Two or three weeks after this, Thomas Jefferson went to the school house to meetin’ one Sunday night, and he broke out to the breakfast table the next mornin’—

“Mother, I am sick of the Jews,” says he, “I should think the Jews had a hard enough time a wanderin’ for 40 years, it seems to me if I was in minister’s places I would let ’em rest a little while now, and go to preachin’ to livin’ sinners, when the world is full of ’em. There was two or three drunkards there last night, a thief, four hypocrites, and—”

“One little conceited creeter that thinks he knows more than his old minister,” says I in a rebukin’ tone.

“Yes, I noticed Shakespeare Bobbet was there,” says he calmly. “But wouldn’t it have been better, mother, to have preached to these livin’ sinners that are goin to destruction round him, and that ought to be chased up, and punched in the side with the Gospel, than to chase round them old Jews for an hour and a half? Them old men deserve rest, and ought to have it.”

Says I, “Elder Wesley Minkley used ’em as a means of grace to carry his hearers towards heaven.”

Says Thomas, “I can go out in the woods alone, and lay doun and look up to the sky, and get nearer to heaven, than I can by follerin’ up them old dead Jews.”

Says I in awful earnest tones, “Thomas Jefferson, you are gettin’ into a dangerous path,” says I, “don’t let me hear another word of such talk; we should all be willin’ to bear our crosses.”

“I am willin’ to bear any reasonable cross, mother, but I hate to tackle them old Jews and shoulder ’em, for there don’t seem to be any need of it.”

I put on about as cold a look onto my face as I could under the circumstances, (I had been fryin’ buckwheat pancakes,) and Thomas J. turned to his father—

“Betsey Bobbet talked in meetin’ last night after the sermon, father, she said she knew that she was religious, because she felt that she loved the bretheren.”

Josiah laughed, the way he encourages that boy is awful, but I spoke in almost frigid tones, as I passed him his 3d cup of coffee,

“She meant it in a scriptural sense, of course.”

“I guess you’d think she meant it in a earthly sense, if you had seen her hang on to old Slimpsey last night, she’ll marry that old man yet, if he don’t look out.”

“Oh shaw!” says I coolly, “she is payin’ attention to the Editer of the Augur.”

“She’ll never get him,” says he; “she means to be on the safe side, and get one or the other of ’em; how stiddy she has been to meetin’ sense old Slimpsey moved into the place.”

“You shall not make light of her religion, Thomas Jefferson,” says I, pretty severely.

“I won’t, mother, I shouldn’t feel right to, for it is light enough now, it don’t all consist in talkin’ in meetin’, mother. I don’t believe in folks’es usin’ up all their religion Sunday nights, and then goin’ without any all the rest of the week, it looks as shiftless in ’em as a three-year-old hat on a female. The religion that gets up on Sunday nights, and then sets down all the rest of the week, I don’t think much of.”

Says I in a tone of deep rebuke, “Instead of tendin’ other folks’es motes, Thomas Jefferson, you had better take care of your own beams, you’ll have plenty work, enough to last you one spell.”

“And if you have got through with your breakfast,” says his father, “you had better go and fodder the cows.”

Thomas J. arose with alacraty and went to the barn, and his father soon drew on his boots and follered him, and with a pensive brow I turned out my dishwater. I hadn’t got my dishes more than half done, when with no warnin’ of no kind, the door bust open, and in tottered Simon Slimpsey, pale as a piece of a white cotton shirt. I wildly wrung out my dishcloth, and offered him a chair, sayin’ in a agitated tone, “What is the matter, Simon Slimpsey?”

“Am I pursued?” says he in a voice of low frenzy, as he sunk into a wooden bottomed chair. I cast one or two eagle glances out of the window, both ways, and replied in a voice of choked doun emotion,

“There haint nobody in sight; has your life been attackted by burglers and incindiarys? speak, Simon Slimpsey, speak!”

He struggled nobly for calmness, but in vain, and then he put his hand wildly to his brow, and murmured in low and hollow accents—

“Betsey Bobbet.”

I see he was overcome by as many as six or seven different emotions of various anguishes, and I give him pretty near a minute to recover himself, and then says I as I sadly resumed my dishcloth,

“What of her, Simon Slimpsey?”

“She’ll be the death on me,” says he, “and that haint the worst on it, my sole is jeopardized on account of her. Oh,” says he, groanin’ in a anguish, “could you believe it, Miss Allen, that I—a member of a Authodox church and the father of 13 small children—could be tempted to swear? Behold that wretch. As I come through your gate jest now, I said to myself ‘By Jupiter, I can’t stand it so, much longer.’ And last night I wished I was a ghost, for I thought if I was a apperition I could have escaped from her view. Oh,” says he, groanin’ agin, “I have got so low as to wish I was a ghost.”

He paused, and in a deep and almost broodin’ silence, I finished my dishes, and hung up my dishpan.

“She come rushin’ out of Deacon Gowdey’s, as I come by jest now, to talk to me, she don’t give me no peace, last night she would walk tight to my side all the way home, and she looked hungry at the gate, as I went through and fastened it on the inside.”

