The sea coast echo. [volume] (Bay Saint Louis, Miss.) 1892-current, 1892-04-02
A STORY OF BILL NYE.
A. "Justice of the Peace" He Oficiates ut
& Marriage Ceremony.

A "Justice of the Peace" He OmcIates at
ssS$ Marriage Ceremony.
The Office was not salaried one, but
solely dependent upon fees, the county
furnishing only the copy of the revised
statutes and woolsack, slightly and
prematurely bald. So while 1 was
called Judge Nye, and frequently men
toned in the papers with great con-
sideration, was out of coal about half
the time, and once could not mail my
letters for three weeks because did
not have the necessary postage Friends
in the eastern states may possible re-
call the time when my correspondence,
from some unknown cause, seemed to
flag. That was the time. OF course 1
could have borrowed the money, but l
had, and still have, foolish horror of
borrowing money. did not mind run
ming an account but hated to borrow.
The first business that had was a
marriage ceremony. I met the groom
on the street He asked if l could
marry people. said that could to a
limited extent He said that he wanted
to get married. l asked him to secure
the victim, and would get the other
ingredients. He then wished to know
where my Office was. 1t occurred to
me at that moment that there was no
fire in the stove; also, no coal; also,
that the west half of the stove had
fallen in during the night. So I sill
that would marry them at their home.
He maintained that his home was over
eighty miles away and that it would
consume too much time to go there.
Where are you stopping at?" 1 in
quired-using the Pike county style of
syntax in order to show that l was one
of the people.
well, we meet here, Squire. She
came in on the Last Chance stage, and
I'm camped up in Gov ment canyon not
fur from Soldier creek. We can 60 out
there, l reckon"
| did not mind the ride, so locked
my office, secured book of forms, and
meeting the young people at the livery
stable went out with them and married
them in a rambling, desultory sort of
way. d.
The bride was a peri from Owl
Greek, wearing moccasins of the plio-
Gene age The rich Castilian blood of
the cave-dwellers mantled in her cheek
along with the navy-blue blood of
Connecticut on her fathers side. Her
hair was like the wing of raven, and
she wore tiara of clam-shells about
her beetling brow. Her bracelet was
a costly string of front teeth, selected
from the early settlers at the foot of
Independence mountain. With the
shrewdness of Yankee and the hauteur
OF the savage she com bined the gro
tesque grammar of Pike county and
the charming naivete of the cow-punch.
er. She was called Beautiful Snow.
But think it was mostly in a spirit of
banter. She was also no longer young
I asked her, with an air of badinage, If
she remembered Pizarro, but she re-
piled that she was away from home
when he came through. The cave.
dwellers were serious people. Their
plumbing was very poor indeed; so also
were their jokes Her features were
rather classic, however, and-I was
about to say clean-cut, but on more
mature thought I will not say that.
Her nose was bright and piercing. 1t
resembled the breast-bone of a sand
hill crane.
The groom was man of great cour-
age and held human life at very low
figure. That is why he married Beau
tifuul Snow without any finching; also
why have refrained from mentioning
his name; also why kissed the bride.
did not yearn to kiss her. There were
others who had claims on me, but did
not wish to give needless pain to the
groom. and SO I did it. He had no
money, but said that he had saddle
which if could use was welcome to.
l did not have anything to put the sad
die on at home, but rather than return
empty-handed took it-Bill Nye, in
Century.