The Secret Honeymoon: 1898

FADS DON’T GO WITH HIM.

He Had a Taste of Latest and He is Cured.

Fell Info a Trap Which a Revengeful Rival Had Planned for Him.

Cost Groom Something to Change His Route, but He Paid Cheerfully.

“I don’t go very much on these new fads in the line of weddings,” said the bridegroom, cocking his feet on the desk of the insurance man and lighting a fresh cigarette. “I’ve just been up against the game, and I’ll stake any body to my part of it next time.”

“What are you talking about?” asked the insurance man. “What do you mean by new fads in weddings?”

“Well, I’ll tell you my troubles and you can figure It out for yourself,” said the benedict. “You see, some daffy guy framed up a game some place or other where the fads come from for what is known as a ‘secret honeymoon.’ The bride and groom are not to be wise to where they are going until they are on the train after the ceremony. The best man is the whole works and does everything for them. He selects a route, buys the tickets, checks the baggage, frames it up with the hotels and gets everything ready for one round of pleasure. Then the tickets and a letter of instructions are put in a sealed envelope and dealt out to Mr Sucker, the bridegroom, and he opens it on the train and goes wherever the best man has things arranged. Now what do you think of that tor a nutty scheme?”

“That is certainly very much foolish house,” admitted the insurance man. “If the best man wanted to gently josh you along the line he couldn’t do a thing under that scheme.”

“Well maybe you think he didn’t, said the bridegroom. “Wait till I tell you. They kept on shooting a bunch of hot air into me about this game and what a good thing it was and how novel it was, that they finally got me to stand for it. I don’t know what kind of hop I was against when I said all right but this fellow Haskins, who was framed to pull off the deal certainly had me conned. I was a little bit daffy anyhow, you know, as a man is likely to be just when he is going to be married, and I thought it would be a grand little plan and it was me to it.

“But it’s no more for me, not if I get married eight times more. It’s me for the little details and all the plans next time. Old Mr Haskins is a good thing and this was the only chance he had to jolly me. As a matter of fact he used to be pretty well stuck on this girl I married and I guess he thought he was there until I got in the running and then he wasn’t 1, 2, 46. But any how, he pretended to be the real glad-hand friend when he heard I had things settled, and it was nobody but him for the best man at the doin’s, and then he springs his funny game on me about the secret honeymoon.

“I let him go ahead and frame every thing up, and I congratulated myself that I wouldn’t have to worry about train time and hotels and Niagara falls and other things, as the average bridegroom does. He got me the tickets and everything, and I got his little old sealed envelope and the wife, and I tore for the rattlers all in good shape after the ceremony. When I got her nicely seated in the parlor car I went into the smoker, a little bit nervous, to see what Haskins had framed up for me.

“O, but he was there with the goods strong! ‘Get off at Albion and go to the Pararzoom house,’ says Mr Sealed Instructions. And I spent the next three hours wondering what Albion was like and whether the Pararzoom house had money enough to buy fly screens. Of course Edith and I were not especially anxious to tip off to the mob that we had just been married. Every couple feels that way, I suppose, and I know I was willing to keep dark for a while and make a bluff that we were celebrating our golden wedding.

“Well, about 7 o’clock In the evening we pulled in at a little old bum wooden station with a big sign ‘Albion’ all across the front of It. I didn’t get wise on the jump that we were on a lobster, but I piled out with Edith on my arm and the porter carrying a wagonload of grips. A coachman steps up to me as soon as I got off and says:

“‘Mr Amschasm?’

“I says ‘Yes.'”

“’This is your rig, sir,’ he says. Well, I thought that was pretty fair for a starter, and we got in, me handing Haskins a little mental compliment for his thoughtfulness about the rig. Just then I heard a band playing the ‘Wedding March’ from ‘Lohengrin.’ I thought I was dopey first, and that it was only a memory, but around the corner of the station came the Albion silver cornet band, and it fell in right ahead of our carriage. I was wise in a minute.

