Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1867-05-21
BILL AND MOLL; OR PURE AND RO.
MANTIC LOVE.
A STORY FROM REAL LIFE.

called her Mol for short. She wasn't tall,
dark eyed maiden, with clear, transparent skin,
and lips like cherries, and cheeks suffused
with bushes. She didn't have glossy black
hair, sweeping back in wavy tresses from her
queeny brow and her form wasn't a bit like
Hebe's. No, there were none of these things
on the contrary, she was short and thin, and
had red hair and freckles, and she also sported
snaggle teeth, and wore pads; but still she was
a right nice girl, and there was young man
who fell in love with her, and his name was
Bill, although his friends called him William
when they wanted to hurt his feelings; for he
didn't like it much He wasn't fine looking,
and had neither curly brown hair nor mus
tache. Not much Bill had laid himself out
on soap-locks, and wore goatee that he had
| dyed twice week.
Now, this Bill was in love with Mary, but
did he go and make deliberate ass of himself?
Did he, say, go into grove with her, and in
the soft moonlight by the streamlet that MUIR
INJURED sweetly by, and with the tender zephyrs
signing through the foliage, fall down on his
knees seize her jewelled hand, breathe his deep
affection in the tender accents of fond attach
ment, and swear by yon bright orb above us
always to be thine p Did he, I say? You
can just bet he didn't You can lay out your
whole revenue safely on that. William knew
too much about the price of pants to 90 flop
ping around on the wet grass with his good
clothes on besides, he never cared anything
about streamlets or any kind of cold water ex-
cept to mix with his gin. No sir; it was ex-
ceedingly strange, but this infatuated William
met at the alley gate, and he stood right up on
his old legs, and says:
Say, Mol, old gal, s'pose an We git
| hitched p
dropping asleep over on the hot bricks in dead
faint, or did she hide her gentle head on his
shirt bosom to conceal her bushes? No, she
didn't say, y am ever thine, my own love,
dear William! y Oh, my, mol She looked
right into his yellow eye, and says:
Billy, [ am the gal for these sort of things :"
And instead Of referring him to her father,
she only said:
Won't the old man bust right out when you
tell him? Ha ha!'' and she laughed
But she didn't ask William to try to mollify
vised him to poke the old man in the nose if
he gave him any of his lip She was funny
girl, this Mary.
Now, the old man wasn't wealthy, for he
sold soap-fat for living, and so be didn't think
Bill was noseing around for his stamps; so
when Bill asked him he neither ordered him
fiercely away nor did the dewy moisture gather
in his eagle eye as he passed the hemstitched
up there, and said, ''Bless you, my children,
bless you'll Oh, no, nothing of the sort. He
just blew his old red nose on his bandana, and
told Bill to take her along, for he was glad to
get rid of her, be was, and William would be
the same way mighty soon, for she was awful
rough on victuas, and always broke plates when
she got mad
So, you see, there really was no necessity for
| William to come at midnights solemn hour in
a cab, and throw rope ladder up to her win
dow and whistle three times on his fingers, and
then go up, hand over hand, and bring her
down in one hand and her trunk in the other,
and bandbox and an umbrella under each arm,
and whole lot of bundles and then get in the
cab and fly to some distant shore.
That's the way it would have been in a novel !;
but Bill said he WASH t on that lay, so he just
went out into the yard, and out of pure Joy be
sung the cat three or four times on the grape
vine arber, and then went out and got his
butcher cart, and drove Mary right down to
the magistrate to get the job done for quarter.
But the very queerest thing of all was that
Bill had no tall, dark ruffanly rival, with a
scowling visage and black whiskers, who flew
at him with drawn dagger and horse pistol
in each hand, and cried wildly for
Revenge. Ha hal and said ''Sdeath -
and William, thou diest -
Not any. There was another fellow in love
with Mollie, to be sure, but he was weak
eyed young man, who had sandy hair and wore
spectaces and choker-collar and always looked
scared when you hollered at him. So, when
he saw that Bill had the best of the girl affec-
ton, be looked serene and said nothing.
So William, you see, had no trouble at all
and you couldn't get up an agonlzlng novel
about him if you tried. He didn't have any
urgent business that called him to foreign
land, and so had to bid her fond good by, and
swear always to be true, and then go away and
forget her, and fall in love with dark eyed
Italian girl, picking grapes in a vineyard, with
a square towel folded on her head, while his
forgotten and forsaken Mary gradually faded
and pined away and bafied the physician S
skill, and grew paler. and at last, when the
June roses were in bloom, lying gently down to
die, while through the open window foated in
the balmy odor Of jessamine and honeysuckle.
And William didn' come home at last, and,
filed with deathiess remorse, go daily to the
sweet cemetery and strew flowers on her grave,
and teach his children to lisp her name. Not
at ALL
This is the way blood and thunder novelist
would tell the story, but none happened to be
around to pick up the items.
Billy was butcher who wore white shirt
and shiny hat, and he stayed at home, and
killed beef. and sold it at big price, and she
kept healthy, and wasn't much on the pine or
fade.
ana IQeIl. at ldSl, WHeU ill WAS over. MARY
didn sit in the room while they dressed her in
white and mixed orange blossoms in her water
fall and then 90 gently down stairs with six
bridesmaids at her heels, and stand up with her
own William, and weep gently while she was
being married by the minister and then get
lots of presents, and go to her new home, and
live through all the happy years with Bill, and
never know sorrow or trouble any more. Why.
of course she didn't, for it wasn't her style, you
see
She just rushed up stairs, and put on her
pink muslin and her sun bonnet, and had nary
bridesmaid, and went to the magistrate's and
never wept PARTICLE and got no presents but
fifteen cents from the old man to pay her car
fare home, and when at the magistrates she
j,,c+ mp az .ln Lrel e,,1 eold Bill That she
didn't see much use in splicing, and she didn't
like him anyhow; SO she went home, and Bill
he went with her, and told her he WASH sorry,
as he didn't want her, and he guessed she was
hard on her clothes anyhow; and so they never
got married, and the whole thing turned out
wrong but [ couldn't help it, for ain going
to put facts on record that amt so.
But it amt bit like any novel [ ever read,
so there must have been something strange
about this fellow and Mollie that | never could
find out; so I'll have to let it slide as it is
A Friendly Horse
A few days since, as we were leaving our res
idence on our usual morning visit to the Office,
sorrel horse belonging to us galloped up and