Joe _I_ knew, though she fooled a good many on the
subject. But she wuz always a great case to confide in me, and though
she didn't say so right out, which wouldn't have been her way, for, as
the poet sez, she wuzn't one "to wear her heart on the sleeves of her
bask waist," still, I knew as well es I wanted to, that she thought her
eyes of him. And old Miss Charnick jest about worshipped Jenette, would
have her with her, sewin' for her, and takin' care of her--she wuz sick
a good deal, Mother Charnick wuz. And she would have been tickled most
to death to have had Joe marry her and bring her right home there.

And Jenette wuz a smart little creeter, "smart as lightnin'," as Josiah
always said.

She had got along in years, Jenette had, without marryin', for she staid
to hum and took care of her old father and mother and Tom. The other
girls married off, and left her to hum, and she had chances, so it wuz
said, good ones, but she wouldn't leave her father and mother, who wuz
gettin' old, and kinder bed-rid, and needed her. Her father, specially,
said he couldn't live, and wouldn't try to, if Jenette left 'em, but he
said, the old gentleman did, that Jenette should be richly paid for her
goodness to 'em.

That wuzn't what made Jenette good, no, indeed; she did it out of the
pure tenderness and sweetness of her nature and lovin'heart. But I used
to love to hear the old gentleman talk that way, for he wuz well off,
and I felt that so far as money could pay for the hull devotion of a
life, why, Jenette would be looked out for, and have a good home, and
enough to do with. So she staid to hum, as I say, and took care of'em
night and day; sights of watching and wearisome care she had, poor
little creeter; but she took the best of care of 'em, and kep 'em kinder
comforted up, and clean, and brought up Tom, the youngest boy, by hand,
and thought her eyes on him.

And he wuz a smart chap--awful smart, as it proved in the end; for he
married when he wuz 21, and brought his wife (a disagreeable creeter)
home to the old homestead, and Jenette, before they had been there 2
weeks, wuz made to feel that her room wuz better than her company.

That wuz the year the old gentleman died; her mother had died 3 months
prior and beforehand.

Her brother, as I said, wur smart, and he and his wife got round the old
man in some way and sot him against Jenette, and got everything he had.

He wuz childish, the old man wuz; used to try to put h