“Edith was ready to jump out and take to the woods, but I managed to make the driver stop while about 200 rubbernecks gathered around us. I helped Edith out of the carriage, and we hustled for another one, while the crowd sent up three cheers for the bride. I was sore enough to have shot Haskins if he was there, and I told the driver to take us to the best hotel in town. He whipped up and in a few minutes we walked into a hotel.

“As soon as I registered the clerk turned around and handed me the key to the bridal chamber. It was decorated with white ribbon, and he smiled a knowing smile as he laid it before he. I wanted to strangle him, but I took the key and went upstairs. The room was about 10 feet square, low ceilinged and hot. There was no screen in the window, and I could see my finish in there. I went back to the clerk and made a large roar, but he said it was the best room in the house and had been especially ordered for me.

“’When does the next train leave here?’ I asked.

“’Quarter after 1 tomorrow morning,” he said, with a bow and a rub of the hands which drove me frantic.

“‘Well I’ll take it,’ I said. ‘I don’t want your clothes closet up there.’

“We gathered up our baggage and were driven back to the station, and there I fixed it up with the station agent to wire to the division headquarters and hire me a special car and engine to take me Cincinnati. It came all right and It cost me $125, but we got out of Albion. The next morning I carefully tore up Mr Haskins’ letter of instructions, got a lot of time tables and framed up a little wedding tour of our own, and I’ve been looking for him ever since. I understand he has enlisted.”

The Boston [MA] Globe 2 October 1898: p. 37

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  The embarrassing ordeal of the honeymoon for both bride and groom was well recognised. If they went directly to their own home, they were apt to be serenaded in the night by neighbours with horns, banging pots, and celebratory gunfire. If they went on a wedding tour, every porter, hotel clerk, and waiter easily identified them as newlyweds and grinned a knowing grin.

The ideal was to pass for an old married couple on a little holiday jaunt–it was axiomatic that “no one tries to look so experienced as a brand-new bride”—but this did not always work:

And when a honeymoon couple are trying to pass themselves off as married folk of long standing, and a shower of tell-tale rice, descending from a pocket or a suddenly-opened umbrella, gives the whole show away, the result is embarrassing.

Taranaki [NZ] Daily News 23 October 1909: p. 4

The reality was more often like this gentleman’s experience:

Will not the postboy, the fly-driver, the landlord, and the chambermaids pursue him with commiseration?…Brisk, cheery, bald-headed old gentlemen, utter strangers to you, shake you by the hand; elderly and excellent dowagers, with no claims on your friendship, take a warm interest in you — perhaps one will utterly confound you with a smacking kiss — and away you are jostled out of the passage, across the pavement, bundled into the carriage, slippers shied at your head, and amid the cheers of the company, the jeers and hurrahs of all the butcher boys, costermongers, and little urchins of the neighborhood, hey! presto! you’re on your honeymoon, minus one glove, and your hat backside foremost….As to Fred [the bridegroom]…he wishes all this parade over. Of course every one is smiling, and can see he is a foo — bridegroom….. Draw up with a very sudden halt at first-class entrance Paddington Station, porters twig in a moment, require no whistling now — bran’ new boxes, and “Both of ’em rigged out in new clothes; I say, Bill, here’s a wedding….”

And thus after a month’s bliss, a sweet honeymoon and the consciousness that they have been stared at and detected throughout the length and breadth of the land, the “happy couple” return to the quietness of their new little — their own home, to receive the congratulations of their friends, and the calls of their acquaintances. Bella is contented and happy, Fred himself again, thoroughly glad that the ordeal of the honeymoon has been passed, and that the world can now recognise his new position without staring at him, and without thinking him a — well, without thinking him a bridegroom.

North Otago Times 15 March 1872: p. 4

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

A Solo Bridal Tour: 1875

 

A Kentucky Bridal Tour.

[From the Courier-Journal.]

