Page:Saunders - Beautiful Joe, 1893.djvu/218

Rh what the joke was. We were going very slowly up a long, steep hill, and in the clear, still air, we could hear every word spoken in the buggy.

"The last part of the story is the best, to my mind," said Mr. Harry, "and as romantic as even a girl could desire. The affair of the stolen box was much talked about along Sudbury way, and Miss Jerrold got to be considered quite a desirable young person among some of the youth near there, though she is a frowsy-headed creature, and not as neat in her personal attire as a young girl should be. Among her suitors was Jacobs. He cut out a black-smith, and a painter, and several young farmers, and father said he never in his life had such a time to keep a straight face, as when Jacobs came to him this spring, and said he was going to marry old Miser Jerrold's daughter. He wanted to quit father's employ, and he thanked him in a real manly way for the manner in which he had always treated him. Well, Jacobs left, and mother says that father would sit and speculate about him, as to whether he had fallen in love with Eliza Jerrold, or whether he was determined to regain possession of the box, and was going to do it honestly, or whether he was sorry for having frightened the old man into a greater degree of imbecility, and was marrying the girl so that he could take care of him, or whether it was something else, and so on, and so on. He had a dozen theories, and then mother says he would burst out laughing, and say it was one of the cutest tricks that he had ever heard of.

"In the end, Jacobs got married, and father and mother went to to the wedding. Father gave the bride-groom a yoke of oxen, and mother gave the bride a lot of household linen, and I believe they're as happy as the day is long. Jacobs makes his wife comb her hair, and