At sunset we missed Jamie.  I found him in the hay-mow, crying as if his heart would break.  “Oh, Joseph,” said he, “she was just as pleasant as your mother!” It was sunset when he first ran away, and sunset when he returned to find his mother dead.  He told me that “God brought him home at that hour to make him feel.”

Our ship was a long while repairing.  Then freights were dull, and so it lingered along, week after week.  Jamie often spoke of going, but nobody would let him.  Father said he had always wanted another boy.  Mother told him I should be lonesome without him.  The girls said as much as they thought it would do for girls to say, and he stayed on.  I knew he wanted to badly enough, for I saw he liked Mary.  I thought, too, that she liked him, because she said so little about his staying.  To be sure, they were in nothing alike; but then, as Aunt Chloe said, “Opposites are more harmonious.”

My sister Cynthia was going to be published soon, and all the rest were helping her “make her fix.”  Coverlets were being got into the loom, and the great wheel and little wheel going all day Jamie liked to help them “quill.”  But the best of all, both for him and me, were the quiltings; for these brought all the young folks together.

Our nearest neighbor was a large, stout-looking man, by the name of Wilbur.  He was called Mr. Nathaniel, to distinguish him from his brother.  His house was next ours, with a hill between.  He was a good, jolly soul, had no children of his own, and was always begging mother for a few of her girls.  Nothing suited him better than a good time.  If there was anything going on at our house, he was always on the spot.

One December evening, our kitchen was full of young people.  The best bed-quilt had been quilted, and Jamie and I had been helping “roll over,” all the afternoon.  In the evening, as soon as the young men came, we hung over the molasses, and set Mr. Nathaniel stirring it.  We all sat around, naming apples.  All at once he called out, “Which of you chaps has got pluck enough to ride over to Swampsey Village to-morrow, after a young woman he never saw?”

They all looked up, especially the girls who had beaux present.  Then came questions,—­“Who is she?” “Give her name”; “Good-looking?” and many others.

“Be thinking it over awhile,” said he, and kept on stirring.  But when he was pulling the candy, he explained, dropping a few words at every pull.

“The girl,” said he, “is a nice girl, and I’ll be bound she’s handsome.  I used to have dealings with her father, while he kept store in Boston.  We’ve never let the acquaintance die out.  When he wrote me that he was going to take his wife a journey South, and inquired if I knew of a safe, quiet family where he could leave his daughter, wifey and I concluded to take her ourselves.  We couldn’t think of a quieter family, or one where daughters were more needed.  I promised to meet her at Swampsey Village; but if any of you young men want the chance, you can have it.”