There came one day to a little inland town in Kentucky a young rural couple who had just been bound by the “silken bonds.” Their destination was the depot, and the bridegroom was evidently quite impatient for fear the train should arrive before he could reach the office. Buying one ticket, they stood on the platform until the train had stopped. When they entered the car the bridegroom found his bride a seat, kissed her most affectionately, and bade her “good-bye,” and going out, seated himself on a box and commenced whittling most vigorously. He watched the train out of sight, regret depicted on his face, when a bystander, thinking the whole proceeding rather strange, resolved to interview him. Approaching him carelessly, and chewing a straw to keep up his courage, he said:

“Been getting’ married lately?”

“Yes,” said he, “me and Sallie got spliced this mornin’.”

“Was that her you put on the train?”

“Yes,” with a sigh.

“A likely lookin’ gal,” said our questioner. “Anybody sick, that she had to go away?”

“No;” but here he grew confidential. “You see me and Sallie had heard that everybody when they got married took a bridal tour. So I told Sallie I hadn’t money enough for both of us to go, but she shouldn’t be knocked out of hern. So I jist brought her down here, bought her ticket, and sent her on a visit to some of her folks, and thought I might get some work harvestin’ till she got back.”

That afternoon found him busily at work, and when in a day or two after Sallie got back, he welcomed her cordially and affectionately, and hand in hand they started down the dusty road to their new home and duties.

Reading [PA] Times 19 August 1875: p. 2

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  Mrs Daffodil has written before about perfect and problematic honeymoons, but never about a solitary bridal tour.

A most considerate bride-groom, not to “knock” his wife out of a honeymoon treat, which suggests that we may feel quite sanguine about the future happiness of the union.

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

The Perfect Honeymoon: 1922

HONEYMOONS

By J.E. Buckrose

Author of “Down Our Street,” “The Gossip Shop,” “The Tale of Mr. Tubbs,” etc.

Honeymoons are in one respect like human faces—millions of them have existed in the world, and no two were ever absolutely alike.

Mere details have been the same, of course, but there has always been some infinitesimal variation in the combination of those details which created the difference. For instance, numberless bridegrooms must have found themselves stranded beyond the reach of shops without a toothbrush; but the precise manner of the discovery and what happened afterwards must be just a little different in every case.

Also, though brides pack too efficiently for that sort of omission to occur, there must have been a countless host from first to last who have gone away to remote places taking nothing but new shoes with them, and have in consequence found the flowery paths of dalliance through wood and vale less of a rapturous delight than of an obligation to be fulfilled in order to avoid disappointing the new husband. And yet every one of these brides has. performed her act of self-denial with some tiny shade of difference from all the rest.

Afterwards, of course, such incidents often form the foundation of that stock of family jokes without which I think no married life ever was entirely successful; but in the meantime they do not seem funny at all. For at that time other emotions are taking up so much more than their fair share in the mind that something has to go—which something is often a sense of humour.

It really seems as if the Spirit of the Ridiculous must enjoy teasing those who have thus temporarily crowded him out. As in the case of a poor bridegroom, deeply in love but no longer quite young, who had the misfortune to drop his false teeth on the stone floor of the balcony in his palatial hotel dressing-room, at the very identical moment when he was gazing at the moon for a brief space, before joining his beloved on the other side of the highly varnished communicating door.

And this was not comic. Let any bridegroom, past, present, or to come, endeavour to put himself in that unhappy gentleman’s place, and it will be clear enough that the affair was tragic. For there was the newly-married wife waiting for him in a flutter of romance ; and here was he— desperately endeavouring to fit broken pieces of dental workmanship into his mouth, without success. Then a church clock outside warned him of the flight of time, and he appeared suddenly before his wife, looking so very odd, and muttering so strangely: “Tharah! At latht! ” that she fell back in dismay and began to glance round for the bell.

But it proved to be a blessing in disguise after all, because these two people had always been just a little too dull and proper to be really happy in the world, and now they had to start married life with a jest so broad and easily visible that even they couldn’t help seeing it by the time they returned home from the wedding journey.

