AN UNROMANTIC SWAIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9130, 11 August 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

AN UNROMANTIC SWAIN.

Cutting it across the country at midnight —otherwise eloping to get married—is a custom that has long prevailed in Kentucky. Many bluegrass girls wouldn't care a cent about marrying if they couldn't run away and do it. Young men in that favoured region are of that way of thinking, too. But there was one who didn't feel that way, as the following shows : — " Mother, young Brown was in the store to-day, and he said he wanted to marry our Kate," said an old gentleman down in Kentucky to his spouse. '' Well, Brown's agood fellow," she replied, "and I don't believe Kate can do better." " That's what I thought, so I got red in the face and pretended to be mad, just as your father did when I asked for you, you remember, and yelled, ' You can't have her. Get off my premises, or I'll set the dogs on ye, you young scamp !' " i " There'll be an elopement, then," said the wife, with a smile of pleasure, recalling the result in their case. "No, there won't," replied the husband, with a sigh of discontent. "Why not? That's the way it always works in Kentuck." " Well, he's a smart one, mother, and no mistake. He first gave me the wink, and says he : " ' Father-in-law, I'm dead sot again elopements. Too much trouble. The Ohio style of getting married on the premises is good enough for me. I know it ain't popular in Kentuck. It ain't so romantic as cutting it across the country at midnight, escaping across the river in a dug-out, and hunting a strange justice of the peace, who chews plug tobacco while he ties the knot. But I ain't romantic ; for a starter I want the milch cow and the bedclothes, the trousseau, and other knickknacks that go with the regular way. One can set up housekeeping easier. I know it will come a little higher for you, but you will have to stand it this time. Perhaps the other girls will furnish the elopements necessary to keep up the reputation of the family, but none of mine.' " "And what are you going to do about it?" asked the wife. " Do? Why, sell some hogs and rig Kate , out, of course. What else can Ido ?'