The pictures of unhappy marriages are hung in every household which the American press can possibly reach: the good marriages attract no attention. Natural reverence prevents those who know anything about them from telling what they know. We do not talk glibly of God's love. The theme is sacred. Just as sacred, and very personal, is the other subject. No man of sense, who loves his wife, says much about it, even to his intimate friends. What adult, with reason, goes about seeking advice upon matrimony?
Marriage is for persons of mature minds, and it is absolutely an individual matter, each case deciding itself. Let those who doubt concerning matrimony stay out of it. Let those who are already in it, remember that it is a solemn compact between two persons and that any action is unbecoming and inconsistent which does not result to the advantage of both.
Jack and I arrived at Podunk just in "strawberry time." Did you ever stop to consider what a mandatory phrase "strawberry time" is? Jack and I did to the fullest, for from one end of Podunk highway to the other, in every farmstead that was the happy possessor of a strawberry patch, the proclamation had gone forth that berries were ripe and must be "done up" at once. There is no such thing as procrastinating with Nature, especially in her fruit department. Infinite in patience, unsparing in pains from the first inception of the berry to its maturity, when once her creative work is accomplished, she lays the finished product at your feet and henceforth waives all responsibility. Put off until tomorrow what should have been "done up" today and Nature will seek vengeance upon you and show you your folly. Mrs. Simpkins might better save her breath than to enter the protest that she cannot possibly "can" today, for the minister and family are coming to dinner. Nature makes no exception for even the clergy. When Mrs. Hopewell declares she must take her butter and eggs to market today and so cannot do another stroke of work after one o'clock, Nature simply smiles complacently from the four corners of every ruddy berry basket and says, "Take me now in my perfection, for tomorrow it will have passed away."
In obedience to this inexorable law Podunk was making ready. Brass kettles were being scoured and granite ones were coming forth from their winter hiding places. With one accord Podunk was becoming a huge canning and preserving factory, with as many annexes as there were houses with berry patches.