A Country Doctor | Page 9

well off to-day if she'd took him,
too. 'T ain't no use for folks to marry one that's of another kind and
belongs different. It's like two fiddles that plays different tunes,--you
can't make nothin' on't, no matter if both on em's trying their best, 'less
one on 'em beats the other down entirely and has all the say, and
ginerally 't is the worst one does it. Ad'line's husband wa'n't nothin' to
boast of from all we can gather, but they didn't think alike about nothin'.
She could 'a' done well with him if there'd been more of her. I don't
marvel his folks felt bad: Ad'line didn't act right by 'em."
"Nor they by her," said the twin brother. "I tell ye Ad'line would have
done 'em credit if she'd been let. I seem to think how't was with her;
when she was there to work in the shop she thought 't would be smart
to marry him and then she'd be a lady for good and all. And all there
was of it, she found his folks felt put out and hurt, and instead of
pleasing 'em up and doing the best she could, she didn't know no better
than to aggravate 'em. She was wrong there, but I hold to it that if
they'd pleased her up a little and done well by her, she'd ha' bloomed
out, and fell right in with their ways. She's got outward ambitions
enough, but I view it she was all a part of his foolishness to them; I
dare say they give her the blame o' the whole on't. Ad'line ought to had
the sense to see they had some right on their side. Folks say he was the
smartest fellow in his class to college."
"Good King Agrippy! how hot it does git," said Jake rising indignantly,
as if the fire alone were to blame. "I must shove back the cider again or
't will bile over, spite of everything. But 't is called unwholesome to get
a house full o' damp in the fall o' the year; 't will freeze an' thaw in the
walls all winter. I must git me a new pipe if we go to the Corners
to-morrow. I s'pose I've told ye of a pipe a man had aboard the
schooner that time I went to sea?"
Martin gave a little grumble of assent.
"'Twas made o' some sort o' whitish stuff like clay, but 'twa'n't shaped
like none else I ever see and it had a silver trimmin' round it; 'twas very

light to handle and it drawed most excellent. I al'ays kind o' expected he
may have stole it; he was a hard lookin' customer, a Dutchman or from
some o' them parts o' the earth. I wish while I was about it I'd gone one
trip more."
"Was it you was tellin' me that Ad'line was to work again in Lowell? I
shouldn't think her husband's folks would want the child to be fetched
up there in them boardin' houses"--
"Belike they don't," responded Jacob, "but when they get Ad'line to
come round to their ways o' thinkin' now, after what's been and gone,
they'll have cause to thank themselves. She's just like her gre't grandsir
Thacher; you can see she's made out o' the same stuff. You might ha'
burnt him to the stake, and he'd stick to it he liked it better'n hanging
and al'ays meant to die that way. There's an awful bad streak in them
Thachers, an' you know it as well as I do. I expect there'll be bad and
good Thachers to the end o' time. I'm glad for the old lady's sake that
John ain't one o' the drinkin' ones. Ad'line'll give no favors to her
husband's folks, nor take none. There's plenty o' wrongs to both sides,
but as I view it, the longer he'd lived the worse 't would been for him.
She was a well made, pretty lookin' girl, but I tell ye 't was like setting
a laylock bush to grow beside an ellum tree, and expecting of 'em to
keep together. They wa'n't mates. He'd had a different fetchin' up, and
he was different, and I wa'n't surprised when I come to see how things
had turned out,--I believe I shall have to set the door open a half a
minute, 't is gettin' dreadful"--but there was a sudden flurry outside, and
the sound of heavy footsteps, the bark of the startled cur, who was
growing very old and a little deaf, and Mrs. Martin burst into the room
and sank into the nearest chair, to gather a little breath before she could
tell her errand. "For God's sake what's happened?" cried the men.
They presented a picture of