Old Stories 255
At length the eldest said, “You know, sisters, there is a little wood back of the house. Let us all walk through it, and each pick a stick as we go along. The one that picks the handsomest stick will get the handsomest husband.”
The others agreed, and off they all three went. They had not gone far when the youngest saw a stick that she thought would do well enough for her, and she forthwith picked it. Her sisters walked on and on until they came out of the wood on the other side, but not a stick did they find that was handsome enough to suit them. Then all three went home.
Not long after the youngest married; but the eldest two remained single all their lives.
The consequence of the general knowledge of this story was, that the old people used sometimes to say to a girl whom they thought over particular in her criticism of the marriageable young men, “You better look out, and not have to go through the woods to pick a stick.”
If a woman married a man who was held in low esteem by the community, it was said, “Well, she went through the