Honeymoons vary extraordinarily, however, even on the written page—from that immortal one described by Milton which is the most lovely of which man’s imagination is capable, right down to the old story of the mid-Victorian bride who stopped short at Folkestone, because she really felt she could not bring herself to cross the Channel with a gentleman who was no relation except by marriage.

It is after thinking of this last that one comes with a sort of mental jolt upon a clear-eyed modern girl, who openly states her intention with regard to the perpetuation of the human race at the party given to view the wedding presents; and this in no hole and corner sort of fashion, but with the clarion voice of chanticleer heralding the morn.

Still contrasts are stimulating, so it is agreeable to recall, while listening to her, a honeymoon of the period of Nicolas Nickleby, when the bridesmaid often accompanied the happy pair, lest a “delicate female” should be too abruptly thrust into the sole companionship of the coarser male.

But at any rate there was one thing about Victorian courtships which is sometimes lacking in these more enlightened days; the newly wedded couple did start off in an atmosphere of faith and hope, and not of hope only. Everyone felt sure that they were going to live together until one of them died, and that they had every intention of bringing children into the world to fill their places when they were gone. That long month of seclusion might be dull and was almost certainly a. mistake, but they did not begin their married life ignobly.

Still the essentials of the honeymoon must always remain the same, for the god of change, who rules all else, has no power in love. That which Milton wrote of, in the grey stone cottage among the hawthorns and chestnut trees, can never go out of fashion, and the words: “Part of my soul, I seek thee “—express what every bridegroom who truly loves still feels towards his bride. The very carpet of “violet, crocus and hyacinth ” on which Eve trod, and the rose leaves which fell upon those first lovers while they slept, are not only  descriptions but symbols—new always to every one who reads them, with an exquisite freshness which seems somehow to hold the morning dew of life.

This great poem, however, contains not only wonder but a sort of divine common sense, so we are soon made aware of the dangers which encounter those who have been rapt into such a state of bliss. It is very difficult indeed to come down to the  ordinary give and take of man and wife after a period during which each has believed themselves as perfect in the other’s eyes as Adam and Eve before the fall, even when both try to live up to this idea. A desire for less exacting society will begin to creep in, and may ruin their happiness almost before married life has begun. For it is during the second part of the honeymoon, when couples begin to settle down, that the actual test comes. No living woman, however wise, will ever fail to feel surprised and hurt that her husband can be sharp about the breakfast bacon after such a. period of adoration. And no husband will ever feel pleased when the pliant creature who seemed but a rib taken from his side at the sea-side hotel, suddenly proves to have a will of her own.

But there is one hard fact which must be faced by the most romantic, if they want to be happy, and it is this: that glamour, in the nature of things, cannot stay. Everything that really matters, remains. But that most beautiful thing has to go. It is like the little angels on old ceilings—all bright eyes and hair and flashing wings and there is no use in expecting that to sit down cosily by the domestic hearth, which simply has not the accommodation.

Of course the element of strangeness during the first days of the honeymoon affects some natures quite differently from others. To some it is an excitement and a stimulus. But there are couples who feel it so acutely that the love and pleasure which they ought to enjoy are altogether spoiled, and they will own later that many succeeding holidays have proved more agreeable. But glamour was there, all the same, though they did not recognise it.

This is particularly so with the young man and woman who would defy it most, and who go forth wearing all their oldest clothes to spend what may be called the hidden honeymoon. For they are simply filled with a glorious sense of adventure, finding it splendid sport to make people believe that they have been married for years, and enjoying their greatest triumph when some mild old lady asks innocently how many children they have left at home. Though they flatter themselves that they have dispensed with glamour, it is just as visible to the intelligent observer as if they were wearing obvious trousseaux and occupying the bridal suite.

But: I think it is the couple no longer exactly young, whom nobody has wanted much before they found each other, that are the most delightful honeymooners to meet, for they have just come out into a world so new to them that the commonest daisy is a wonder. This bride—while the majority of women were gathering the blooms of ordinary love-making all along the road—will never have heard any man say her eyes are beautiful, or her hand the dearest to hold in the world, until her husband told her so.

