The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1889-03-02
LAST WEDDING FEE.

Pennsylvania. OF course they gave
something to the preacher for his
trouble. The conquence was that
all the preachers on the Maryland
side of the line became as lean as
geese and the preachers across the
line in Pennsylvania grew as fat as
turkey gobblers. But there was one
preacher near Waynesboro who did
not grow fat. Garrick Howton, who
did the largest business, became
leaner and leaner the faster he mar
ried people. He was too mean. the
peopled said, to enjoy life like good
Methodist initerant or a rubicuEd
priest. No chicken coops were agi-
tated at his approach. No little
pigs squealed and got under their
anxious mammas when Garrick
leaned over the sty and surveyed
them.
Nobody knew what sect or church
Garrick belonged to there, where
everybody was his own theologian.
He called his church the Zionskites
and was the only one of 1.-THE Bis
hop indecd-except his son. Weasley
Howton, whom he called "the dea-
con-"
The church building did not exist,
though branches OF the Zionskite
body were said to be "furder vest
by both the bishop and the deacon.
Inquisitive people limited that there
never would have been as 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 reluctantly that he might
occl sionally take some recreation
himself and not miss any runaway
couples which should arrive between
midnight and morning.
All the people far or near under
stood that the Howtons would marry
anybody, the delivery of the certifi-
cate being conditional on the pay
ment of the fee; and pains were taken
to impress strangers that the Zion
sixties discipline the certificate was a
| part of the ceremony 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 Vir-
ginia and from the rich manors and
hamlets of Frederick 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 peo-
pie of every other State just what
they pleased, and the boundary line
made outrage justice or simplicity
criminal.
AS time advanced Bishop Howton
became widower, and his mind was
set on marrying again.
1t may have been the example of
marrying children under age, torn
from their parents by their own dis
obedient 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 she should be old
enough to receive his orders and not
bring the laws of Pennsylvania down
upon bis head. The Bishop bided
his time.
Eunice was hardly fifteen, slender,
gray eyed blonde, whose feet, touch
the ground as they would, turned in
to lines of grace and music seemed to
be playing as she walked or moved,
to such harmonies did she bend;
while in the action of Ler.head upon
her delicate neck and even in the
motion of her lips there appeared to
be violin music whistled by her spirit
as the upland zephyrs played upon
it and her heart desired to dance.
The country people said that this
was because her mother had been an
actress and a dancer.
Somewhere back in the undiscerned
pastvagueness ola large world it was
said that Bishop Howton had been a
show manager and that his orphan
cousin had married a French dancer
who was in his strolling company.
This cousin hal been left to Garrick,
who had kept him down and nearly
starved him, depressing his spirit by
ON avarice and superstition which lay
across each other, and finally retired
Garrick from the show business a
complete failure, while his ward, set
free by matrimony, made nice
little fortune keeping q dancing
academy with his wife.
When the parents died something
of the husbands inherited tenets
caused him to repent, though he had
never done anything bad, and in the
weakness of dying he gave his child
to his relative to be her trustee and
the trustee of a respectable little for
tune.
The poor dancing teacher thought
the word Bishop" covered regen-
crate heart.
The bishop was merely capitalist
in marriage fees.
This is considered reasonable hu-
mility.
Some of the schoolboys called him
Old Yoke-fnoki, because he yoked so
many couples.
What education he had picked up
avarice 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 freedman on his horse
when he meant breeding.
As time advanced Garrick grew
deeply in love with Eunice, and for
got to give spiritual restraint to his
son.
"At seventeen sharp" old Garrick
Hovton often repeated to himself,