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One, however, had the sense and simplicity to know how, and that was George Adams, a fine healthy young fellow from Hartland Hollow, who came in at least once a week with a load of produce from the farm on which he was head man. The first time he went after his rations of gingerbread, and found Dely in her mourning, he held out his hand and shook hers heartily. Dely looked up into his honest blue eyes and saw them full of pity.

“I’m real sorry for you!” said George.”My father died two years ago.”

Dely burst into tears, and George couldn’t help stroking her bright hair softly and saying, “Oh, don’t” So she wiped her eyes, and sold him the cookies he wanted; but from that day there was one of Dely’s customers that she liked best, one team of white horses she always looked out for, and one voice that hurried the color into her face, if it was ever so pale; and the upshot of pity and produce and gingerbread was that George Adams and Dely German were heartily in love with each other, and Dely began to be comforted for her father’s loss six months after he died. Not that she knew why, or that George had ever said anything to her more than was kind and friendly, but she felt a sense of rest, and yet a sweet restlessness, when he was in her thoughts or presence, that beguiled her grief and made her unintentionally happy: it was the old, old story; the one eternal novelty that never loses its vitality, its interest, its bewitching power, nor ever will till Time shall be no more.

But the year had not elapsed, devoted to double crape and triple quillings, before Dely’s mother, too, began to be consoled. She was a pleasant, placid, feeble-natured woman, who liked her husband very well, and fretted at him in a mild, persistent way a good deal. He swore and chewed tobacco, which annoyed her; he also kept a tight grip of his money, which was not pleasant; but she missed him very much when he died, and cried and rocked, and said how afflicted she was, as much as was necessary, even in the neighbors’ opinion. But as time went on, she found the business very hard to manage; even with Dely and the foreman to help her, the ledger got all astray, and the daybook followed its example; so when old Tom Kenyon, who kept the tavern half a mile farther out, took to coming Sunday nights to see the “Widder German,” and finally proposed to share her troubles and carry on the bakery in a matrimonial partnership, Mrs. German said she “guessed she would,” and announced to Dely on Monday morning that she was going to have a step-father. Dely was astonished and indignant, but to no purpose. Mrs. German cried and rocked, and rocked and cried again, rather more saliently than when her husband died, but for all that she did not retract; and in due time she got into the stage with her elderly lover and went to Meriden, where they got married, and came home next day to carry on the bakery.

Joe German had been foolish enough to leave all his property to his wife, and Dely had no resource but to stay at home and endure her disagreeable position as well as she could, for Tom Kenyon swore and chewed, and smoked beside; moreover, he drank — not to real drunkenness, but enough to make him cross and intractable; worse than all, he had a son, the only child of his first marriage, and it soon became unpleasantly evident to Dely that Steve Kenyon had a mind to marry her, and his father had a mind he should. Now it is all very well to marry a person one likes, but to go through that cerem
ony with one you dislike is more than anybody has a right to require, in my opinion, as well as Dely’s; so when her mother urged upon her the various advantages of the match, Steve Kenyon being the present master and prospective owner of his father’s tavern, a great resort for horse-jockeys, cattle-dealers, and frequenters of State and County fairs, Dely still objected to marry him. But the more she objected, the more her mother talked, her step-father swore, and the swaggering lover persisted in his attentions at all times, so that the poor girl had scare a half-hour to herself. She grew thin and pale and unhappy enough; and one day George Adams, stepping in unexpectedly, found her with her apron to her eyes crying more bitterly. It took some persuasion, and some more daring caresses than he had yet ventured on, to get Dely’s secret trouble to light. I am inclined to think George kissed her at least once before she would tell him what she was crying about; but Dely naturally came to the conclusion, that, if he loved her enough to kiss her, and she loved him enough to like it, she might as well share her trouble, and the consequence was, George asked her then and there to share his. Not that either of them thought there would be troubles under that copartnership, for the day was sufficient to them; and it did not daunt Dely in the least to know that George’s only possessions were a heifer calf, a suit of clothes, and twenty dollars.