the abuse in this manner, and had had the argument all his own way until
he had remonstrated himself into an early grave; and the funeral was
delayed all day, until a fresh undertaker could be procured, the one
originally engaged having confidingly undertaken to curry the cow at the
request of the widow.

Since that time my Aunt Patience had not been in the matrimonial market;
the love of that cow had usurped in her heart the place of a more
natural and profitable affection. But when she saw her seeds unsown, her
harvests ungarnered, her fences overtopped with rank brambles and her
meadows gorgeous with the towering Canada thistle she thought it best to
take a partner.

When it transpired that my Aunt Patience intended wedlock there was
intense popular excitement. Every adult single male became at once a
marrying man. The criminal statistics of Badger county show that in that
single year more marriages occurred than in any decade before or since.
But none of them was my aunt's. Men married their cooks, their
laundresses, their deceased wives' mothers, their enemies'
sisters--married whomsoever would wed; and any man who, by fair means or
courtship, could not obtain a wife went before a justice of the peace
and made an affidavit that he had some wives in Indiana. Such was the
fear of being married alive by my Aunt Patience.

Now, where my aunt's affection was concerned she was, as the reader will
have already surmised, a rather determined woman; and the extraordinary
marrying epidemic having left but one eligible male in all that county,
she had set her heart upon that one eligible male; then she went and
carted him to her home. He turned out to be a long Methodist parson,
named Huggins.

Aside from his unconscionable length, the Rev. Berosus Huggins was not
so bad a fellow, and was nobody's fool. He was, I suppose, the most
ill-favored mortal, however, in the whole northern half of
America--thin, angular, cadaverous of visage and solemn out of all
reason. He commonly wore a low-crowned black hat, set so far down upon
his head as partly to eclipse his eyes and wholly obscure the ample
glory of his ears. The only other visible article of his attire (except
a brace of wrinkled cowskin boots, by which the word "polish" would have
been considered the meaningless fragment of a lost language) was a
tight-fitting black frock-coat, preternaturally long in the waist, the
skirts of which fell about his heels, sopping up the dew. This he always
wore snugly buttoned from the throat downward. In this attire he cut a
tolerably spectral figure. His aspect was so conspicuously unnatural and
inhuman that whenever he went into a cornfield, the predatory crows
would temporarily forsake their business to settle upon him in swarms,
fighting for the best seats upon his person, by way of testifying their
contempt for the weak inventions of the husbandman.

The day after the wedding my Aunt Patience summoned the Rev. Berosus to
the council chamber, and uttered her mind to the following intent:

"Now, Huggy, dear, I'll tell you what there is to do about the place.
First, you must repair all the fences, clearing out the weeds and
repressing the brambles with a strong hand. Then you will have to
exterminate the Canadian thistles, mend the wagon, rig up a plow or two,
and get things into ship-shape generally. This will keep you out of
mischief for the better part of two years; of course you will have to
give up preaching, for the present. As soon as you have--O! I forgot
poor Phoebe. She"----

"Mrs. Huggins," interrupted her solemn spouse, "I shall hope to be the
means, under Providence, of effecting all needful reforms in the
husbandry of this farm. But the sister you mention (I trust she is not
of the world's people)--have I the pleasure of knowing her? The name,
indeed, sounds familiar, but"----

"Not know Phoebe!" cried my aunt, with unfeigned astonishment; "I
thought everybody in Badger knew Phoebe. Why, you will have to scratch
her legs, every blessed morning of your natural life!"

"I assure you, madam," rejoined the Rev. Berosus, with dignity, "it
would yield me a hallowed pleasure to minister to the spiritual needs of
sister Phoebe, to the extent of my feeble and unworthy ability; but,
really, I fear the merely secular ministration of which you speak must
be entrusted to abler and, I would respectfully suggest, female hands."


"Whyyy, youuu ooold, foooool!" replied my aunt, spreading her eyes with
unbounded amazement, "Phoebe is a _cow_!"

"In that case," said the husband, with unruffled composure, "it will, of
course, devolve upon me to see that her carnal welfare is properly
attended to; and I shall be happy to bestow upon her legs such time as I
may, without sin, snatch from my strife with Satan and the Canadian
thistles."

With that the Rev. Mr. Huggins crowded his hat upon his shoulders,
pronounced a brief benediction upon his bride, and betook himself to the
barn-yard.

Now, it is necessary to explain that he had known from the first who
Phoebe was, and was familiar, from hearsay, with all her sinful traits.
Moreover, he had already done himself the honor of making her a visit,
remaining in the vicinity of her person, just out of range, for more
than an hour and permitting her to survey him at her leisure from every
point of the compass. In short, he and Phoebe had mutually reconnoitered
and prepared for action.

Amongst the articles of comfort and luxury which went to make up the