CHAPTER III. THE MODEL HUSBAND. MAIDENHOOD. Maiden with the meek brown eyes, Like the dusk in evening skies! Standing with reluctant feet, Where the brook and river meet, Deep and still that gliding stream As the river of a dream. Like the swell of some sweet tune Morning rises into noon, May glides onward into June. And that smile, like sunshine, dart, Into many a sunless heart, For a smile of God thou art. -H. W. Longfellow. NE beautiful winter afternoon a company of young ON people took a sleighride from Hudson to Ravenna. One of the company was Mary Brayton. The party drove up before her home. Mary alighted and ran into the kitchen and asked: "Where is father?" The housekeeper roguishly replied: "In the parlor." Mary bounded in to find not her father, but a young man, a bookkeeper. His coat was off. He was deep in the mysteries of day book and ledger, making the annual statement and balance of the account of Judge Brayton for the Eastern Land Company, whose immense business was all in his hands. It was the first meeting of these two persons. Mary was nearly seventeen years old. The man, Frederick Wells Woodbridge, was twenty-three. She saw the joke that had been played upon her, blushed, and inquired the whereabouts of her father. But more; she looked at him with a woman's sharp, almost superhuman intuition, and received a strange, never-to-be-forgotten impression. He, too, looked at that radiant young womanhood, with a wealth of brown hair, which, when down, swept the floor two inches as she was standing, crowning a noble forehead, flashing laughing eyes, red cheeks, smiling, clean-cut lips, and strong chin, making altogether a rarely intelligent, soulful countenance. The figure of the maiden was five feet four inches high, firm, lithe, graceful with the majestic poise of a statue. Was it strange that this busy young man, five feet five inches high, with fair cheeks, and blue eyes and flaxen hair, should just then think of something else besides figures? It matters not what we call it, whether presentiment or revelation. The result is just the same. That moment was never forgotten; never will be. How could it be? It was the moment and the place where two streams of life met, for evermore to mingle. It is probably the private opinion of every reader of these lines that on the way back to Hudson, Miss Brayton thought of some one else beside the student at her side. And Mr. Woodbridge that evening thought, well, it is a thousand wonders that the books balanced! But they did, and Judge Brayton was so pleased about it that a few days afterwards he shook hands with young Mr. Woodbridge with a crisp hundred dollar bill in his hand. Some nine months later he gave him something else infinitely more precious, even Mary. In this historic room to the right of the hall as one enters, Frederick Wells Woodbridge and Mary Ann Brayton were married, September 28, 1847. Mr. Woodbridge was born in Manchester, Conn., in 1824. His father, who had been wealthy, lost his all in the financial panic of 1837, and came to Ohio with his son in 1839. In 1840, the youth was converted while living in Franklin Mills-now Kent, Ohio. He has now a Bible given him by his father, when six and a half years old, for reading the Bible through. In 1841 he began to clerk for Clapp & Spellman, at Akron, and soon after was engaged to clerk for Zenas Kent, of Ravenna, who had noticed his character and ability. With characteristic unselfishness he gave his father his wages to help him buy a farm, denying himself many comforts for that purpose. Too poor to venture into society, he was yet too rich in self-respect and principle to indulge in bad habits. He went into business for himself in 1846. If a marriage is to be judged by the mutual helpfulness and domestic bliss and unmarred conjugal felicity which results from it, this was certainly an ideal union. Fortyseven years without a disagreement or an uncivil word is a blissful experience that leaves a holy memory in the heart of him who lingers, waiting for the coming of the train that shall bear him to her and make the parted one. Each found his and her complement in the other, and the delicate chivalry and tender pride of Mr. Woodbridge in his gifted wife were fully equaled and rewarded by her own loving, trustful devotion to him. Who that came close to her has not heard her say with that deep ring of happy wifely pride in her voice, "My husband is, without a question, the best man on earth!" He gloried in her advancement in usefulness and public esteem far more than she did, and sacredly devoted himself to the work of assisting her in her public service. He furnished her with money without |