Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 77, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1901 — Drawing the Line. [ARTICLE]

Drawing the Line.

A good story is told in Missouri at the expense of its once famous governor, Claiborne F. Jackson. Before be solved the ejpgma of lovelock he had married five sisters in reasonable lapses of consecutiveness. After one wife had been lost and appropriately mourned he espoused another, and be kept his courting within a narrow circle of his own relatives, for he rather liked the family. The antiquated father of these girls was almost deaf, and when the governor went to this octogenarian to ask for his surviving daughter the following conversation ensued: “I want Lizzie.” “Eh?” “I want you to let me have Eliz-a-beth.” * ~, “Oh, you want Lizzie, do you? What for?” “For my wife.” “For life.” “I want—to— marry—her.” “Oh, yes. Just so. I hear you, boy.” “I’m precious glad you do,” muttered the governor. “Well,” slowly responded the veteran, “you needn't halloo so that the whole neighborhood knows it. Yes, you can have her. You’ve got ’em all now, my lad, but for goodness’ sake, if anything happens to that ’ere poor misguided gal, don’t come and ask mefor the old woman!” Jackson solemnly promised that he never would.