Wilmington Journal

There is a tradition in Humtown, and very generally believed to be true, which, whether true or false, throws a bit of romance around the plain matter-of-fact business of Seth Hawkins's courtship—a courtship otherwise not remarkable for incidents other than the common sort, viz: suspicion of intention, accredited attentions, and consummation—“as every body does it.”

This little incident, so the talk ran among the neighbors, was a jewel in its way, and shook with laughter the whole community of that quiet town for a long time, from the parson of the parish down to the very toe-nail of the local body politic.

Sunday night was the season which Seth chose on which to do his weekly devours, as Mrs. Hornby would say: and his road to neighbor Jones's, whose daughter Sally was the object of his particular hopes, lay across three long miles of hard territory, stumpy as an old woman's mouth, and as irreclaimable as a prodigal son, gone away for the third time.

One all-sufficiently dark night, unheeding wind and weather, as gallant and spruce a lover as ever straddled a stump, Seth, "in best bib and tucker," and dickey, and all, started upon his accustomed weekly pilgrimage to the shrine of Sally Jones—a sweet girl, by the way, as strawberries and cream are sweet.

Seth knew every land-mark, if he could see it; but the night was very dark, and in a little while he became confused in his reckoning; and taking the light which gleamed from farmer Jones' cottage in the distance, for a guide, he pushed boldly on, regardless of intermediate difficulties, surging occasionally to the right or left as some obstruction rose in his path, until he came stem on, as a sailor would say, to a huge stump, and rolled incontinently over the other side.

He gathered himself up as best he could, shook himself to ascertain that no bones were broken, and then re-started on his mission of love, his ardor somewhat damped by feeling the cold night wind playing in frantic jets around his body, denoting that the concussion had breached his oh-fie-for-shames, and that the seven-and-six-penny cassimeres were to be no more the particular delight of his eyes in contemplation of their artistic excellence.

He knew not the extent of the damage sustained, but soon gaining the house his first glance was over his person, to ascertain if decency would be violated by an unwonted display, but seeing nothing, and trusting to the voluminous proportions of his coat for concealment, he felt re-assured, and took his seat in a proffered chair by the fire.

While conversing with the farmer about the weather, and with the dame upon the matter of cheeses, he glanced at Sally, and saw, with painful surprise, that she was looking anxiously and somewhat strangely towards a portion of his dress. She averted her eyes as she caught his glance, but again catching her eye upon him, he was induced to turn his in the same direction, and saw, good heavens, was it his shirt? oozing out of a six inch aperture in the inside of one of the legs of his inexpressibles! He instantly changed position and from that moment was on nettles. Was he making more revelations by the change? He watched his opportunity to push the garment in a little ; could he succeed in hiding it, it would relieve his embarrassment. Again he watched his chance, and again stowed away the linen. It seemed interminable, (like the Doctor's tape worm,) and the more he worked at it the more there seemed left.

In the meantime his conversation took the hue of his agony, and his answers bore as much relation to the questions asked, as the first line of Solomon's song does to the melancholy burthen of "Old Marm Pettingill."

At last, with one desperate thrust, the whole disappeared, and he cast a triumphant glance towards Sally. One look sufficed to show him that she had comprehended the whole, and with the greatest effort was struggling to prevent a laugh. Meeting his glance she could contain herself no longer, but screaming with accumulated fun, she fled from the room; and poor Seth, unable to endure this last turn of his agony, seized his hat and dashed madly from the house, clearing the stumps like a racer, in the dark, and reaching home he hardly knew when or how.

As soon as he was gone, Mrs. Jones looked every where for a clean night gown that she had laid out for service on the back of the chair on which Seth had sat. She was positive she took it out, but where upon earth it was, she couldn't conceive.

"Sally!" cried the old lady from the door, "have you seen my night-gown?"

"Yes'm," echoed her voice, as if the last stages of suffocation; "yes'm, Seth Hawkins wore it home"

It was unfortunately the case; and poor Seth had stowed it away in the crevasse of his pants. It was returned the next day with an apology, and he subsequently married Sally; but many years afterwards if an article of any description was missing of apparel or otherwise, the first suggestion was that Seth Hawkins had stowed it away in his trowsers.

How the story got about, nobody knew. He never told it, and Sally never told it, nor the old lady, nor the farmer, but every body knew it and laughed gloriously at it too.