Agin he paused overcome by his emotions, and I looked pityingly on him. He was a small boned man of about seventy summers and winters. He was always a weak, feeble, helpless critter, a kind of a underlin’ always. He never had any morals, he got out of morals when he was a young man, and haint been able to get any sense. He has always drinked a good deal of liquor, and has chawed so much tobacco that his mouth looks more like a old yellow spitoon than anything else. As I looked sadly on him I see that age, who had ploughed the wrinkles into his face, had turned the furrows deep. The cruel fingers of time, or some other female, had plucked nearly every hair from his head, and the ruthless hand of fate had also seen fit to deprive him of his eye winkers, not one solitary winker bein’ left for a shade tree (as it were) to protect the pale pupils below; and they bein’ a light watery blue, and the lids bein’ inflamed, they looked sad indeed. Owin’ to afflictive providences he was dressed up more than men generally be, for his neck bein’ badly swelled he wore a string of amber beads, and in behalf of his sore eyes he wore ear rings. But truly outside splendor and glitter won’t satisfy the mind, and bring happiness. I looked upon his mournful face, and my heart melted inside of me, almost as soft as it could, almost as soft as butter in the month of August. And I said to him in a soothin’ and encouragin’ tone,

“Mebby she will marry the Editer of the Augur, she is payin’ attention to him.”

“No she won’t,” says he in a solemn and affectin’ way, that brought tears to my eyes as I sot peelin’ my onions for dinner. “No she won’t, I shall be the one, I feel it. I was always the victim, I was always down trodden. When I was a baby my mother had two twins, both of ’em a little older than me, and they almost tore me to pieces before I got into trowses. Mebby it would have been better for me if they had,” says he in a mewsin’ and mournful tone—I knew he thought of Betsey then—and heavin’ a deep sigh he resumed,

“When I went to school and we played leap frog, if there was a frog to be squshed down under all the rest, I was that frog. It has always been so—if there was ever a underlin’ and a victim wanted, I was that underlin’ and that victim. And Betsey Bobbet will get round me yet, you see if she don’t, wimmen are awful perseverin’ in such things.”

“Cheer up Simon Slimpsey, you haint obleeged to marry her, it is a free country, folks haint obleeged to marry unless they are a mind to, it don’t take a brass band to make that legal.” I quoted these words in a light and joyous manner hopin’ to rouse him from his dispondancy, but in vain, for he only repeated in a gloomy tone,

“She’ll get round me yet, Miss Allen, I feel it.” And as the dark shade deepened on his eye brow he said,

“Have you seen her verses in the last week’s Augur?”

“No,” says I “I haint.”

In a silent and hopeless way, he took the paper out of his pocket and handed it to me and I read as follers:—

“Wall,” says I in a encouragin’ tone, “that haint much different from the piece she printid a week or two ago, that was about woman’s spear.”

“It is that spear that is a goin’ to destroy me,” says he mournfully,

“Don’t give up so, Simon Slimpsey, I hate to see you lookin’ so gloomy and depressted.”

“It is the awful detarmination these lines breathe forth that appauls me,” says he. “I have seen it in another. Betsey Bobbet reminds me dreadfully of another. And I don’t want to marry again Miss Allen, I don’t want to,” says he lookin’ me pitifully in the face, “I didn’t want to marry the first time, I wanted to be a bachelder, I think they have the easiest time of it, by half. Now there is a friend of mine, that never was married, he is jest my age, or that is, he is only half an hour younger, and that haint enough difference to make any account of, is it Miss Allen?” says he in a pensive, and enquirin’ tone.

“No,” says I in a reasonable accent. “No, Simon Slimpsey, it haint.”

“Wall that man has always been a bachelder, and you ought to see what a head of hair he has got, sound at the roots now, not a lock missing. I wanted to be one, she, my late wife, came and kept house for me and married me. I lived with her for 18 years, and when she left me,” he murmured with a contented look, “I was reconciled to it. I was reconciled for sometime before it took place. I don’t want to say anything against nobody that haint here, but I lost some hair by my late wife,” says he puttin’ his hand to his bald head in a abstracted way, as gloomy reflections crowded onto him, “I lost a good deal of hair by her, and I haint much left as you can see,” says he in a meloncholy way “I did want to save a lock or two for my children to keep, as a relict of me. I have 13 children as you know, countin’ each pair of twins as two, and it would take a considerable number of hairs to go round.” Agin he paused overcome by his feelin’s, I knew not what to say to comfort him, and I poured onto him a few comfortin’ adjectives.

“Mebby you are borrowin’ trouble without a cause Simon Slimpsey! with life there is hope! it is always the darkest before daylight.” But in vain. He only sighed mournfully.

“She’ll get round me yet Miss Allen, mark my words, and when the time comes you will think of what I told you.” His face was most black with gloomy aprehension, as he reflected agin. “You see if she don’t get round me!” and a tear began to flow.

I turned away with instinctive delicacy and sot my pan of onions in the sink, but when I glanced at him agin it was still flowin’. And I said to him in a tone of about two thirds pity and one comfort,

“Chirk up, Simon Slimpsey, be a man.”

“That is the trouble,” says he “if I wasn’t a man, she would give me some peace.” And he wept into his red silk handkerchief (with a yellow border) bitterly.