The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1917-03-15
No Fool Like An Old
Fool.

Continued from hrst page.
violem l tossed to the maiden With
whom she designed | should fulfill
her intentions. And the girl! Be-
tween her and that something which
falls to the lot of older people was
still the gulf Of some five or six
years-an interminable period.
But time was passing more rap
idly even than one realized. Before
we had had time to come to that
comparatively prosaic period when
young people begin to talk of the
love they feel-an advanced stage
on the road to commonplace matri-
monyrwe were separated, going
to college, she to seminary. How
ever, there were four years before
us of love dreaming.
When we returned, an educated
man and a woman, all was changed.
The flower had opened, but there
were a lot of thorns bristling about
it. l knew that the result of love
was marriage, and between me and
marriage stood a fortune. Still |
was no wise old man. l was merely
one beginning life and endowed
with the propensities bestowed upon
mankind. l felt in honor bound
since my uncle had brought me up
for certain purpose under certain
conditions to fulfill those conditions.
I was now old enough to realize the
responsibilities | was under and that
a carrying out Of the contract with
my uncle would involve the loss to
me of my love. On one side Of me
was Scylla, on the other Charybdis.
Though | was twenty-one, | was
no wiser in love than when | was
sixteen, and my uncle, who was past
fifty, was a greater fool as regards
such matters than l. The truth is
the farther we get from that period
when nature intends we shall mate
the less we know about mating.
When we are in it we and it are the
truth; when we pass beyond it we
know it by cold experience only.
The boys and girls to whom in other
matters we may be sOlons, in mat
ters of love can serve us as instruc.
tors.
This analytical statement is pre-
liminary to a confession. The frs,
thing | knew | was married clan
destinaly.
The marrying occupied abo0
three minutes, the ragged edge pc
riod that followed occupied months
Common sense should have told m
to arrange the matter with my uM
Gle first and marry aftcrward Dn
common sense is very sparing of Wis
its to young people. 1t is supposed
to be natural faculty, but | am in
clined to think it an artificial facll
ty. What does pair Of doves know
about common sense?
After on: clandestine marriage
we lived i'll a perpetual whirl be
tween alternate bliss and mcntar
torture. At least did. Ny wife,
with the delightful stupidity Of
woman, said it would come out ali
right. Her prediction was followed
by my unc]e's suddenly falling dead
of heart disease.
Here was a pretty kettle of fish.
1 was his heir under pledge of bach
elorhood, and | was married. How
ever, was glad that the blow had
fallen. | was tired of living under
false colors.
Then what happened? Why,
when the will was read it was found
that the bulk Of his estate was left
to me and under condition. What
condition? Why, that [ marry be-
fore | could inherit a cent of his
money. There was a codicil leaving
the income of $50,000 to a Miss
Arabella Wagstatf during her life.
What did this mean? And who was
Miss Wagstaff?
1t came out at last that even old
people can sometimes be natural in
matters of love. Miss Wagstaff was
the woman with whom my uncle had
had trouble in his youth and who
had turned him against her sex.
Shortly before his death he discov-
cred that some twenty years before
he had made an ass of himself and
had treated a girl very badly. He
made amends so far as he could by
leaving her enough to make her
comfortable for the rest of her life.
Didn't | tell you it would come
out all right?" remarked my wife,
making one of those illogical, ire
lative statements for which women
are famous.
you'd better say" l retorted,
"that in love matters all men, old