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Kansas University Weekly.
A Wedding and a Festival.
Despite the omenious thickening of the mist up the canon, and the freshening of the breeze, which sets the aspens all a quiver, Sunday night has brought it's usual quota of visitors to the ranch house. The tables in the long dining room, where the company assembles, have been moved close to the wall and covered with snowy cloths. An air of expectancy prevails. The organist, already at her post, blinks in the bright light which floods the room; the minister sits with eyes tightly closed, in apparent oblivion to all mundane things. Occasional impatient murmurs are succeeded by long periods of silence. The rain begins to fall softly. Suddenly the organ peals forth the stirring old Sunday School tune:
"Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war."
And down the long room the bridal party charges, out of step, breathless, in a mad endeavor to keep time to the lively strains of the martial wedding march.
They wheel into place at the farther end of the room. with the scared look of recruits facing the cannon for the first time. The bride and groom, close on the heels of the advance guard, take their place in front of them. The music stops, the minister regains consciousness, the ill suppressed murmur of amusement which greeted thebridal party subsides,and the ceremony begins.
The groom, an ex-driver of the L stage, assumes an air of stolid indifference, as though marrying were an every day affair with him. His eyes rest in a fixed and stony gaze on some invisible object at the opposite end of the room, apparently endowed with all the awful power of the Medusa. His voice seems to stick in his throat and is dislodged only with a violent effort. When it does issue forth in a stentorian "Yes, sir!" (which takes the place of the more
conventional "I do") every one in the room jumps.
The brides poor little plebeian face is flushed red with embarrassment. She feels more at home in the kitchen, among the pots and pans; that is her world, and the rim of her dishpan bounds her narrow horizon. She lisps "Yes, sir" in a scared, appealing voice, when the minister asks the all-important question. She never once during the ceremony raises her eyes from the floor.
It is over at last and the bridal party breaks ranks. While congratulations are being tendered to the newly married pair, the bridesmaid and groomsman take to flight. Base desertion! But the bride and groom manage to servive the loss of their body guard, and clasp hands while all unite in singing that good old hymn:
"Come, ye disconsolate, where'er ye languish; Come to the mercy-seat. fervently kneel;
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish,
Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal."
Singularly inappropriate for a wedding, perhaps. But in the last verse all are asked to the "feast of love." And, as the organist took pains to explain, the hymn was intended as a solace to the disconsolate few to whom invitations to "feasts of love" of a more satisfying sort had been denied by an all-wise Providence.
G. H. B.
Gondolier Mandolin Club.
The best music at the most reasonable price will be furnished for receptions and dances. Leave orders with Olin Bell, Fred Soxman or Ross Whitlow at Weaver's.
Smith's News Depot is headquarters for Base Ball and Athletic goods.
Griffin the Coal Man.
CLASS Pins and Badges.
100 VISITING
Cards and Plate, only . $1.50.
NOVELTIES OF ALL KINDS
Silver Link Buttons, . . 50c.
Silver Studs, . . . . 30c.
1034 MAIN STREET.