Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1880 — Watching the Boiling Dumplings. [ARTICLE]

Watching the Boiling Dumplings.

sIFIkSss? all ranks and ages throng to the shrine of the excellent who in niiiinsrul lo know all about the future husband of •very unmarried laity of Christendom—a belief which costa him dear. If he hasn’t been driven czasy long ago by thoaMnds of questions addressed to him on this one •pedal night at the moment (when the dock strikes twelve, he win sorely become so now when the number of eligible husbands diminishes in the ■am* diy** SI th* nrnnVwt- nt nnmarriort ladies, eager to change their position, increases from year to year. As a civilized saint, wham prodige nas outlived that of a great number of his brethren, 84 SyFvestre gives his attention first of all to the saloons—that is, to thoeo who should fill them, but who on this night prefer to follow the young pecmlo to the kitchen, where the young ladies are occupied with the mannfitotore of dumplings. Such a culinary exertion in elaborate evening dresses must have an important cause. The dumplings prepared by those doftre** are no ordinary dumplines, whose destiny it is to be eaten, rate has tnl* «impl« fey. inaceous food to be the interpreter of it* decrees. Every young lady of the company write* the names of all the eligible gentleman of her • acquaintance upon scrap* of paper, which die hides in the dumplings, and at the moment when the clock strike© twelve diet throws them into boiling water. \ Now,'it is the habit of dumplings, when' sufficiently oooked, to reappear on the aurfeoe of the water, and the first dumpling which reappears on St Sylveetre’s Eve contains the young lady’s doom—that is, the name of her future husband. *. The' second > dumpling showing itself on ifhe) surface bears invariably the name of the happy lover’s rival; while the third contains the name of the miserable creature who has been refused by the more or. lean fascinating lady. The screaming • and laughing of the young • people, the blushing • and frowning on all those youthful faces at the moment when the boiling. water sends up the first herald of matrimony, is such a pretty sight that it is not to be wondered at when dumplings sometimes guess rightly. ’