The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1888-10-13
HIS LAST WEDDING FEE.

III IcnDSDlNdHlu. vi CouiS ~ thcy buNo ooipc
thing to the preacher for his trouble The
consequence was that all the preachers OF
the Maryland side OF the line became as lear
as geese, and the preachers across the line IL
Pennsylvania grew rs fat as turkey gobblers
But there was one preacher near Waynes
boro who did not grow fat. Garrick Howton
who did the largest business became leanel
and leanar the faster he married people. liz
was too mean, the people said, TO enjoy lif,
like good Methodist itnerant or q rubicund
nriest No chicken coops wer, led al
his approach. No little pigs and
got under their anxious NAM far
rick leaned over the sky and EN-
Nobody knew just what lrci
Garrick belonged to therew ,ody
was his own theologian
He called his church The and
was the only one of 1.-THE /. ,eed--
except his son, Wesley Howtcn, "nom he
called "the deacon"
branches Of The Zionskte body were said to
be "furder west" by both the bishop and the
deacon.
Inquisitivc people limited that there never
would have been Us many as two Zionskites
except for the fat marriage fees which were
TO be had along Mason and Dixon's line; and
that Bishop Garrick Howton only ordained
his son Weasley into the priesthood reluct-
antly that he might occasionally takes some
recreation himself and not miss any runaway
couples which should arrive between mid
night and morning.
All people far or near understood that the
Howtons would marry anybody, the delivery
OF the certificate being conditional on tho
payment Of the fee; and pains were taken to
impress strangers that in the Zionskites dis
ciplne the certificate was part Of the cere-
mony itself.
A story was started and grew that old
Howton married children for the sake Of his
fees
This story came up from Borrowing and
broken hearted parents in Virginia and
from the rich manors and hamlets Of Fredcr-
ick in Maryland. The Pennsylvanians never
verified these reports because it was none Of
their business.
That was the golden age, when the people
of every state did to the people of every
other state just what they pleased, and the
boundary line made outrage justice or sim
plicity criminal.
As time advanced Bishop IIowton became
q widower, and his mind was SGT on marry
ing again
IL may have been the example Of marrying
children under age, torn from their parents
10y their own diSobedient impulses or the
powerful sinister influence of man, or it may
have been the childish beauty Of Eunice
Howton, his distant relative, which doomed
her to become the bishops wife when shc
should DO old enough to receive his orders
and not bring tho laws of Pennsylvania down
upon his head The bishop bidcd his time
Eunice was hardly II, u slender, gray eyed
blonde, whose feet, touch the ground rs they
would, turned into lines Of grace and music
seemed to be playing as she walked or moved
to such harnones did she bend; while In the
action of her head upon her delicate neck
and even In tho motion Of her lips there ap-
peared 10 he violin music whisted by her
spirit as the upland zephys played upon it
and her heard desired to dance.
The country people said that this was be-
cause her mother had been an actress and a
dancer.
Somewhere back in the undiscerned past
and vagueness of u large world it was said
that Bishop Ilowton had been show man
ager and that his orphan cousin had married
a French dancer who Was in his strolling
company.
This cousin had been left to Garrck, who
had kept him down and nearly starved him,
depressing his spirits by an avarice and su-
perstitlon which lay across each other, and
finally retired Garrick from the show bust
ness complete failure, while his ward set
free by matrimony, made nice littlo for
tune keeping dancing academy with his
wife.
When tho parents died something OF the
husbands inherited tenets caused him to re-
pent, though he had never done anything
bad, and in the weakness Of dying he gave his
child to his relative to DO her trustee and the
trustee Of respectable little fortune.
The poor dancing teacher thought the word
'bishop' covered regenerate heart.
The bishop was merely capitalist in mar
rage fees,
This Is considered reasonable humility.
Some OF the schoolboys called him Old
Yoke-fnoki, because he yoked SO many
couples.
What education he had picked up avarce
and illiterate associations had chased out of
his head; like an old country Dutchman he
could spell joists for his barn joyce and talk
about the breechman on his horse when he
meant breeching
As time advanced Garrick grew deeply In
love with Eunice, and forgot TO give spiritual
restraint 10 his son.
"At seventeen sharp" old Garrick Howton
often repeated to himself, looking at Eunice
with the threefold passions OF love, avarice
and superstition,
Often when an old man falls in love IL
seems to him like holiness, when it is only
foolishness
In that way Garrick threw himself back
into his natural state before he became an
avaricious scoundrel, or self frightened
hypocrite. He got to believing in the reli.
gion he practiced upon He feared night
solitude and ghosts. He believed that bis
monstrous passion was a sacrifice on his part
for the sake Of securing Eunice's soul.
~ should be the DEVILS prize without her, ,
unused Garrick Howton. 1.-THE children
have tied in wedlocks of despair, tho un
formed souls l have manacled TO selfish
fiends, the headstrong schoolgirls ! have
made the legal slaves Of hideous skinfints
and who have in few months awaked Il
everlasting repentance and horror, would
troop into my lonely home among thes.
mountains and drive me crazy with then
curses. 1 should go madi But Eunice, Eu