The Fairmont West Virginian. (Fairmont, W. Va.) 1904-1914, 1913-11-27
Wedding Presents
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The gfri who likes To talk shook her
head solemnly at the friend who want
ed to know whether she should buy .
cut-gtass bowl for = wedding present
Tor send a set Of Shakespeare.
-Yoa're Hke'aH the rest" said The
gfrL You haven't the remotest notton
of the crisis looming over you! Its
the test OF friendship, this selecting 9
wedding present You may have been
bosom chums with the bride from the
mud-pie stage. bat right now etther
you cement that friendship or else
Won make v deadly enemies
Sometime went on the girl who
likes 10 talk. lit seems as though all
the people who have it IN tor you for
somthing Just treasure up their little
Eradge tin you get married, and then
with a gurgle of triumph take revenge
by sending you a wedding present
that they know win set your teeth on
edge and send cold chi1s down your
spinal column every time you look at
it. She is a lucky bride whose new
home is a thousand miles away where
her old friends can't drop in une1pect-
eddy and prowl around to see that
she has tneir presents properly dis
played in the best light.
Louise moved to California when
she married" related the girl who
likes to talk, and do you know what
that smart girl did? When | visited
her she took me and unlocked a closet
door. and turned on the light. !
focused a questioning eye on her after
one glance. and said Ididn't know she
vas starting a chamber Of horrors. and
asked what the answer was.
Louise said she and Harry decided
they had only one lie to live, and even
at that they probably would have I'M
avoidable troubles, so there was no
use in deliberately acquiring other
troubles. They took every last we'd
ding present they hated and stored
them in the closet, and were slowly
giving item away on Chrtstuases and
other occasions to people whose
character they thought needed chas-
tening. Louise generally puts the
prizes she wins at card parties in
there. too, because either they never
match her house or else they are cham
payne glasses-and they a t AFFORD
much Of anything but ginger ale.
Il know a bride who got only n
set of salad forks, 50 she thankfully
overlooked the fact that they were
of a design calculated to make one a
uisanthrope for life. But when a.
dfIatory cousin sent her some perfectly
beautiful salad forks, and she simul-
taneous!y got wedding invitation her
self, size took the hideous forks to a
teweller and requested that be obltter-
ate her initial. and put on that Of the
bride on whom she was going to in
iict them.
"'Oh. yes said the man, ~languidly,
as he examined the forks, we can do
it. This will be the third time we've
changed the initial on these same
forks
Now. my mother got some beaust-
full presents when she was married
years ago | think people had kind
hearts and really loved their friends
still, she, 100, had her trials. Among
them was a dessert set, which stiIl
fingers among the family treasures
.It is a wondrous thing OF bright green
glass thar mother says is cut, but /
am positive it was run through a
hydraulic press by an apprentice. who
atterWard went insane. The big dish
Is mounted in a silver fIigree arrange
mert, which is carried on up above it
IKE an Eifel tower. .PeFched precari-
ously on this tower is a large silver
bird, with a wooden expression and a
tail like that Of a flying machine.
There are a dozen smaller glass
dishes, repIlcas in miniature OF the
big me-, and the effect of the whole
collection when brought on the table
Is 10 appall the brightest, most in.
treptd spirit, and paralyze any how OF
wit that may be there. No human
being can do anything but gaze in
wonder at the arrocity, simply over
wheIned by the thought that a mere
mundane mind could have imagined
and been desperate enough to carry
out the design
Nobody has ever dared to muse on
the dark, secret tsoughts'ot the in
dividual who presented that dessert
set to mother, and she won't tell who
It was. I've always thought it was
so.ue girl who was In love with father.
anG because she didn't get him, want
ed 20 blight the lives of all who came
neas him. Mother has a sweet nature,
and believes in bearing her crosses,
but I'm different
"SttIl, that dessert set is bewitched.
for rye brtbed every maid We ever
had to snaEa It accidentally-and
they break everything else on the pre-
misses, while that escapes. / believe
II I took a Ratchet to that big glass
dish, it would crumbEe the Ratchet as
though it we're tissue peper, and re-
main standing grimly, tr~tampaautly on