Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1879 — CUPID BLINDFOLDED. [ARTICLE]

CUPID BLINDFOLDED.

“Young man, you want to get married. You will never amount to anything till ycu get a wife and settle down to u sober, earnest life ” “Oh, yes; the old story Why, sir, I have been having that kind of advice poured into my ears ever since I was 20, and now Itere I am 30 ami still a bachelor. To tell you the truth, I want to marry, but who the deuce t shall I have for a wife? Once 1 was romantic and all that, but I determined I should never marry until 1 was in love, but 1 have gk*r over all that, and now I should be content to find a woman with a faih amount of good sense, education aim congenial to my own.\ L ” “All bosh —bosh. I tell you, Hal, your first idea is no more nonsensical than your last. Marry, and you will leant to love your wife soon enough. Marry, and treat your wife in a sensible sort of way, and congeniality will in gmsl time. And the sooner you marry, tbe sooner will you find hive and good-fellowship springing up j between you and your wife. Put it on too lhng, and you will get so dead set ih your ways that no woman oivearUi can live with you.” I tfas talking with an old friend of mine, John Freestone. It“ was not our first conversation on the subject, I hail visited the old gentle- ' man| at his house, seeu him in the mid.qt of ills family, with his amiable wife land bis delightful children, ami had pfteu thought, “All, could I but find kuch a woman, so fitted to my disposition as was his wife to him, and, 1 find,!too, such a sensible and accomplish hi lady, how quick would I lie a caud idate for matrimonial felicity!” “I tell you, Mr. Freestone,” 1 said, 1 “cou id I be as fortunate as you were in seeui lug a wife, you would not long (see ii lea bachelor.” “Jbst the case in point,” said he, “100 l ;ing at me and Polly I suppose you rould think that we fell desperately in love once, got married and neve r outgrew our honeymoon. I will take my own ease to Illustrate my argum< lit. “T venty-five years agt* I came to Wesi ern Pennsylvania u young man, veryipoor, and stopped at the village of L-?-- I engaged board in a family at,52.50 per week and started out to look tbr a situation. Among others, I applied to old John Roberts, the owner of a large mill, a general village store, • and t| large amount of real estate. He hiredjrue for sl2 a month to work iu the tifill. I worked for him a year at this rate as a common mill hand. Thengpe set me to work iu the office, help |him keep his books, collecting and aiich like. I worked another year for mm in this capacity for S2O a mona. •“At about this time he removed me to Ui4 store, and gave me all his books , to and as he was getting alougin yearsTleft a great deal of his business for ms! to do. I also began to board in his fckmse; I got S4O a mouth and board! I was then 24 years old.

“Otje day Polly—that is my wife and ray employer’* daughter—came home from pchool, where, truth is, she had learned a great deal more of foolish pride and vanity’thau of books. She was very pretty, and all the town beaux were ioon at her feet. I did not like her very well, nor did she me. The old gentleman did not like her ways either, and, though he did not say much, I felt convinced he was worrying a great deal over her. After she had been home nearly a year, she had formed an mtimate acquaintance with a young fellow, an insurance agent, from New York, a flashv young chap, with not much brains. The old gentleman detested him, aud I—well I sel-dom-thought of him. “At* the end of my third year with Mr. Roberts, he took a great deal of pains going over the books with me, aud examining them alone very closefy. This annoyed me somewhat, as J leared /that he suspected my honesty. He then began questioning me very closely about all the various brauches of his business. I was affle to satisfactorily answer all questions. Ht last he began Questioning me concerning my own affiurs. 1 owned that this rather nettled me. However, I submitted to him my private books, and as I bad been been very economical and saved up most of my earnings, 1 was able to make a good showing.

