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Japhet Colbones was a very odd individual. All his ancestors were odd individuals, as far back as they can be remembered. His great-grandfather, at the age of seventy-one, built a hut in a patch of thick woods, leaving a handsome and comfortable home, a wife, children, and grandchildren, to live alone by himself. He even forbade the visits of his family, though a favorite daughter ventured sometimes to present herself on the forbidden premises, till one day he brought out his gun and threatened to shoot her if she came again. At long intervals he would return to his old home, but he required to be received in all respects as a stranger. Dire was his wrath if any one called him ‘father;’ and the little tow-headed urchins on the premises were taught, with their catechism, not to notice the old man whenever they should see him, nor, on peril of their lives, to call him by the endearing cognomen of grand-daddy.

Nobody could account for this freak taken in his old age. His forest residence was uncouth, irregular – lighted by an unsheltered opening, filled with logs and coarse contrivances for furniture. There in his rude fireplace he cooked the game that he killed, with his own hands. Whenever he was out of necessary food he supplied himself from his well-filled larder at home, the servants or the daughters knowing what provision he wanted by the particular basket or utensil he carried.

It was useless for the old wife, poor thing! to follow him mutely, the longing in her heart to comfort and to live with him, plainly written on her face. He deigned to take no notice of her whatever, except to frown if he met her eye; and thus he lived till he died.
The son, grand-father to Japhet, was not a whit behind his father in his oddities. He caused a coat to be made wherein were introduced seven different colors, and would not kill or allow to be killed on his premises; any thing that had life. Consequently his family were Grahamites against their will. Cats and dogs swarmed in all directions, and it took nearly everything that was raised to keep his constantly-multiplying herds. None who lived in Rattle-Snake Village can have forgotten the extraordinary sensation caused by his death, nor with what gusto scores of useless animals were sacrificed to the manes of the departed oddity.

Number three, father of Japhet, was in his way an original and an eccentric. His tastes travelled bookward. Not an auction took place in the neighboring city that he did not attend, and purchase every leather-covered and worm-eaten volume that could be found, oftentimes paying the most ridiculous prices, extorted by those who took advantage of his weakness. He is living now, a pale, loose-jointed man, a little weak in the knees, with an abundant shock of iron-gray locks; large, flatulent-looking blue-white eyes, a prominent nose, and a peaked chin. In his house books abounded. Not a closet, chest, trunk, drawer, or shelf but was filled with flapping leaves. The children kicked and tore them about the premises, for the old man seemed to set no store by them after he had made them his own by way of purchase. All the sentimental maids and youths came to ‘Squire Colbones for mental ailment, and I am not sure that the collection was the choicest in the world. Many of them were never returned; and as Mrs. Colbones said, when the ‘Squire grumbled, she was sure it was a mercy, for they eat, and drank, and slept on books now; and if they were all returned they’d have to build additions every year for the sake of getting a room to themselves.

All the male members of the Colbones family, were, as it is generally expressed, ‘lacking somewhere.’ The women were generally good, harmless creatures, with few idiosyncrasies, and feeble mental constitutions, willing to put up with the queer freaks of the masculines, and always ready with a defence or an excuse when they were particularly disagreeable. They did hop, however, the four maiden aunts belonging to the last generation but one, Japhet, the most promising scion of the family and the only son of his father, (seven daughters preceding him,) would be free from all singularities, queerities, quips, quirks, and oddities; and while they watched him with fearful misgivings, they yet said to themselves and to each other: ‘He looks so different from the Colbones, and so much like the Rashers, (his mother’s side,) that I guess there won’t be any streaks in him.’ Japhet was rather a fine-looking boy. The only drawback to his good appearance was a head of somewhat unwieldy size, and whitish blue eyes, exactly like his father’s. With books, of course, he was on intimate terms, they having been his playthings from his earliest years – indeed, he was seldom seen without them. Manfully he mastered his ‘abs’ and ‘ebs,’ and hurried forward to the first class in the primary school. So rapid was his progress, that every body marveled, and an itinerant phrenologist examined his cranium for nothing, because, he said: ‘One did not often meet with such splendid development of brain.’ Forthwith he declared that Japhet must go to college; that he shouldn’t wonder if the boy was a marvel; yes, indeed, he fully expected to ask him for an office when he should advance to the dignity of being President of the United States. The elder Colbones was in raptures, and almost went to the city heels over head in his anxiety to buy more books, that the sciences and ologies might be crammed into that capacious brain. Only one person professed to have no faith in the predictions of the man with the skulls, old goody Granger – the matron of the poor-house.

‘La!’ she would say, putting her thumbs on her hips, ‘do you s’pose a Colbones’ll ever come to any thing? Talk about his brain; any body might see it was rickety. Take my word for’t, he’ll be as much of a fool as the rest on ‘em.’

Suddenly, when he was fourteen, Master Japhet refused to go to school any longer. His mother coaxed him, his father beat him, but all to no purpose. He had learning enough, he said; he meant to go to farming, or any thing else he liked. He had his way; left the red school-house; made up faces at the teacher when he asked him; bought himself yarn and knitting-needles, and pestered his mother till she taught him how to knit. From knitting he went to embroidery, and during the long winter evenings made fancy seats for chairs, tablecovers, and everything else he could think of, saying that he was preparing himself for future housekeeping. His family grew accustomed to his odd ways, and his sisters happy that instead of teasing them as other brothers did their sisters, he sat down with them like a real good boy, and when they were in quandary, helped them out. Japhet was something of a genius, in his way, in devising patterns and drawing them; and he often made a sixpence in this manner. As he grew older he became more and more fond of his needle and of in-door employment. The moment his labor was over in the field, he would hie to his own little room, and there, cutting out articles to please his fancy, stitch away at them with all the ardor of a young mother shaping a dress for her first-born. Singular as it may seem, he was not ashamed to have his handiwork shown at the county fair, with his name attached, and contemplated a handsome quilt, which he had contributed, with as much satisfaction as a first-rate machinist gazes at his complicated cogs and wheels, shafts and pulleys.
Everybody laughed at Japhet, though they said it was to be expected, coming from so odd a family. The girls made all manner of sport of him, especially Nanny Halliday and Nelly Gray, two young ladies who were quite near neighbors of the odd family, and to whom Japhet distributed his smiles and nodded his capacious head.

‘Don’t you say another word to me about Japhet Colbones,’ cried Nanny, in great wrath, to some one who quizzed her. ‘Good laws! ketch me to have a woman for a husband where there are plenty of men about.’

‘But jest see what a grand farm you’d get, Nanny,’ pursued her tormentor; ‘and if ever you got tired cutting out, makin’ and mendin’, why, you could jest hand the needlebook over to your husband, and he’d do it tiday as a mitten.’

‘Oh! do hush,’ cried Nanny with spirit, her red cheeks growing redder; ‘I wouldn’t have Japhet Colbones if there wasn’t another fellow in the world.’

Just then Tiddy Grant came into the little cottage. Tiddy was twenty-four, lean, poor, and worked very hard. Her face had a sort of sharp prettiness that sometimes falls to the lot of thin people. She had been washing, and came to rest herself in talking with her neighbors.

‘Poh!’ she exclaimed, overhearing the last remark, ‘you’re a great fool then, if he’s asked you, I’m sure. Catch me to refuse a young man that’s got nothing suspicious about him but a few oddities. I’m sure Japhet’s a very good farmer, and a very good-looking man too; and as for his sewing propensities, I know some men that had better be using needle and thread than be lounging in bar-rooms and making their wives miserable.’

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