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10 A SAGE CONVERSATION. I love the aged matrons of our land. As a class, they are the most pious, the most benevolent, the most useful, and the most harmless of the human family. At home they are patterns of industry, care, economy, and hospitality; abroad, they are ministers of comfort, peace and con solation. Where affliction is, there are they to mitigate its pangs. Nor night, nor day, nor summer’s heat, nor winter’s cold, nor angry elements, can deter them from scenes of suffer ing and distress. They are the first at the fevered couch, and the last to leave it. They hold the first and last cup to the parched lip. They bind the aching head, close the dying eye, and linger in the death-stricken hab itation, to pour the last drop of con solation into the afflicted bosoms of the bereaved. I cannot, therefore, ridicule them myself, nor bear to hear them ridiculed in my presence. And yet I am often amused at their conversations; and have amused them with a rehearsal of their own conver sations, taken down by me when they little dreamed that I was listening to them. Perhaps my reverence for their character, conspiring with a native propensity to extract amusement from all that passes under my observation, has accustomed me to pay a uniform ly strict attention to all they say in my presence. This much in extraordinary cour tesy to those who cannot distinguish between a simple narrative of an amusing interview, and ridicule of the parties to it. Indeed, I do not know that the conversation which I am about to record will be consider ed amusing by any of my readers. Certainly the amusement of the read el's of my own times is not the lead ing object of it, or* of any of the “Georgia Scenes”; forlorn as may be the hope that their main object will ever be answered. When I seated myself to the sheet now’ before me, my intention wm merely to detail a conversation be tween three ladies, which I heard many years since; confining myself to only so much of it as sprang from the ladies’ own thoughts, unawaken ed by the suggestions of others; but, as the manner of its introduction will perhaps interest some of my read ers, I will give it. I was traveling with my old friend, Ned Brace, when we stopped at the dusk of the evening at a house on the roadside for the night. Here we found three nice, tidy, aged matrons, the youngest of w’hom could not have been under sixty; one of them, of course, was the lady of the house, whose husband, old as he was, had gone from home upon a land-explor ing expedition. She received us hos pitably, had our horses well attend ed to, and soon prepared for us a comfortable supper. "While these things were doing, Ned and I engaged the other two in conversation; in the course of w’hich, Ned deported himself wdth beckoning seriousness. The kind lady of the house occasion ally joined us, and became permanent ly one of the party from the time the first dish was placed on the table. At the usual hour we were summoned to supper; as soon as we were seat, ed, Ned, unsolicited, and most unex pectedly to me, said grace. I knew full well that this was a prelude to some trick, I could not conjecture what. His explanation (except so much as I discovered myself), was, that he knew that one of us would be asked to say grace, and he thought he might as well save the good ladies the trouble of asking. The matter was, however, more fully explained just before the moment of our retir ing to bed arrived. To this moment the conversation went round the good ladies and ourselves with mutual interest to all. It was much enlivened by Ned, who was capable, as the read er has been heretofore informed, of making himself extremely agreeable in all company; and who, upon this occasion, was upon his best behavior. It was immediately after I looked at my watch, in token of my disposition to retire for the night, that the con versation turned upon marriages, hap py and unhappy, strange, unequal, runaways, etc. Ned rose in the midst of it, and asked the landlady where we should sleep. She pointed to an open shed-room adjoining the room in which we were sitting, and separat ed from it by a log partition, between the spaces of which might be seen all that passed in the dining-room; and so close to the fire-place of this apartment, that a loud whisper might be easily heard from one to the other. “The strangest match,” said Ned, resuming the conversation with a par ison’s gravity, “that ever I heard of, was that of George Scott and David iSnow; two most excellent men, who became so much attached to each other that they actually got mar ried— ’ ’ “The lackaday!” exclaimed one of the ladies. “And was it really a fact?” in quired another. “Oh, yes, ma’am,” continued Ned; “I knew them very well, and often went to their house; and no people could have lived happier or managed better than they did. And they rais er a lovely parcel of children; as fine a set as I ever saw, except their youngest ,son, Billy; he was a little wild, but, upon the w'hole, a right clever boy himself. Come, friend Baldwin, w 7 e’re sitting up too late for travelers.” So saying, Ned mov ed to the shed-room, and I followed him. The ladies were left in silent amazement; and Ned, suspecting, doubtless, that they were listening for a laugh from our chamber as we entered it, continued the subject with unabated gravity, thus: “You knew those two men, didn’t you?” “Where did they live?” inquired I, not a little disposed to humor him. “Why, they lived down there, on' Cedar Creek, close by Jacob Den man’s. Oh, I’ll tell you who their daughter, Nancy, married: she mar ried John Clarke; you knew him very well.” “Oh, yes,” said I, “I knew John Clarke very well. His wife was a most excellent woman. 