The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1894-10-09

can die more happily IL the girls are
happily married before we go.
But u time will come yet IL we
live four years longer. We will have
a golden wedding-no silver in ours.
We are for the gold standard right
now in advance. Just a gold dollar
from each of friends will do, for
we are goldolaters now in anticipation.
We don't want to break nobody. These
silver wedding presents from the gem
erous donors are mighty nice and thigh
ly apr eciated by the happy danees,
but they give the old folks fts-I mean
the paternal ancestors who has to foot
the bills. II an old man has @ popular
son or daughter who has to play brides
maid or groOmsman to somebody three
or four times a year its as aggravating
as town taxes. [ knew q handsome
bachelor I'VE in Rome who died insol-
vent, and it was making wedding pres
ents that broke him. He wanted to
marry to get out of tho business,
but couldent make up his mind,
he was making up his mind and he
had to give every n a beautiful pres
emit. At last he died and not one of
those girls went to his funeral.
But it is the fashion nowadays to
make wedding presents, and it is all
right If they come willingly and don't
strain the old mans pocket. 1t is u
sort of tax on income that has to bo
endured. In our young days we dident
get presents, but we had as fine q we'd
ding supper as q be had now, and
next day we had an Unfair, hat was us
fine as the supper. The Unfair was q
swell dinner at the house of the groom's
father, and both families and all their
| tn1rnl yunrn fhnpn That nnlnl fho
show. There was no London or Paris
or Now York or Saratoga in it, but the
young couple won't to work. Me and
my wife-that is to say my wife and |
did go to Tallulah falls about the
close Of the honeymoon. The honey
moon is the first month after marriage,
and it closes about the time the young
man quits calling his wife honey. We
went in IN old-fashioned carriage that
swung high and had folding steps in
the casing of each door and had a high
dickey seat for the driver and a place
behind for q little mig to stand on.
Old Virgil was che carriage driver,
and was proud of his vocation. He was
then over fifty, and is living yet, as
gray as q rat and blind as a bat.
Yes, we went to Tallulah when it
was a bowling wilderness. Nobody
lived there but a man by the name OF
Beall, who was in the war with Next
co and had named his two boys Churu-
buscO and Monterey and his little girl
Buena Vista. Tallulah was then aw-
fully magnetic. I reckon it is yet. /
held on to my pretty young wife des-
perately when she ventured q look
over the awful precipice. 1 read a fow
years ago about q beautiful bride los
ing Q consciousness right there and
in a swoon she fell over the brink and
down, down, down until she Was gone
from sight and her husband became
almost insane, and the people ran
down there in horror and despair-and
as they descended by the winding and
dangerous way to find her mangled re-
mains, they saw her hanging in q
thornbush that grew from out the
rocks, a hundred feet down. She was
alive, and thoy got ropes and rescued
her n found that she was saved by
the strength of a hoopskirt that she
bought at Dougherty's store, On Peach
tree street in Atlanta, and it cost only
$l.75, and he had plenty more of the
same sort left. That carriage ride to
the falls and from therb to Toccoa and
back homo was Il delightful episode,
and sugar and darling. 1t beat u rail
road car where every envious fool is
looking ut you and pointing you cut,
and these newspaper gimlets fire their
little squibs at you and think it smart.
The wedding, the marriage the nup-
tia's is the biggest thing in a mans life,
especially IL woman's. 1t is bigger
than being born or dying. We look
back n wonder at the eagerness with
which we took the risk, the peril Of
happiness or misery. The very word
wedding means a bet, u wager, o
chance. Nuptials means a veil, a COW
cring, as though u nan couldent see
what kind of n wife he was getting,
and conjugal a q yoke, and the
law tells OF the chains of matrimony.
Nevertheless, the young folks make
tho leap rs though they would fall on
u bed OF roses and all their friends, old
and young, look on with smiles and
congratulations. There is no weeping
or wailing. That comes later, If It
comes AT all. But marriage Is nature,
and nature is the safest guide of all
| would marry every time. / would
rather have an uncongenial wife whose
children loved me than no wife ut all.
1t is tho who takes the
greatest risk and she had better re-
main single than be bound to q bad man
who will entail misery upon herself,
and her children, too.
BILL ARP.