FullReads

“Says he, ‘You don’t know how much good you’re singin’ has done me, nor how much good you have done me in all ways, Huldy. I wish I knew how to show my gratitude.’

“‘O sir!’ says Huldy, ‘is it improper for me to be here?’

“‘No, dear,’ says the minister, ‘but ill-natured folks will talk; but there is one way we can stop it, Huldy–if you will marry me. You’ll make me very happy, and I’ll do all I can to make you happy. Will you?’

“Wal, Huldy never told me jist what she said to the minister,–gals never does give you the particulars of them ‘are things jist as you’d like ’em,–only I know the upshot and the hull on’t was, that Huldy she did a consid’able lot o’ clear starchin’ and ironin’ the next two days; and the Friday o’ next week the minister and she rode over together to Dr. Lothrop’s in Old Town; and the doctor, he jist made ’em man and wife, ‘spite of envy of the Jews,’ as the hymn says. Wal, you’d better believe there was a starin’ and a wonderin’ next Sunday mornin’ when the second bell was a tollin’, and the minister walked up the broad aisle with Huldy, all in white, arm in arm with him, and he opened the minister’s pew, and handed her in as if she was a princess; for, you see, Parson Carryl come of a good family, and was a born gentleman, and had a sort o’ grand way o’ bein’ polite to women-folks. Wal, I guess there was a rus’lin’ among the bunnets. Mis’ Pipperidge gin a great bounce, like corn poppin’ on a shovel, and her eyes glared through her glasses at Huldy as if they’d a sot her afire; and everybody in the meetin’ house was a starin’, I tell yew. But they couldn’t none of ’em say nothin’ agin Huldy’s looks; for there wa’n’t a crimp nor a frill about her that wa’n’t jis’ so; and her frock was white as the driven snow, and she had her bunnet all trimmed up with white ribbins; and all the fellows said the old doctor had stole a march, and got the handsomest gal in the parish.

“Wal, arter meetin’ they all come ’round the parson and Huldy at the door, shakin’ hands and laugh-in’; for by that time they was about agreed that they’d got to let putty well alone.

“‘Why, Parson Carryl,’ says Mis’ Deakin Blod-gett, ‘how you’ve come it over us.’

“‘Yes,’ says the parson, with a kind o’ twinkle in his eye. ‘I thought,’ says he, ‘as folks wanted to talk about Huldy and me, I’d give ’em somethin’ wuth talkin’ about.'”