, you will have to scratch her legs, every blessed morning of your natural life!”

“I assure you, madam,” rejoined the Rev. Berosus, with dignity, “it would yield me a hallowed pleasure to minister to the spiritual needs of sister Phoebe, to the extent of my feeble and unworthy ability; but, really, I fear the merely secular ministration of which you speak must be entrusted to abler and, I would respectfully suggest, female hands.”