that a poor woman once called at the house and asked
for food. The farmer chanced to be from home,
and his wife, thinking he might not return for a time,
ventured to prepare a comfortable meal for the poor
traveller; but, as fate would have it, he returned
before the weary traveller had partaken of the meal
prepared for her. As soon as he saw how matters
stood he gave his wife a stern rebuke for “encouraging
beggars”; and, with many harsh words, ordered
the woman to leave the house. The poor woman rose
wearily to obey the command, and, as she was passing
from the room, she turned, and fixing her eyes upon
Mr. Judson, said in a stern voice, “I am poor
and needy—it was hunger alone which compelled
me to ask charity—but with all your riches
I would not exchange places with you who have the heart
to turn from your door one in need of food; surely,
out of your abundance you might have at the least
given food to one in want; but go on hoarding up your
dollars, and see how much softer they will make your
dying pillow.” It was said that the farmer
actually turned pale as the woman left the house.
Perhaps his conscience was not quite dead, and it
may be that a shadow from the events of future years,
even then, fell across his mind. It would have
been difficult to find two natures more unlike than
were those of Mr. Judson and his wife. The former
was stingy, even to miserly niggardliness, as well
as ill-tempered, sullen and morose, while the latter
was one of the most kind-hearted and motherly old
ladies imaginable, that is, had her kindly nature been
allowed to exhibit itself. As it was, not daring
to act according to the dictates of her own kind heart,
through fear of her stern companion, she had in the
course of years, become a timid broken-spirited woman.
In her youthful days she had been a regular attendant
at church, she also was a valuable teacher in the
sabbath-school; but, after marrying Lemuel Judson,
she soon found that all religious privileges of a social
nature were at an end. Poor man, money was the
god he worshipped; and so entirely did the acquisition
of wealth engross his mind that every other emotion
was well-nigh extinguished. He seldom, if ever,
entered a place of public worship, and did what he
could to prevent his wife from doing so. She
did at the first venture a feeble remonstrance when
he refused on Sundays to drive to the village church,
but, as this was her first attempt at any thing like
opposition to his wishes, he determined it should
be her last, for he assailed her with every term of
abusive language at his command, and these were not
a few, for his command of language of this sort was
something marvelous too listen to, and, if his words
and phrases were not always in strict accordance with
the rules of grammar, they certainly were sharp and
pointed enough to answer his purpose very well.
From the sour expression of his countenance, as well
as the biting words which often fell from his tongue,
the village boys applied to him the name “vinegar