Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1891-11-12
Relations by Marriage.
BY AMY RANDOLPH.

Everybody went to Pamela Peppers
wedding. 1t was quite natural that they
should. Miss Pepper was as well known
in Cornstalk Corners as the old town
clock itself on the steeple of the Metho-
dist meeting house. She had made
dresses and trimmed bonnets there for
more years than she cared to remember.
She was gossip-in-general, prime mover
in oil the tea-parties, quilting bees and
apple-butter frolics, head of the charit-
able and religious societies and chief
chronicler of all the dates in regard to
births, deaths and marriages. She knew
what every body said to everybody else,
what Mrs. Mcluth gave for her new seal
skin cloak and in how many weeks Mr..
Lucklesss farm would be foreclosed on.
She was quite az fdit as to every house
hold quarrel all the family skeletons and
score of motives for each action which
no one else would have dreamed of. No
story was quite complete unless Miss
Pamela Peppers version of it had been
heard. And if people didn't know their
own speeches after they had been
through the mediumship of Miss Pamela's
Interpretation, surely that was no fault
of hers.
But the blossoming- time comes, we are
told, even to aloes hundred years old
and Miss Pamela Pepper was married just
before she fioated into the forties. How
it had come to pass, nobody knew eX-
actly. There were some who had the
hardhood to assert that Mr.. Josiah Black
had come to the dressmaking establish
ment to see Mary More, the blue-eyed
little apprentice who made the buttonholes
and sewed the straight seams, but that
being skillfully intercepted by Miss
Pamela, she had taken his oyertures as
intended for herself and accepted him
etfusiyely, before he had proposed; and
that Josiah, being meek young man
with white eyelashes and fiat, freckled
face, had not the requisite courage to
escape from the meshes wherewth she
had so artfully trapped him.
BE that as it might, it was certain that
Mary More had been discharged and that
Miss Pepper was now Mrs. Josiah Black.
There had been an outfit ordered, eco
nomically, from New York, a wedding
cake nearly as big as n cart-wheel, and a
deal of ostentation. The bride declared
that it was case of love at first sight
"ltain't month, she remarked ,gush-
ingly, "since me and Josiah first set ewes
on each other, when he came into the
store to ask the way to Squire Robinson s..
He looked at me-oh, how he looked at
me! And felt sort of all overshness
that | couldn't describe noway in the
world! He didn't think of money nor yet
of lineage, nor none o them things; he
only felt as we was made for each other
by Providence"
In which case, Squire Robinson re-
marked, Su6 rosa, Providence had made
a bad mistake of it for once. For Mrs.
Josiah Black was tall and shallow, with
the frame of Prussian grenadier, while
Mr.. Josiah Black was slight and round
shouldered, with faxcn locks and watery,
blue eyes. Mrs. Squire Robinson said
there was fifteen years difference in
their ago. But the bride said it was
only FIVE. And who should know if the
bride didn't?
But when the couple were seated in
the train, speeding toward Blue Point
where the ancestral halls of the Black
family were situated, Pamela grew con
fdental.
"We're agoin' right to your house
Josiah, suppose?" said she.
"Yes," said Josiah, with deep sigh
"Where else should we go:"
"Some folks board, suggested thu
bride "Just at first, at least"
81 hain't no money for that sort O
fancv-work," dolefully remarked thu
gro m.
lis it pleasant there, dear?" asked thu
bride.
"Well, it amt bad, responded Josiah
in a nom -committal way.
"You never told me about your family
Josiah" went on Mrs, Black, soothingly
Family" repeated Josiah, with =