these acres and this house. I present for your consideration the married
life of John Templeton and Hannah his wife. They lived together forty
years, and the record scarcely shows a dent. In all that time hardly a
word of love passed between them; but never a word of hatred, either.
They had a kind of hard and fast understanding, like the laws of Moses.
He did the work of the fields and she did the work of the house, from
sunrise to sunset. On Sunday they went to church together. He got out at
five o'clock to milk and harness up; and it made double work for her,
what with getting the children cleaned, and the milk taken care of, and
the Sunday dinner made ready. But neither he nor she every doubted or
complained. It was the Lord's way. She bore him eight children. She told
him before the last one came that she was not equal to it.... After that
she was an invalid for seventeen years until she died. And there was
loss of children to bear between them, and sickness, and creeping age,
but this bit of furniture held firm to the last. Gentlemen, it was mad
solid, no veneer, a good job all the way through."

As he spoke I thought that his roving eye (perhaps it was only my own!)
fell upon Johnny Holcomb, whose married life has been full of
vicissitudes.

"John, take this home with you; _you_ can use it."

"Nope, no such married life for me," I thought I could hear him
responding, rather pleased than not to be the butt of the auctioneer.

"Do I hear any bids?" the Great Auctioneer was saying, almost in the
words of Mr. Harpworth. "_What!_ No one wants n married life like this?
Well, put it aside, Jake. It isn't wanted. Too old-fashioned."