Los Angeles herald., 1906-01-07

1--WE notion to try IT," said Dam
We dropped the subject then. but when Dan
and | were together later he broke out with it.
II think it is a bully idea" he said. at viii
solve the whole difficulty. Then when | get it
settled the woman won't have any reason for
bothcring me- She will have paid her money
and got name and husband-and mighty
good one, too She will understand that there
isn't any love nonsense about it, and will
run our house on a perfect business basis !
don't suppose / shall even need to see her except
at breakfast"
| didn't see the fun in that, for if | were 60
ing TO get married | would want somebody to be
in the sitting-room with me in the evening. And
think it must be pretty nice, If wives are any
thing like Kitty Gray, to kiss one once III
while. But Dan and / never did agree about
such things.
You can see now that il was very easy for 1t
to come about that when Dan found that he
needed some money to carry out his plans Tor
the summer work on our island l should think
right off about the lottery idea Marriage Is u
lottery" Aunt Laura had said, and So OF course,
anyone could figure out that as Dan had to get
married pretty soon he might as well profit by
the lottery business and rattle himself of. Dan
says it was all my work. but it wasn't anything
of the sort. asked him first If he intended real
~ to do it, and he said he did. So | got my
printing outfit and made up some elegant cards
which read like this:
DANIEL j. MACOMBER'S
"GRAND MATRIMONIAL RATTLE
Marriage Is Lottery.
80 is THIS.
Tickets, % cents.
''The winning ticket will ontitle the owner
to marry Mr. Daniel j. Macomber, who
agrees to be bound by the result of this lot
terry
! printed three or four hundred cards, and
then | went out and sold them. All this was
down near Southport, where, of course you al
ways go to the summer people with anything
like that. I went to Squirrel with them
and had some funny experiences. Several times
got driven away from houses, but it was a sci
entiic object we working for so. of course
wouldn't mind rebutfs like that. The people
at the summer hotel all thought it great
Joke, and they bought lots of tickets. One man
bought fifteen and gave them to all the girls he
knew, and a married lady bought four, and when
someone suggested that she might get the lucky
number | saw that ! had been putting several
women into peculiar positions, for, of course, II
the winner We're already married she wouldn't
have any option about it. having won Dan in the
rattle, and there she would be with two husbands
on her hands But the lady at the hotel took
a load oft my mind by the way she answered.
''I shall give mine to Aline if I win," she said |
and then they all laughed but, OF course. any
body knows that summer people laugh at any |
thing they say. We do it ourselves when We
are at our island.
It was while ! was selling tickets to some Of
the summer people over on Squirrel Island that
I first met the girl who | say Is the that .
mixed lis up, for if it hadn't been for her Dan .
would never have acted the way he did. She
was an awfully pretty girl then, though didn't
think so later, and wanted to sell her ticket |
She was very ofish at first, but when had told
her all about it she laughed awfuly hard and
said she would like to take several tickets, but 7
she didn't think she ought to for herself, be-
cause she had never seen Dan and she might not
want him after she got him. A little later, how
ever, she came back and said there was an old
lady over near the wharf who wanted some and
went down that way.
I found it was an old colored lady and was
little doubtful about the tickets, but there
hadn't been anything said about color, so | went
right ahead. She was a funny old lady, and she
said she always bought all the lottery tickets
she could get. She asked how much these were
and ] said twenty-five cents, and she said "IN
take eight" She had a two-doar bill. and
so I gave her eight tickets and took the money
didn't worry about it Dams account, for
lots of these coored women cook better than
anybody else, and as Dan only wanted a wife
for a housekeeper, and they awfully neat
housekeepers, it would quite be an advantage to