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Show pip? f" shrieked Susannah. . Joe broke into a run. As he approached ap-proached her, where she had pans id reluctantly to await him, he panted indignantly, in-dignantly, "Ye got to let the darn critters crit-ters wait for once, Sue ! Hang it, I want to propose !" "Come along and propose, then," responded re-sponded Susannah with sweet encouragement. encour-agement. "Ye kin do it while we feed the pigs, can't ye, Joe?" Joe could and did; Susannah accepted accept-ed him ; the pigs were fed. Whether or no the match was made in heaven, it proved as happy as if its atmosphere of early bliss on earth had not been mingled with the aroma of the pigpen. Years of My Youth. or two older than liimseTf. HisTnext-door HisTnext-door neighbor, and the owner of a small but cozy farmstead, was a competent com-petent and contented spinster, in whom Enos had displayed less than the ordinary or-dinary neighborly interest But one day he hailed her fiver the dividing fence : "Hi, Selina !" Selina did not immediately understand under-stand that she was being addressed, and so Enos leaned across the fence and continued shouting "Hi! nil Hi!" until he attracted her -attention. "Well, Enos, what 'is it?" she Inquired, In-quired, turning. Enos allowed her to walk close to the fence before he replied. "Aunt Jane's going to get married, so I guess I better, too. What d'ye think about it, Selina?" "I think ye better, Enos." "Then ef ye'll have me, guess I better bet-ter marry you, Selina." "Ef I will, Enos, I guess ye better." "Will ye, Selina?" "I won't Enos." "Shucks, Selina, ye better." "That's your say-so, Enos. Sly idee is, I bettern't!" Certainly, whether she would have bettered herself or otherwise, she did not marry Enos, and he remained a bachelor. Even less of grace and glamor attended at-tended the courtship of a prosaic youtli by the name of Joseph and his sweetheart sweet-heart if that term is not too poetic the excellent and practical Susannah. Coming up her father's farm lane, Joseph Jo-seph perceived her crossing it at the far end with a bucket of pig wash, and called to her to wait for him. "Can't stop, Joe, the pigs are waiting!" wait-ing!" she shouted back. "Jest a minute, Sue ! I got something to say to ye I" jelled "Joe. "Ye can say it after I've fed the ' jSHOHfTOHBOMAKCE jsome Eminently Prosaic Pro-i Pro-i posals of Marriage. I Hardly as Picturesque as the Stilted Forms So Popular With Lovers In the Pages of Fiction, but Meant the Same Thing. Perhaps the romantic proposals of - fiction are more picturesque than the nsual proposals of real life; the fact that lovers are reluctant witnesses make It hard to tell. But certainly the queer or comic proposals and attempted attempt-ed proposals of fiction cannot be any queerer than some of those recorded In . actual chronicle of countryside tradition. tradi-tion. Mr. Howells In his reminiscences Fives an amusing middle West example exam-ple of a country bachelor who belatedly be-latedly made up his mind to marry, .and in his default of female acquaintance acquaint-ance took his place on the top rail of a roadside fence and called to the first woman who passed: "Say I You a married mar-ried womi'.n?" "And then nt the frightened answer ; Inrti.'nnntly gasped out, 'Yes, sir!' he offered a mere 'Oh!' for an apoloRy nd explanation, and let himself vanish ' by falling into the cornfield behind ; him." Almost equally contemptuous of CaeM.'-e was a New England bachelor i in middle life who had lived con- i tenledly on his farm under the able L ;-"-.. fidministratlon of fin aunt only a year |