99 THE WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. “Well, the boys were just as clever, for boys, as she was for a girl, ex cept Bill; and I never heard anything very bad of him, unless it was his laughing in church; that put me more out of conceit of him than anything I ever knew of him. Now, Baldwin, when I go to bed, I go to bed to sleep, and not to talk; and, therefore, from the time my head touches the pillow, there must be no more talk ing. Besides, we must take an early start tomorrow, and I’m tired.” ISO saying, he hopped into his bed, and I obeyed his injunctions. Before I followed his example, I could not resist the temptation of casting an eye through the cracks of the partition, to see the effect of Ned’s wonderful story upon the kind ladies. Mrs. Barney (it is time to give their names), was setting in a thoughtful posture; her left hand supporting her chin, and her knee supporting her left elbow. Her coun tenance was that of one who suffers from a slight toothache. Mrs. Shad leaned forward, resting her forearms on her knees, and look ing into the fire as if she saw groups of children playing in it. Mrs. Reed, the landlady, who was the fattest of the three, was thinking and laugh ing alternately at short intervals. From my bed it required but a slight change of position to see any one of the group at pleasure. I was no sooner composed on my pillow, than the old ladies drew their chairs close together, and began the following colloquy in a low tone, which rose as it progressed: Mrs. Barney. Didn’t that man say them was two men that got married to one another? Mrs. Shad. It seemed to me so. Mrs. Reed. Why, to be sure he did. I know he said so; for he said what their names was. Mtrs. B. Well, in the name o’ sense, what did the man mean by saying they raised a fine parcel of children? Mrs. R. Why, bless your heart and soul, honey! that’s what I’ve been thinkin’ about. It seems mighty curious to me somehow’ or other. I can’t study it out, no how. Mrs. S. The man must be jokin’, certainly. Mrs. R. No, he wasn’t jokin’; for I looked at him, and he was just as much in earnest as anybody I ever seed; and, besides, no Christian man would tell such a story in that sol emn way. And didn’t you hear that other man say he knew their da’ter, Nancy? Mrs. iS. But, la messy! Mis’ Reed, it can’t be so. It doesn’t stand to reason; don’t you know it don’t? Mrs. R. Well, I wouldn’t think so; but it’s hard for me somehow to dis pute a Christian man’s word. Mrs. B. I have heen thinkin’ the thing all over in my mind, and I reck on—now I don’t say it is so, for I don’t know nothin’ at all about it— but I reckon that one of them men was a woman dressed in men’s clothes; for I’ve often heard o’ wo men doin’ them things, and follow ing their true-love to wars, and bein’ a waitin’-hot’ to ’em. and all sich. Mrs. S. Well, maybe it’s somehow in that way; but, la me! ’twould o’ been obliged to been found out; don’t you know it would? Only think how many children she had. Now, it stands to reason, that at some time or other it must have been found out. Mrs. R. Well, I’m an old woman, anyhow, and I reckon the good man won’t mind what an old woman says to him; so, bless the Lord, if I live to see the morning, I’ll ask him about it. I knew that Ned was surpassed by no man living in extricating himself from difficulties; but how he was to escape from this, with even tolera ble credit to himself, I could not de vise. The ladies here took leave of Ned’s marvelous story, drew themselves closely around the fire, lighted their pipes, and proceeded as follows: Mrs. B. Jist before me and my old man was married, there was a gal name Nancy Mountcastle (puff puff), and she was al mighty likely g*al (puff); I know’d her mighty well; she dressed herself up in men’s clothes (puff, puff), and folowed Jen my Darden from P’ankatank, in King and Queen (puff), clean up to Lon don. Mrs. S. (Puff, puff, puff, puff). And did he marry her? Mrs. B. (Sighing deeply). No; Jemmy didn’t marry her; pity he hadn’t; poor thing. Mrs. R. Well, I know’d a gal on Tar River done the same thing (puff, puff, puff). She followed Moses Rusher ’way down somewhere in the South State (puff, puff). Mrs. S. (puff, puff, puff). And ■what did he do? Mrs. R. Ah! (puff, puff). Lord bless your soul, honey, I can’t tell you what he did. Bad enough. Mrs. B. Well, now, it seems to me —I don’t know much about it—but it seems to me, men don’t like to marry gals that take on that way. It looks like it puts ’em out o’ con ceit of ’em. Mrs. S. I know’d one man that married a woman that followed him from Car’lina to this state; but she didn’t dress herself in men’s clothes. You both know ’em. You know Simpson Trotty’s sister and Rachael’s son, Reuben. ’Twas him and his ■wife. Mrs. R. and Mrs. B. Oh, yes, I know ’em mighty well. Mrs. S. Well, it was his wife, she folowed him out to this state. Mrs. B. I know’d ’em all mighty well. Her da’ter, Lucy, was the littlest teeny bit of a thing when it was born I ever did see. But they tell me that, when I was born—now I don’t know anything about it myself—but the old folks used to tell me, that, when I was born, they put me in a quart mug, and mought o’ covered me up in it. Mi's. S. The lackada ! Mrs. R. What ailment did Lucy die of, Mis’ Barney? Mrs. B. Why, first she took the ager and fever, and took a ’bundance o’ doctor’s means for that. And then she got a powerful had cough, and it kept gettin’ worse, till, nt last, it turned into a consumption, and she