Fifteen years before Jedediah Crane had been Mattie Adams 's beau . Jedediah was romantic even then , but , as he was a slim young fellow at the time , with an abundance of fair , curly hair and innocent blue eyes , his romance was rather an attraction than not . At least the then young and pretty Mattie had found it so . The Adamses looked with no favour on the match . They were a thrifty , well-to-do folk . As for the Cranes -- well , they were lazy and shiftless , for the most part . It would be a mésalliance for an Adams to marry a Crane . Still , it would doubtless have happened -- for Mattie , though a meek-looking damsel , had a mind of her own -- had it not been for Selena Ford , Mattie 's older sister . Selena , people said , had married James Ford for no other reason than that his house commanded a view of nearly every dooryard in Amberley . This may or may not have been sheer malice . Certainly nothing that went on in the Adams yard escaped Selena . She watched Mattie and Jed in the moonlight one night . She saw Jed kiss Mattie . It was the first time he had ever done so -- and the last , poor fellow . For Selena swooped down on her parents the next day . Such a storm did she brew up that Mattie was forbidden to speak to Jed again . Selena herself gave Jed a piece of her mind . Jed usually was not afflicted with undue sensitiveness . But he had some slumbering pride at the basis of his character and it was very stubborn when roused . Selena roused it .
Jed vowed he would never creep and crawl at the feet of the Adamses , and he went west forthwith , determined , as aforesaid , to make his fortune and hurl Selena 's scorn back XXXXX her face .
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