as
meaning to make it over for herself; but it didn't do to cross the cap'n
and Jacob Gunn gave Statiry another one--the best he could get, but it
wasn't near so good a piece, she thought. He set everything by Statiry,
and so did the cap'n, and well they might.

"We hoped he'd forget all about it the next day; but he didn't; and I
always thought well of those ladies, they treated him so handsome, and
tried to make him enjoy himself. He did eat a great supper; they kep'
a-piling up his plate with everything. I couldn't help wondering if some
of 'em would have put themselves out much if it had been some poor
flighty old woman. The cap'n he was as polite as could be, and when
Jacob come to walk home with him he kissed 'em all round and asked 'em
to meet at his house. But the greatest was--land! I don't know when I've
thought so much about those times--one afternoon he was setting at home
in the keeping-room, and Statiry was there, and Deacon Abel Pinkham
stopped in to see Jacob Gunn about building some fence, and he found
he'd gone to mill, so he waited a while, talking friendly, as they
expected Jacob might be home; and the cap'n was as pleased as could be,
and he urged the deacon to stop to tea. And when he went away, says he
to Statiry, in a dreadful knowing way, 'Which of us do you consider the
deacon come to see?' You see, the deacon was a widower. Bless you! when
I first come home I used to set everybody laughing, but I forget most of
the things now. There was one day, though"--

"Here comes your father," said Mrs. Snow. "Now we mustn't let him go by
or you'll have to walk 'way home." And Aunt Polly hurried out to speak
to him, while I took my great bunch of golden-rod, which already drooped
a little, and followed her, with Mrs. Snow, who confided to me that the
captain's nephew Jacob had offered to Polly that summer she was over
there, and she never could see why she didn't have him: only love goes
where it is sent, and Polly wasn't one to marry for what she could get
if she didn't like the man. There was plenty that would have said yes,
and thank you too, sir, to Jacob Gunn.

That was a pleasant afternoon. I reached home when it was growing dark
and chilly, and the early autumn sunset had almost faded in the west. It
was a much longer way home around by the road than by the way I had come
across the fields.

_From a Mournful Villager_

Lately I have been thinking, with much sorrow, of the approaching