y in the robe. But he is liked by everybody, and
everybody is glad to see him so prosperous and well off.

He has got 300 acres of good land, "be it more or less," as the deed
reads; 30 head of cows, and 7 head of horses (and the hull bodies of
'em). And a big sugar bush, over 1100 trees, and a nice little sugar
house way up on a pretty side hill amongst the maple trees. A good, big,
handsome dwellin' house, a sort of cream color, with green blinds; big
barn, and carriage house, etc., etc., and everything in the very best of
order. He is a pattern farmer and a pattern son--yes, Joe couldn't be a
more pattern son if he acted every day from a pattern.

He treats his mother dretful pretty, from day to day. She thinks that
there hain't nobody like Joe; and it wuz s'pozed that Jenette thought so
too.

But Jenette is, and always wuz, runnin' over with common sense, and she
always made fun and laughed at Joe when he got to talkin' about his
religion, and about settin' a time for the world to come to a end. And
some thought that that wuz one reason why the match didn't go off, for
Joe likes her, everybody could see that, for he wuz jest such a great,
honest, open-hearted feller, that he never made any secret of it.
And Jenette liked Joe _I_ knew, though she fooled a good many on the
subject. But she wuz always a great case to confide in me, and though
she didn't say so right out, which wouldn't have been her way, for, as
the poet sez, she wuzn't one "to wear her heart on the sleeves of her
bask waist," still, I knew as well es I wanted to, that she thought her
eyes of him. And old Miss Charnick jest about worshipped Jenette, would
have her with her, sewin' for her, and takin' care of her--she wuz sick
a good deal, Mother Charnick wuz. And she would have been tickled most
to death to have had Joe marry her and bring her right home there.

And Jenette wuz a smart little creeter, "smart as lightnin'," as Josiah
always said.

She had got along in years, Jenette had, without marryin', for she staid
to hum and took care of her old father and mother and Tom. The other
girls married off, and left her to hum, and she had chances, so it wuz
said, good ones, but she wouldn't leave her father and mother, who wuz
gettin' old, and kinder bed-rid, and needed her. Her father, specially,
said he couldn't live, and wouldn't try to, if Jenette left 'em, but he
said, the old gentleman did, that Jenette should be richly paid for her
goodness t