The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-10-03
EIOpement in Pairs, Pts
tolls, Twin Weddings.
CUPID'S GAY COMEDY
Double First Cousins Love Twin
Brothers. A Race into the Woods.
Pistols and Buggy Whips. Other
Court Matters. City 0rdinan-
ces Under Fire.

In the Superior Court yesterday
what appeared to be a simple indict-
ment against c. l.. Allen and Ennis
Brogden. well-known young men OF
Barton's Creek Township, for assault
with deadly weapon turned out to be
romance of high colors. such as d
writer of love-fiction would have been
ostIdcised for perpetrating.
Yet there is was in all its details
Of two seventeen year old couples,
stern cousins, schoolgirl love letters,
hlght through the woods with Cupid,
capture and the fear of sudden death
and, nnalIy another runaway and
TINS time wedding bells
II was enough to stir the blood;
and the court house shook with sym
pathy and with merriment.
At the end there was a formal con-
Nicton, the practical suspension of
judgment and the brides and grooms
walked from the court house with IN
air.
Above it all. through all the tam
gled skein of testimony, motif of the
whole affair Cupid shook his bow
and laughed at the merry muddle of
happy hearts and otherwise that he
had twisted into lovers knots-laugh-
ed-and the world laughed with him.
Well il might. For the brides We're
both of a Dettiness and the grooms
that sort Of callow fellows Oozing
love at every pore. The lawyers did
not know what TO do with it, and
neither did the Judge. The laws and
the conventions had both been brok
on shameleSSly, but the damage had
been done and there were the brides
blushing inthe bar. After all, and in
spite of all. as the Judge tried to be
severe MS mouth tWitched, and the
attorneys gave ii up and broke down.
1t was quite the most human affair
that had struck the court in a de-
cade and everybody had a good time
even the grooms
The way it all came about was
this:
The grooms were of course at the
bottom of the trouble. They We're
twin groOmS, too, each seventeen
years of age, and one an hour older
than the other. The brides were not
twins; they were merely double first
cousins. And it seems that they had
attended the same school in Barton S
Creek and they were known of the
twin grooms who loved the cOusiEly
brides. The brides could tell them
apart, it seems. and fortunately they
loved each the other groom. But this
was before they were brides and
grooms and the double first cousins,
Misses Ardel Ray and EloiSe Ray and
the twins were Messrs. Zelma and
Zebba Rudd. Miss Ardel loved Eel
ma and she told him SO; and Miss
E,loise loved Zebba and he knew it.
Naturally each of the quartet knew 1t
about the others and they ali swap
ped thrills. 1t was a lovely comedy of
love and proceeding along the old
lines, with a poSt-Office in Il gum tree
and condolences running through the
night into the morning hours and
tw5tterngs and giggles and throwings
out of chests and struttings up and
down. All! il was great and old
fashioned and fine, these young lovers
of seventeen
But suddenly there came a heart
less interruption. SomehOW-hoW,
who shall say?-the teacher discover
ed the post office. Day after day
there was a systematic robbery done.
The lovers discovered the ruse. The
girls wept; the boys said things. Fin
ally the grooms of today got letters
which fired their hearts. They would
drown themselves wrote the first cou-
sins. if the twins did not come forth
with and marry them. What were the
twins to do? They came like the
lovers that they were. They got the
girls and together the four went out
into the night into the woods. That
was i'm the latter days of August. The
relatives of the brides to be tele-
phoned to Rale.l and commanded
that no licenses issue, Z. N. Alien,
cousins of the girls and Ennis Brog-
den. a friend of the family, together
with c. b. Ray, of Raleigh. an uncle.
and a brother of one of the girls start
ed i'm pursuit. They enlisted the ser
vices of policeman Creighton tthough