“Conscious innocence made me feel perfectly at ease through this ordeal but for the life of me I could not guess what he was driving at. Then came two or three days of sober abstraction on the part of my employer, which mystified me. “Oue day Mr. Roberts called me into his private office, and said: ‘John, I have been examining you pretty closely for the past few weeks, and, as you must know, have been thoroughly satisfied. Now that I amgetting old, my large property will weary me to look after. You will soon be wanting to bra nch out for yourself, with a view If bettering your circumstances. But don’t want to lose you. I have a Scheme which, if it operates well, will settle all my prospective difficulties and reward you well for your labors in the past and in the future. “ have only one child, and that is

Pony. She will get all my property. Af* long I live ldo not fear of her doing anything foolish, but when I am gone I am afraid Home adventurer, like that shallow-pated insurance agent, will marry’ her for ner money, squander it and make her miserable for life. “ *What I want is for you to marry Polly, and take the responsibility o her future and of my fortune on your hands.’ - J “I was thunderstruck. I had ijever dreamed of such a thing. I told, Mr. Roberts so. Then I intimated that Polly might object. ‘Not a bit of it, if her father says so,’ he claimed. ‘But,’ said I, «‘it will be wrong for me to marry’ her without loving her.’ ‘{Hold on,’ said he, ‘don’t be so quick about that. Do vou know that you don’t love her?’ I ‘But you don’t dislike her .” Canaidly, I confenned that I did not approve of her manner altogether. I “‘No more do I, but I loye her all the same because she -te my daughter, and so will you some day, because she ! wiU be your wife —that is, after slit has got all the nouseuse rubbed out of her. “To shorten up a little, Mr. Robert* soon over-persuaded me,and I promised to marry Polly, if Polly’s cousentslijould be obtained. 1 , “The next step was to win “oily over. This my obliging would-be father-in-law undertook. Polly objected, as we both expected. She, however, had too much good sense to be deeply in love with the fop insurance agent, and after confessing her indifference to him and all other men; her father had a light task to win her heart, convince her good sense, and at |last gain her consent to hisjplans. j “Polly dearly loved her father, jand as she told me it was for his sake that she accepted me. She warned hue, however, that she would be a very troublesome wife. I told her thehi if aught of trouble did come it would] not be from a lapk of good behavior kindness on iny part toward her. ] “Well, we were married. At (first we were very prosaic in our mode of life, but no ill-natured words ever passed between us. Then her, father died, but we both mourned him from i the depths of our hearts. After that came a snort period of restlessness for Pally. The only living which my wife pad ever truly loved had passed away,hikl with him the restraining influence of affection. Polly began to pine. Hhe felt our marriage but as a bond. 'J'lds caused me many an anxious day, bpt I let her feelings have dean sweep.] 1 never intruded on them, and unly(addressed her when I knew my’ adpice would be kindly received, or whdn I knew it was necessary to restrain and curb the spirit of the young girl] for such she still was. Sometimes she Heap almost harsh toward me, but these occasions were always followed' by periods of repen fence. “At last our first child was born. l Iu tbe joint affection for the little stranger, our hearts began to open, not oulyflpr little Bessie, but for each other. The feeling of maternity had the effedt of quelling the spirit of unrest in Pigly, and gradually she began to warm toward me, ami I toward her, am| before the baby was six months old these feelings had ripened into perfect adbration on my part for my beautiful ljttle wife, and of pride and pure womanly Tove on lier’s for me. “\Ve became spoons of the most Pronounced character, and the honeymoon which rose at the birth of Bessie, twenty years ago, lias never set. ‘ “And now, Hal, I have a proposition, to make to you. I like you. I tl>ink you are just "the man to make Bfssie happy, and I know Bessie is fully capable of making you a good wife. Think it over, my boy, and see if you can’t make your old friend happier than ever now.” Since our conversation I have been thinking over this propiisition. I have almost decided to tell my kind] old friend that if Bessie is willing I am. But how surprised she will be. ISlie looks on me as being such a very old bachelor that I am perfectly harmless, and for the last twelve years she) has been making me tbe confident of all her joys and sorrows, of all her. Uttle love affairs, especially of the last, wherein if her heart was nut, her pride certainly was, almost broken, at (disco vering that the dapper young dry goods clerk, with whom she had been going to parties, theaters, and balls tor the last six months, had actually married a servant girl. I must strike while the iron is hot, and I think Bessie will have me.