"Flavia, most tender of her own good name,
Is rather careless of her sister's fame!
Her superfluity the poor supplies,
But if she touch a character it dies."--Cowper.
It was characteristic of Marthy Perkins and her continual pursuit of
pleasure, that she should wade through snowdrifts to Squire Bartlett's
and ask for a lift in his sleigh. The Squire's family were going to a
surprise party to be given to one of the neighbor's, and Marthy was as
determined about going as a debutante.
She came in, covered with snow, hooded, shawled and coated till she
resembled a huge cocoon. The Squire placed a big armchair for her near
the fire, and Marshy sat down, but not without disdaining Anna's offers
to remove her wraps. She sniffed at Anna--no other word will express
it--and savagely clutched her big old-fashioned muff when Anna would
have taken it from her to dry it of the snow.
The sleighbells jingled merrily as the different parties drove by,
singing, whistling, laughing, on their way to the party. The church
choir, snugly installed in "Doc" Wiggins' sleigh, stopped at the
Squire's to "thaw out," and try a step or two; Rube Whipple, the town
constable, giving them his famous song, "All Bound 'Round with a Woolen
String."
Rube was, as usual, the pivot around which the merry-making centered.
A few nights before, burglars had broken into the postoffice and
carried off the stamps, and the town constable was, as usual, the last
one to hear of it. On the night in question, he had spent the evening
at the corner grocery store with a couple of his old pals, the stove
answering the purpose of a rather large bulls-eye, at which they
expectorated, with conscientious regularity, from time to time. Seth
Holcomb, Marthy Perkins' faithful swain, had been of the corner grocery
party.
"Well, Constable, hear you and Seth helped keep the stove warm the
other night, while thieves walked off with the postoffice," Marthy
announced; "what I'd like to know is, how much bitters, rheumatism
bitters, you had during the evening?"
"Well, Marthy Perkins, you ought to be the last to throw it up to Seth
that he's obliged to spend his evenings round a corner grocery--that's
adding insult to injury."
"Insult to injury I reckon can stand, Rube; it's when you add Seth's
bitters that it staggers."
But Seth, who never minded Marthy's stings and jibes, only remarked:
"The recipy for them bitters was given to me by a blame good doctor."