Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1885-10-23
4 TRULY HAPPY BACHELOR.

I : - ANNA 49, "a nv ApNo liOO llOhs
4 TRULY HAPPY BACHELOR.
Col. Pat Donan Denies a Report Of His
Betrothal.
/ From Letter TO the Minneapolis Tribune I
on are going to marry me off, are
you? How kind of you to do for me
what never could do for myself. Ihad
begun to think perhaps it was time.
From my reserved seat on top of a
barbed wire fence l have been watch
ing the procession a good while. Day
after day and week after week, until
the weeks have heightened into months.
and the months into years. | have
looked on at humanity's strange we'd
ding march. 1t is the old, old story.
Leaf by leaf the roses fall,
Nclp 10y ycip the cherubs bawl
The trap springs and another victim
is caught. The ministerial lariat is
thrown. and another hapless pumpkin
is writhing and dancing on the airy
nothingneSs of honeymoonatic delights
and the honeymoon is made of green
est green cheese. One by one | have
seen my boonest companions pass. ever
passing, away TO that dread bourne
whence no voyager returns. save
through Chicago divorce suit or the
expense of lirst-cass funeral.
y few years since, a noble band of
handsome and high-aspiring friends
stood round me-fresh, bright, verdant
young plants. The matrimonial simoom
has swept over the plain, and where are
they now Smitten, blasted. cut
down like the grass of the field, which
to-day is and tomorrow is made into
hay to feed donkey or line goose nests.
Faded, withered, dry enough for pea
sticks. Alas! alas! what has got into
the youth of the land?
Caught by giggle,
See how they wigglc.
In vain DO l stand like n he Niobe.
and, with outstretcled arms, implore
them to halt and consider their latter
end. The tlnkle of piano or guitar, or
the ripping tee-hee of maidenly merri-
ment, comes floating on the perfumed
air, and the admonitory roar of a
friendly Niagara would be unheard.
Heedlessly, needlessly scorning in
struction, onward they are rushing,
surging. and pushing down to destruct-
ion, or to matrimony, which too often
amounts to the same. The young, the
brave, the ugly, the pretty, the silly,
the witty, the brilliant, the stupid, all
yield TO Cupid, all seem resistlessly
bound to travel the broad, gudgeon-
beaten path that leads to beatifie noon
shine, white kids and neckties, orange
blossoms. altars and mumbling parsons,
to vine-clad cottages up four pairs of
stairs, grOcer's bills, wash days, sad
buiscuits, slOp coffee, seedy hats,
patched elbows. faded calicoes, drudg-
cry, squalls and variegated unpleasant
nesses.
Adams woOing cost him Eden, and
got him kicked over his own garden
fence in bare-skin trousers and lig-leaf
roundabout, plump into the brier
patches of an unknown world of sin,
tDlStleS, and cradles.
Lots Dulcinea came within graZer
of getting him turned into a Cardiff
giant of sacked Turks Island salt.
Jacobs courtship of Miss Rachel
Laban, who bosses the lemonade well at
every church festival, subjected him to
fourteen years of bitter slavery as wet
nurse to herd of goats, while all the
other girls in the neighbOrhood giggled
at him daily from the windows.
For the bliss of restinghis infatuated
pate in the blue-cheek apron CT dusky
Delilah's lap, Col. Sampson, the great
original lion splitter and jawbone
swinger, allowed himself to be shorn of
his wool, his strength, and his glory,
and played blind horse for years in a
Philistine treadmill.
David had to steal his sweetheart,
and bushwhack her distempered old
father the rest of his life.
SOlomon's jularky made him a rene
gade, Mormon, and idolater; for a she
darky's sake the wise man-the builder
of fthat magnificent temple whose golden
spires, glittering in Judea's evening
sunlight, for nearly 500 years, pro-
claimed the glory of Irael's God to all
the world-sovereign, songster, and
sage inspIred-forsook his religion and
became fool, and burnt incense in
jewelled censOrs 10 stuffed crocodiles
and picked toads.
In pressing his suit with the "star-
eyed Egyptian, sweet sorceress of the
Nile" who was a mulatto, the father of
our distinguished fellow-citizen, Col.
Susan b. Anthony, threw away the
sceptre of the world. The grass widower
NapOleon's second courtship was his
first step on the road to Waterloo and
st. Helena.
All such risks and discomb mboberations
you have saved me bv railroading me
through 10 marriage without love and