“It’s the way of the sex,” said Solomon Hatch.  “When I was courtin’ my wife I was obleeged to promise her I’d give up the habit befo’ she’d keep company with me.”

“An’ you began agin, I low, after the ceremony was spoken.”

“To be sure—­’twas a courtin’ promise, not a real one.”

“It happened the same in my case, some sixty years or mo’ ago,” said old Adam.  “Thar was two of us arter Minnie—­for the matter of that, it never entered my head to court her till I saw that Jacob Halloween—­yo’ grandpa, Jim—­had begun to git soft on her.  It’s safer to trust another man’s jedgment than yo’ own I said to myself, an’ I started into the race.  Well, Jacob was the pious, churchgoin’ sort that she liked—­but he would chaw in season an’ out of it—­thar was some as said he chawed even when he was sleepin’—­an’ a woman so out an’ out with tobaccy you never set eyes on.  Sez she to me, ’Adam, you will give up the weed for me, won’t you?’ An’ sez I, ‘Why, to be sartin sure, I will,’ meanin’ of course, while I was courtin’.  Then she answered, ’Well, he’s a Christian an’ a churchgoer an’ you ain’t, but if he was the Angel Gabriel himself, Adam, an’ was a chawer, I wouldn’t marry him.  The men may make their habits, Adam,’ she said, ’but it takes the women to break ’em.’  Lord!  Lord! durin’ that courtin’ season my mouth would water so for a wad of tobaccy that I’d think my tongue was goin’ to ketch fire.”

“I shouldn’t like to have stood in yo’ shoes when you began agin,” remarked Betsey Bottom.

“Oh, she larned, she larned,” chuckled the elder, knocking the ashes out of his pipe on the hearth and then treading them under his boot. “’Tis amazin’ what a deal of larnin’ women have to do arter they’re married.”

“If they’d done it befo’ thar’s precious few of ’em that would ever set foot into the estate!” retorted Betsey.  “Thar ain’t many men that are worth the havin’ when you git close up to ’em.  Every inch of distance betwixt ’em is an inch added to thar attractions.”

“Now, I’ve noticed that in my own case,” observed Jim Halloween sadly, “no woman yet has ever let me come with kissin’ distance—­the nearer I git, the further an’ further they edges away.  It’s the curse of my luck, I reckon, for it seems as if I never open my mouth to propose that I don’t put my foot in it.”

“You may comfort yo’self with the thought that it runs in yo’ family,” rejoined old Adam. “’Tis a contrariness of natur for which you’re not to be held accountable.  I remember yo’ grandpa, that same Jacob, tellin’ me once that he never sot out to make love that his tongue didn’t take a twist unbeknownst to him, an’ to his surprise, thar’d roll off ‘turnips’ an’ ‘carrots’ instid of terms of endearment.  Now, with me ’twas quite opposite, for my tongue was al’ays quicker than my heart in the matter of courtin’.  It used to go click! click! click! quite without my willin’ it whenever my eyes lit on a pretty woman.”