The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mary Minds Her Business, by George Weston

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Title: Mary Minds Her Business

Author: George Weston

Release Date: July 27, 2004 [EBook #13034]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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MARY MINDS HER BUSINESS

BY GEORGE WESTON

Author of "Oh, Mary, Be Careful," "The Apple-Tree Girl," and "You Never
Saw Such a Girl."

1920

To Karl Edwin Harriman
One of the Noblest of them All
G.W.

MARY MINDS HER BUSINESS

So that you may understand my heroine, I am going to write a preface and
tell you about her forebears.

In the latter part of the seventeenth century, there was a young
blacksmith in our part of the country named Josiah Spencer. He had a
quick eye, a quick hand and a quicker temper.

Because of his quick eye he married a girl named Mary McMillan. Because
of his quick hand, he was never in need of employment. And because of his
quick temper, he left the place of his birth one day and travelled west
until he came to a ford which crossed the Quinebaug River.

There, before the week was over, he had bought from Oeneko, the Indian
chief, five hundred acres on each side of the river--land in those days
being the cheapest known commodity. Hewing his own timber and making his
own hardware, he soon built a shop of his own, and the ford being on the
main road between Hartford and the Providence Plantations, it wasn't long
before he had plenty of business.

Above the ford was a waterfall. Josiah put in a wheel, a grist mill and a
saw mill.

By that time Mary, his wife, had presented him with one of the two
greatest gifts that a woman can ever bestow, and presently a sign was
painted over the shop:

JOSIAH SPENCER & SON

In course of time young Josiah made his first horse-shoe and old Josiah
made his last.

On a visit to New Amsterdam, the young man had already fallen in love
with a girl named Matilda Sturtevant. They wer