Bridgeton pioneer., 1911-08-10
Salt on the Rrci'a q.
SsOry cf a Mar.A Csas
Alszque. a5c
BY SAMUEL E BEANT
Cucyrns1s oy AreFicaa Press R==r--
ciatf0u. Igll
By SAMUEL E BRANT

W oman
The girl TN engaged to"
We'll. / Ike that What kind Of
wife do you expect her to Eake:"
How should know her qualifca-
tons for wife, Marriage l. a lottery
Other men may marry for quaIihca-
tons. but We youngsters don't pretend
to forecast what a girls going 10 be.
And l don't believe the old one5 hit ii
any better than We"
What makes you set yons iancee
down as q fOOlf''
I'll tell you. but l must Begin csck
a little way. She's Madge Whiiridge.
only it should be Madge Wild1.e iT-
stead. Not that she is so Wild IS she
was She's been quieted down bit by
certain little happening that came
near resulting disastrously. she near-
ly caused my death"
"You don't mean it, Not inteeuUn-
ally, suppose"
We'll, whether there was a spark of
intention in it don't know. You never
Cdu lt4l W ldt hOtAld1 SOAAl5 " 0O
or why she does it We can't be sure
she knows herself. If Madge had
caused my death any prosecuting at
torney might have made a very good
case against her of doing it with NAL
ice aforethought. And to tell the truth
I'm not sure but she did"
And you're going to marry her?'
Lo& -, t. - s.t,a t-t,o I-,
me for another fellow. though I don't
think she would do that now. She
might have done it before this thing
I'm going TO tell you about happened;
but as said, it sobered her, and she's
quite tame. Iadts the time l chose for
putting salt on the birds tail.
There's more appropriateness in
this simile than you may imagine, as
you'll see in a moment. But for the
incident. We floor gliders.' as one
called our dancing club of young peo-
ple-there was not one over twenty.
and some of the girls weren't over fif-
teen-concluded we'd celebrate the
Mardi Gras with masquerade ball. I'd
been getting sweet on Madge-Wildfire
l may as well call her-and about the
time the costumes were being arrang-
ed l was sitting up to her like sick
kitten to warm brick In fact, we
arranged to have corresponding cos
tunes Sor the ball
This was after Rostand's play of
'Chantecler' came out. and everybody
was talking about it. You know that
the leading lady chicken in the play
Is the hen pheasant. the leading gen
tleman being the rooster chanticleer.
We concluded to get ourselves up as
these two birds. | was month ar
ranging my outfit did it all myself.
you know-but when | got it done il
was corker l made the body of
rooster. which l strapped under my
arms, with an elegant head and comb
in front and n fine display of cocks
tail behind. the tail being made of
tissue paper of different colors. You
couldn't have told it from the real
thing.
~ went to see Madge the afternoon
before the ball. 1t so happened that
we got to quarreling, and l went
off in huff. This was unfortunate,
to say the least. We had spent a lot
of time getting up our bird rigs and
expected to make lot of fun billing
and cooling during the ball, and the
worst of it was. now that we were in
just the opposite condition from what
we expected. we hadn't time to get
other rigs
What was the cause OF the quar-
rel?'
I'VE tried on our costumes in ad-
vance, and when she walked | told
her she waddled like a duck. That
made her mad and she fred back. and
we soon were in for it hot and heavy.
when the ball came off, instead of
walking about together, l strutting
she cuddling up beside me. we were as
Tar apart as possible and when we
met glared at each other After awhile
! saw her sitting in a window with
Ned Tucker. This made me all fred
jealous as well as mad, and to show
my spleen what did / do but go up
near where they were sitting and
whisk around with the intention of
turning my back on Madge l didn't
calculate how near my tail feathers
were to them. but it seems they
brushed their faces. This made Madge
madder than ever. Ned had just struck
match to light cigarette. Madge
jerked it out of his hand and held 1t
under the tip of my tail.
I'm second the whole of it was in,
flames. tried to get the rooster part
of me off, but it was tied on so well.
that couldn't do it, The flames ran.
from the tail to the wings and from
the wings to the rest of the body. The
whole roomful of people rushed toward
me, scared out of their seven senses,
every one crying, Put him outr
Whether they meant to put out the
flames or put me out to prevent my set.
ting them all afire 1 don't know. /
was bowling with the burns and with
fear when a Roman senator took of
his togs and wrapped it about me.
"I was taken to carriage and home.
I wasn't burned at all h,t irS+ to nm