UNCLE BLUCHER'S WEDDING TRIP.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2900, 1 June 1878, Page 4

UNCLE BLUCHERS WEDDING TRIP.

Times is changed, boys, since I was a young fellow. I'm eighty, now, and I've seen considerable living. When I was twenty-one the deer used to come out of the woods yonder and eat my buckwheat, and I used to go out with my rifle and shoot them down to save it. Venison is scarce now, but you couldn't coax a hungry man to eat it then, if he could get anything else, it was so common. Ask Aunt Martha if that isn't so. As for doings, they're all altered. > Everything is fine as fivepence now. We had to put up with common fixings then, I tell you. Wow that big wedding down at Dadenbammer yesterday. Aunt Martha and I, we went. All the house was fixed up with stuffed furniture, and there were things to eat I didn't know the names of; and four musicians from the city to play for them to dance, and after the wedding there was a carriage to take the young folks to the railway depot for what they called their tour, and a waggon behind, bless you, with the bride's trunks, as big as houses, every one of 'em. That was my Martha's niece, that, bride was; and when Martha was married she went on a different kind of a tour.

I meant to tell all about it while I'm talking, though she says the young people will think she wa?n't a bit genteel. Genteel isn't my bother, an v way— never was. Give me up and down just what you are worth —no airs.

We didn't take any in those times. We were new settlers, every one of us. Martha's mother and father ]jad one big room for parlor and sitting room and kitchen, and there were we married. Peter Grimes fiddled for us, and we had corn-cake and chicken, and. sweet cake and coflee, and light biscuits and plumsas, and fried pork for supper; and the parson he ate as hearty and laughed as loud as any of us—'though when it came to dancing, of course, he wasn't there; and after we'd danced until morning, Martha and I started for home. I had a cart; it hadn't any cover, and it didn't ride very easy, and I was going to take her over in that.

We'd had a furnishing bee before, and all my folks and all hern had giv us something ; but Grandmother Smith had fetched over a feather-bed for a present to Martha, and now says she : " Put it in the wagon, Blutcher, and it will be a comfortable seat for Martha."

So we did it

Martha sat on the bed. I perched up on the seat, and away we drove. Mother Smith she cried, and so did Martha.

Father-in-law hurrahed. So did I, and off we drove. ■

For a considerable time I had plenty to do, coaxing Martha to cheer up, and telling her that she could go home as often as she liked, and pretending to scold her, though I wasn't angry, for a girl who loves her own folks, and is a good daughter, is sure to be a good wife. : .But after a while she cheered up, and as we rode along in the gray dawn, just a little mistier than night, she said: "I am so sleepy, that I think I shall just cuddle down in the feathers and take a nap."

" Do it," said I from my peroh

So, after a while, I spoke to her without, turning my head, and she didn't answer.

" Sound asleep, poor little chicken," thought I, and driv on.

It was a cloudy sort of morning. We'd passed through the marsh, and the mosquitoes buzzed about, but never roused the girl up. We'd come to the woods, and there you couldn't see you hand before your face, and still she was sound asleep, I thought, and I was glad she should have such a good rest. But when we'd come to the top of the hill, and I could see our little house, I could not stand it any longer. I felt as if I'd.like to have her take the first peep along with roe. " Martha!" I shouted, turning around on the high seat, " Martha, wake up,-lassie! we can see our house from here."

But there I stopped short, and thought I should die. Neither she nor the feather bed was on the cart—it was just empty.

She'd fallen off somewhere—but where ? And what might have happened to her ? There were plenty of wild beasts in the woods then—the smaller kind of course, but not pleasant to mcct —and the swamp in parts was deep enough to drown in.

1 couldn't stop to drive back slow and careful, I jumped down, leaving old Joe to take care of himself, and away I flew back into the woods, calling, " Martha ! Martha ! " and feeling about as I went, but nobody answered.

I tell you, boys, it was a dreadful hour for me. I almost fainted or got a fit, or something before I got through the woods to the marsh. But there—there I just stopped, and being so scared bad. made me so nervous, that I burst out a laughing.

There, in the midst of the soft mud, was the feather-bed, all smeared and spattered, and on it sat Martha, crying. Themud wasn't much over her knees, if she'd waded out, but she had her new boota on, and her Sunday go«1o-meet,ing blue merino, and she couldn't make up mind to do it. She was safe, but she was cold, and oh, boys, wasn't she cross!

" I'm going back to ma," sobbed she across the mud. "If you'd cared for me you could not have lost me off."

"Oh, Martha!" said I, but she wouldn't look at me.

I went into the mud and brought her out, and then I went for the waggon and got out poor grandmother Smith's featherbed, and then we went home. It wasn't a pleasant ending to the wedding, I can tell you. But after Martha had cried for an hour or two she began to get over it, and at last she told rue how it all happened, as i'ar as she knew. She fell so sound asleep that she dreamt she was at home, and the old lady calling her to get up and get breakfast, and said she to herself in her sleep, " It's very cold this morning," and turned over to feel for the blankets ; that started the bed, and off it slid, and there it lay in the mud, and there she lay on top of it, and when she waked up she could not remember where she was, but thought