Mary Jane Davis, Part 2

No, I never married, but it could have been different. The first fella, John, came up here lettin on to help out, but I knew Mammy and Daddy had arranged it. He wasn’t too long about when he made a grab at me from behind in the byre door, he got my elbow in his face from the fright of it; left here with an eye goin black. Arragh, a rough fella and they knew it too. Didn’t see him after that.

Robert was a thin rod of a young man, smart enough, and they liked him. I saw him at church a few times, smiled my way. He would come up to the house all dressed up, one time with a bunch a wildflowers for me. I walked with him down to the lane a few times. They said he had a goodly farm up on Benbo, but I told them this was as high up any mountain as I would go. Nothing up on that place; they just nodded. Maybe I was too head strong then.

But there was a lad, ahh, Henry, tall, we a big round smiling face, and a mop o wild hair, like he’d just stepped out of a gale. He was in the hay field first time I saw him. I brought them their tae, kept his eye on me the whole time. He helped us finish the new house too.  We rolled in the hay one summer when they weren’t lookin, aye, and a let him kiss me too. Like Ruth, I would have followed him anywhere, aye even to Benbo. But then, some ejit of a man took the poor cratur fishing, and my Henry drowned in a deep hole beyond in the Bonet river. A saw him laid out; his wild hair combed flat. I was sore for a long time after that.

I supposed a missed my opportunity or maybe it wasn’t meant to be, but that was the end of it. Anyways, there was plenty to keep my busy here.