HOW SAM TRAINED HIS WIFE.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4604, 6 October 1883, Page 1

HOW SAM TRAINED HIS WIFE.

In a Boston restaurant, at dinner recently, sat a man from Cambridge, who was a native of New Hampshire. Meeting an old acquaintance from that '. indefinite section known as " down east, 1' the conversation soon turned on family '' topics, aud the pair began to talk about tbeir former neighbors in a most familiar way. " Yes," remarked the Cambridge gentleman, " Bam was in many respects different from the rest of (he boys. You remember who he married P Well, when the old man, his father, found that he was shinin' round with her, be called him one day in the barn and said: ' Sam, d'ye intend to marry Beckie?' Sam nerer said a word, so the old man said: "Me boy, ye know all about them. I can't tell you nothin*. Ye know how tb a sisters has turned out, and not one of them is now livin' with their - hua-v;;^-bands. Sam wag as mum -as a ';- pantomime, and, just as he was ready, him v " and Beckie got tied. They lived on a farm, and everything went on smooth for a year, and it came to hog butcherin' time. Sam got already to have the usual party for the occasion, and, just as he was sharp* enin' up the knives, Beekie came oat and said : ' Sam, I'm going home.' Sam protested in his quiet way, but it was no use, so he said he'd get a man to row her across the pond. It was about half a mile over. She said: 'No, ye won't; yell row me over yerself.' Sam told her he couldn't, and Beckie fired up and said : • Then I'll drown meself." Sam said he'd go with her if she wanted to do that, so the boat was got ready, she got in, and they rowed out till the water was twenty feet deep. Then Sam stopped and said • Well, Beckie, this is a good place for ye to drown yerself!' She didn't open her mouth: He waited awhile and then said: ' Come, Beckie, I'm in a hurry to get back.' She never looked up. Sam put! down the oars, caught hold of her and pitched her in. She grabbed for the boat, but he wouldn't let her get near it.. When she was 7 almost done out she said: ' Sam, let me in that boat and yell not hear anything more from me out o' the way.* So he pulled her in and they went back home. • She changed her clothes and entertaiued\the guests. They're now nearly 80, ai#you nerer saw a happier old couple—did^bu ? I don't think they ever spoke of that dnckin' sinco the day she was goin' to drown herself," '