The Ottawa Free Trader

How I Came to be Married.

It may be funny, but I've done it. I've got a wife and a baby. Shadows departed—oyster stews, brandy cock-tails, cigar-boxes, boot-jacks, absconding shirt buttons, whist and dominoes. Shadows present—hoop skirts, band boxes, ribbons, gaiters, long stockings, juvenile dresses, tin trumpets, little willow chairs, cradles, bibs, pap, sugar teats, paregoric, hive syrup, rhubarb, senna, salts, squills and doctor's bill. Shadows future—More nine pound babies, more hive syrup, etc., etc. I'll just tell you how I got caught. I was always the darndest, most excruciatingly bashful fellow you ever did see; it was kinder in my line to be taken with the shakes every time I saw a pretty gal approaching me and I'd cross the street any time rather than face one, 'twasn't because I didn't like the critters, for if I was behind a fence, looking through a knot-hole, I couldn't look at one long enough. Well my sister Lib gave a party one night, and I stayed away from home because I was too bashful to face the music. I hung around the house whistling "Old Dan Tucker," dancing to keep my feet warm, watching the heads bobbing up and down behind the window curtains, and wishing the thundering party would break up, so I could get to my room. I smoked up a bunch of cigars, and as it was getting late and mighty uncomfortable, I concluded to shin up the door post. No sooner said than done, and I soon found myself in bed. "Now," says I, "let her rip! Dance till your winds give out." And cuddling under the sheets, Morpheus grabbed me. I was dreaming of soft shell crabs and stewed tripe, and was having a good time, when somebody knocked at the door and woke me up. "Rap" again. I lay low. "Rap, rap rap!" Then I heard a whisper, and then I knew there was a whole raft of girls outside. Rap rap! Then Lib sings out, "Jack, are you there?" "Yes," says I. Then came a roar of laughter. By thunder, I began to get riled. "Get out, you petticoated scarecrows!" I cried; "can't you get a beau without laughing a fellow out of bed? I won't go home with you—I won't—so you may clear out." And throwing a boot at the door I felt better. But presently, oh! mortal buttons! I heard a still small voice, very much like sister Lib's and it said, "Jack you'll have to get up, for all the girls' things are in there!" Oh! Lord, what a pickle! Think of me in bed, all covered with shawls, muffs, bonnets and cloaks, and twenty girls outside the door, waiting to get in; if I had stopped to think I should have pancaked on the spot. As it was, I rolled out among the bonnet wire and ribbons in a hurry. Smash went the millinery in every direction. I had to dress in the dark—for there was a crack in the door, and girls will peep—and the way I fumbled about was death to straw hats. The critical moment came. I opened the door and found myself right among the women. "Oh, my Leghorn!" cries one. "My dear, darling, winter velvet!" cries another. And they pitched in—they pulled me this way, and that, boxed my ears, and one bright-eyed little piece—Sal her name was, put her arms right around my neck, and kissed me right on my lips. Human nature couldn't stand that, and I gave her as good as she sent. It was the first time I ever got a taste, and it was powerful good. I believe I could have kissed that gal from Julius Caesar to the fourth of July. "Jack," says she, "we are sorry to disturb you, but won't you see me home?" "Yes, I will," I replied. I did do it, and had another smack at the gate too. After that, we took a kinder turtledoving after each other, both of us sighing like a barrel of new ale when we were from each other. It was at the close of a glorious summer day—the sun was setting behind a distant hog-pen—the chickens were going to roost—the bull frogs were commencing their evening song—the pollywogs, in their native mud puddles, were preparing themselves for the shades of night—and Sal and myself were sitting upon an antiquated backless, listening to the music of nature, such as tree toads, and roosters, and granting pigs, and now then the mellow music of a distant jackass was wafted to our ears by the gentle zephyr, that sighed among the foul hen stalls, and came heavy laden with the delicious odor of hen roost and pig sty. The last lingering rays of the setting sun, glancing from the brass buttons of a solitary horseman shone through a knot hole in the hog pen, full in Sal's face dyeing her hair with an orange peel hue, and showing off my thread bare coat to bad advantage—one of my arms was around Sal's waist, my hand resting on the small of her back—she was toying with my auburn locks of jet black hair—she was almost gone, and I was ditto. She looked like a grasshopper dying with the hiccups, and I felt like a mud turtle choked with a cow fish ball. "Sal," says I, in a voice musical as the notes of a dying swan, "will you have me?" She turned her eyes heavenward, clasped me by the hand, had an attack of the heaves and blind staggers, and with a sigh that drew her shoe-strings to her palate, said Yes. She gave me one more then, and squatted in my lap—she corkscrewed, and I curflummoxed and rolled in it. I hugged her till I broke my suspenders, and her breath smelt of onions which she had eaten the week before. Well, to make a long story short, she set the day and we practiced for four weeks every night how we would walk into the room to be married, till we got so we could walk as graceful as two Muscovie ducks. The night, the company and the minister came, the signal was given, and arm and arm we marched through the crowded hall. We were just entering the parlor door, when down I went slap on the oil cloth, pulling Sal after me. Some cussed fellow had dropped a banana skin on the floor, and it floored me. It split an awful hole in my cassimeres right under my dress coat-tail. It was too late to back out, so I clapped my hand over it, we marched in and were spliced, and taking a seat, I watched the kissing the bride operation. My groomsman was tight, and he kissed her till I jumped up to take a slice, when, oh! terror! a little six year old imp lad crawled behind me, and pulling my shirt through the hole in my pants, had pinned it to the chair, and in jumping up I displayed to the admiring gaze of the astonished multitude a trifle more white muslin than was pleasant. The women giggled the men roared, and I got mad, but was finally put to bed, and there my troubles ended. Good night.