Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1898-05-16
WOOING AND Welded
BEFOPE AND AFTER MARRIAGE AS
VIEWED BY ONE MAN.

The Young Fellow Who Is Trying to Get
Used to Being a Pa Rises to Explain.
How Supporting Two Persons More
Cheaply Than One Works.
1T is curious what a difference there is
\ between before and after marriage, " said
the young man who is trying to get used
to being a pa. "Before marriage all seems
so halcyon and bright, to speak after the
manner of the golden jubilee. You meet
a girl. Possibly she is a very ordinary
sort of a girl, but you don't think so. To
you it seems that the stars shine in her
eyes and that the sunlight loves to nestle
In her hair. You are more than half in
clined to believe that she is an angel, but
you do not quite admit to yourself that
this Is SO, for you think how an angel
would look trapsing around with you if
you should be fortunate enough to get
her." The young man who is trying to
get used to being a pa paused and sighed.
Then he resumed:
"After "a time there comes an evening
when you summon your courage to the
sticking point and propose. 1t is a hard
job, much the hardest, in fact, that you
ever tackled, and you were brought up on
q farm too. 1t would have been vastly
easier if you could have known that the
dear girl had been waiting, hoping and
praying for this very denouement for some
months then past. But you do not know
1t, for she does not coyly confide the fact
to you until later. So you take your heart
in your throat and propose. Joy, great
joy! She accepts you. The earth is yours,
and you do not care whether it is fenced in
or not"
Again the young man sighed.
"You sit down close, very close, togeth-
or, and after a time-it may be on that or
another e~vening-you fall to talking of
| the future. You will be married soon, of
| course, but the matter of finances must be
considered. You consider it, you and she.
You prove that two persons can be sup
ported cheaper than m and you demon
strate it by several different columns Of
figures. 1t is arranged, on her suggestion,
that you are to go without smoking, which
will save 1855 a year to the firm and that
you never are to get out with tho boys,
which will, she says, save $3.50 more. oh,
it will be easy enough for two who love
each other to live on your income! Curl
GUS, is it not, that she and you never fig
ure or what it will cost to support three
or four or even more-curious in a world
where the three or four or even more fire.
quently report at headquarters and de-
mand board and lodging. 1t also is curl
GUS how different it is after marriage.
"Thcn, by way of diversion, you talk of
your mutual faults. You admit that you
are slightly quick tempered, but never,
never, you VOW, could you be cross with
your own pet. She acknowledges that
she is a trifle selfish, but henceforth, she
shyly says, all her sclflshness will be for
you, her highest and best self, and then
you both assert, emphasizing the assertion
in a pleasant way which you are apt to
adopt at such times, that all human frail.
ties and imperfections must be lost in such
great and unexamplcd love as yours (more
emphasis). You have a slight quarrel, in
deed, over tho question which one of you
will most bury his faults for the sake of
the other.
"After awhile you are married, and
then you begin to notice how different are
the before and after of marriage. 1t is
not alone that the cold, chilly facts demon-
strate that your demonstration that two
(three, four or more) can live cheaper than
one was badly warped, but other things
also happen in ways that arc not accord
ing to the ~antewedding programme. For
instance, hardly a month has passed when
you get up in the night, fall over a chair,
bark your shins and Immediately say,
Great guns, Henrietta, what is your OBJ
ject in piling implements of death and de-
struction in the middle of the floor every
night before you go to bed?' Then your
wife weeps, and you tell her how dread
fully sorry you are that you allowed your
temper to master you, and all is well again.
"But the rift is in the lutte, and only
three mornings after that you and she
have a long argument concerning which
shall get up and build the fire. She has a
headache, she says, and you tell her that
if she wants to discover a desperately sick
man all she need do is to feel of your
pulse. Finally the matter is compromised
by your getting up and building the fire.
But you feel hurt, for you wanted to com
promise in the other way, only she would
| not. And by this time you begin to see
side of the marital line and that both you
and she took a good deal Of common, or
binary clay into the domestic relation.
"Then the baby comes, and-and"-
The young man who is trying to get
used to being a pa gulped three times,
sighed deeply and lapsed into silence.
And no one else spoke, for all in the
room were married. San Francisco Ex-
aminer.