Part 2

"I had engaged Eunice Hunt to come and take care of the house, and wait on Aunt Betsy, and on the day appointed I went in and told her what I was going to do. She scolded at first, and then she cried and begged me to wait till spring, but I was firm. I thought I had waited and suffered about enough. She declared she never would see me again, but I told her I had an inward persuasion that she would change her mind. Then I left her, and Lewis and I went up to Mr. Philip Fithian's and were married. Afterward we moved over to James Whitecar's, and I lived there a long time, all the same as one of the family, doing the spinning and helping in the work. Some Friends blamed Deborah for taking my part, but she said she had acted according to the best light she had, and she was pretty well able to hold her own.

"The next year the war broke out, and Lewis, with his brother Richard and Stephen Whitecar, went into the army. It was a great trouble to Deborah to have Stephen turn soldier, but he did, and made a very good one. My Lewis rose to be captain, and was much respected; but he was wounded up at Wyoming, and died, leaving me with one little girl, mother of your father and Elisabeth here. Stephen Whitecar wanted to marry me when the war was over, and I knew Deborah would have liked it, but I couldn't bring my mind to it, and after a while he married Emma Parvin. Folks said he thought it was the next thing to marrying me.

"Aunt Betsy was very angry for a long time, but she came round, and was as kind as ever, even getting me the satin gown and crape shawl she had promised me if I married Abiram. He got very rich in Philadelphia at one time, but he lost everything speculating in Continental money after the war, and finally died poor and friendless.

"And now, as the wind has changed and it is clearing up, you had better go and get ready for your tea-fight."

_Lucy Ellen Guernsey._

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