The weekly Thibodaux sentinel and journal of the 8th Senatorial District. [volume] (Thibodaux, Lna. [i.e. La.]) 1875-1898, 1897-08-14
HE MARRIED MARY.

Although he had, in addition to a 10
cal habitation, a name of his own-Pe-
ter Dunn to wit-he was always known
as 'the man that married Mary" By
profession he was a plumber of some re-
pute-that is to say, he knew by heart
the meanderings and idiosyncrasies of
every drain in the village, and he add
cd to this experience knowledge, for he
had the sense to carry about with him
such white lead as was necessary to the
fulfllment of his calling, instead of ex-
pecting the same to grow wild in every
we'll ordered houschold-a false expec-
tation which obtains among plumbers.
For six days of the week he plumbed,
but on the seventh Cor rather the first)
he dressed himself in a little brief au
thority and a sort of black nightgown,
and stood revealed to the eyes of an adj
miring village as the verger of the par
ish church. 1t was impressive to see
him conduct to such seats as he deemed
meet for them the strangers within his
gates, and the way wherein-during
the anthem-he distributed the aims
bags among the recipients for whom
they were reserved was a function in
itself. On n memorable occasion,
when performing this last mentioned
rite, he stumbled over a top hat, placed
in the aisle by some unwary stranger,
sent it spinning up the church, and
staggered after it in hot pursuit. For
Nyrn oyyful 0,o,,,0nt - o1x,al AL-A A..
pillars of church and state were alike
trembling, then the worthy verger right
ed himself, restored the stumbling block
to its owner, and concluded the func-
ton, to the unfeigned delight of the
o of the rector, who longed aver
afterward to present a testimonial to
the unknown author of the catastrophe.
The inhabitants of Cheriton did not
wear top hats, and if they had they
would have known better than to place
such obstacles in the path of the just,
so the rector's boys concluded that some
alien brow had been. so to speak, the
head and front CT the offending, and
they blessed that brow accordingly, and
never forgot the great "kick off at I
O'Clock" as they called it.
But all these paltry honors and dig
mites paled beside the fact that Peter
Dunn ("plumbing verger'' or "verg-
ing plumber" whichever one was
pleased to dub him) was above all
things "the man that married Mary"
Beside this browning distinction all
meaner honors sank into insignifeance.
Mary had been the ~reigning beauty of
Cheriton for more years than she would
have cared to confess to when she ar
rived at the conclusion that "Ieading
apes" was not SO satisfactory an occu-
patton as marrying plumbers and 50 de-
cided to espouse her devoted adorer,
Peter Dunn, who had regularly proposed
to her every Saturday afternoon for
we'll, at least $50 Saturdays, at the
lowest computation. With her office as
reigning beauty Of Cheriton Mary Mills
had combined the duties of village
schoolmistress. She was a good girl,
and did her work well, but she had no
natural love of teaching, and she was
very thankful at last to lay her occupa-
ton aside and become Mrs. Peter Dunn
instead. Mary felt Gas indeed did all the
village, Peter included) that she had
conferred a u~nspeakable favor upon
her husband in marrying him, and to
the day of her death she treated him
o as a king consort than as a verger
and plumber in his own right, which
he undoubtedly was, for Mary was
what the villagers call 'genteel' and
founded her ideas of men and women
lopon the heroes and heroines of such
SILLY and sensational novels as came in
her way, and. judged according to that
standard, Peter certainly fell short of
ideal manhood. AS long as she lived
Mary measured Peter by these stupid
measurements and found him short and
plain n commonplace and rough mall
'oered. Afterward she probably learned
&c measure him according to the meas
ure OF a man-that is, of the angel
n discovered hat her plain little
plumber was more Of q hero thar all
sne men OF straw she had delighted to
read about in the foolish DAYS Of her
oesh, but of this we have, of course. no
record. Poor Mary, however, will not
be the only n who will find the stand.
Ards OF this world all wrong in the