And then they say she fainted dead away, and fell over the rockin' chair, he not bein' near enough to ketch her.

   And he brung her to on a burnt feather that fell out of the chair cushion when she fell. There wuz a small hole in it, so they say, and the feather oozed out.

   I don't tell this for truth, I only say that

    they say

   thus and so.

   But as to Samuel's return, that I can swear to, and so can Josiah. And that they wuz married that very night of his return, that too can be swore to. A old minister who lived next door to Submit—superanuated, but life enough in him to marry 'em safe and sound, a-performin' the ceremony.

   It made a great stir in Jonesville, almost enormus.

   But they wuz married safe enough, and happy as two gambolin' lambs, so they say. Any way Submit looks ten years younger than she did, and I don't know but more. I don't know but she looks eleven or twelve years younger, and Samuel, why they say it is a perfect sight to see how happy he looks, and how he has renewed his age.

   The hull affair wuz very pleasin' to the Jonesvillians. Why there wuzn't more'n one or two villians but what wuz fairly delighted by it, and they wuz spozed to be envius.

   And I drew severel morals from it, and drew 'em quite a good ways too, over both religous and seckuler grounds.

   One of the seekuler ones wuz drawed from her not settin' the table for him that night, for the first time for twenty years, givin' away the plate, and settin' on (with tears) only a stun chiny one for herself. How true it is that if a female woman keeps dressed up slick, piles of extra good cookin' on hand, and her house oncommon clean, and she sets down in a rockin' chair, lookin' down the road for company.

   They don't come!

   But let her on a cold mornin' leave her dishes onwashed, and her floors onswept, and put on her husband's old coat over her meanest dress, and go out (at his urgent request) to help him pick up apples before the frost spiles 'em. She a-layin' out to cook up some vittles to put on to her empty shelves when she goes into the house, she not a-dreamin' of company 

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