had 'got the mitten,' as all hopes in that
quarter would be at an end. But young McCall had not got 'the mitten;'
and it was customary on those occasions, when the family retired to
bed, for the young man to get up and quietly put out the candles, and
cover the fire, if any; then take a seat by the side of his lady-love,
and talk as other lovers do, I suppose, until twelve o'clock, when he
would either take his leave and a walk of miles to his home, that he
might be early at work, or he would lie down for an hour or two with
some of the boys, and then be away before daylight. Those weekly visits
would sometimes continue for months, until all was ready for marriage.
But they did not always end in matrimony. Sometimes those children of
the woods were gay Lotharios in their way, as well as in more refined
society, and it would be discovered that a favourite Adonis was keeping
company with two or three young girls at the same time, and _vice versa_
with some young coquettes. But such unprincipled conduct would furnish
gossip for a whole neighbourhood, and be discountenanced by all. Nor
must you for a moment imagine that there was anything wrong in this
system of wooing. It was the custom of the country in an early day, and
I think it is still continued in settlements remote from towns. But the
lives of hundreds of estimable wives and mothers have borne testimony to
the purity of their conduct. When Jenny had been with my mother about
six months, young McCall made his appearance in the middle of the week,
and my father and some visitors commenced bantering him why he did not
marry at once. Why did he spend his time and wear out his shoes in the
way he was doing? He said he would go and talk to Jenny, and hear what
she said. He returned in a few minutes and said they would be married.
In an hour afterwards they were man and wife. They married in their
working dresses--he in his buckskin trowsers, and she in her home-spun.
She tied up her bundle of clothes, received her wages, and away they
walked to their log-house in the woods. Thirty years afterwards they
used to show me some little articles that had been purchased with
Jenny's wages; and they appeared to look back upon that time with
pleasure. They became rich; he was colonel of militia, and some of their
descendants are worth thousands. During their early struggles, Mrs.
McCall was in the field with her husband, pulling flax, when she felt
what she thought was a severe blo