And he—if he is the sort I mean—will begin to lift up his head and put a little flesh on his spare bones even before the end of the honeymoon, because he is able at last to rest his anxious, nervous soul in an atmosphere of uncritical appreciation…

And—having kept the best to the last—I come now to the perfect honeymoon. The happy couple have left the flowery white wedding behind them, taking only a confused memory of coloured light streaming through a church window—of friends all smiling and wishing them well—of a lump in the bride’s throat as she kisses her mother—of a great shower of confetti— of people waving and shouting good luck. At last they are alone together in the car, the quiet hedgerows rushing past them, and it is towards evening when they reach the country inn where they are to spend the night. Then there is the first meal together as husband and wife, and afterwards the inn garden all fragrant in the twilight —with the white flowers advancing from the rich gloom as they do at this hour, while the coloured ones that have been so gorgeous in the day, recede.

Glamour is now surrounding bride and bridegroom like a silver cloud. But though that must go, the love which—as old Sir Thomas à Kempis says—”makes all bitter things sweet and pleasant,” will be left with them to the end, if they continue true lovers.

Good Housekeeping, Vol. 2,  February 1922: p. 21, 88-89

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  Mrs Daffodil joins the entire Empire in wishing the newly-wed Duke and Duchess of Sussex the most perfect of honeymoons and happiest of marriages.

 

For a honeymoons where all did not run smoothly, see Shuffling Off to Buffalo.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

Shuffling Off to Buffalo: A Honeymoon Goes Awry: 1866

A happy honeymoon couple. George Jameson and Katie Vaughan had a brilliant wedding. Everything was flawless—from the icing on the cake to the arrangement of the bride’s waterfall. Mrs. Vaughan cried just enough to redden her nose; Vaughan did the dignified pater familias to a charm; and George and Katie were so affectionate as to give the world the idea that here was a match made in heaven.The bridal breakfast over, the white moire, antique lace, and orange flowers were laid aside, and the pretty traveling suit of alpaca, with nazarine blue trimmings was donned—the sweetest love of a thing Madame D’Aubrey had made up for the season. Then there was the little bonnet of gray silk to match the dress, with its blue face trimming to match Katie’s eyes; the golden bird of paradise dropping its plumage over the crown; and it was such a fine morning, and everything looked propitious; and in the midst of congratulations and kisses, George and Katie started for the depot.They arrived just in season. The whistle sounded in the distance. George buckled up his traveling shawl and Katie grasped her parasol.“George, dearest,” said the bride, “do run out and see to the trunks! I should die if when we get to the Falls, my clothes should not be there! It would be dreadful to be obliged to go to dinner in my traveling dress? Go see to them, there’s a darling!”George vanished; the train puffing and smoking, shot into the depot. Conductor popped his head into the ladies’ room, shouting at the top of his voice.‘All aboard for Danville! Come, hurry up ladies! Five minutes behind time and another train due.’ ‘Is my husband—” ‘Oh, yes, yes, all right,’ said the official, hurrying on in a way railway officials have. ‘I’ll send him right along,’ and he vanished from view in the long line of moving carriages. Meanwhile George having seen to the baggage—a proceeding that had occupied more time than he had intended—returned to the ladies’ room to find Katie missing— searched about wildly, inquiring of every one he met, without success. ‘She’s probably already in the train, sir,’ said ticket agent of whom he made inquiry. ‘You are going to Buffalo, I think you said; that’s the train to Buffalo; you’ll likely find her there. Just starting, not a moment to lose.’ George grasped the railing of the hind car as it flew by, and, fling open the door, he rushed through car after car, but seeking in vain for Katie. She was not on the train. ‘Most likely she got on the wrong train and went by Groton,’ said the conductor. ‘Groton is a way station fifteen miles ahead. We stop there fifteen or twenty minutes for refreshments. You’ll doubtless find her there.’ The cars flew over the track. George mentally blessed the man who invented steam engines—he could reach Katie so much sooner. Dear little thing! how vexed and troubled she must be—and George grew quite lachrymose over her desolate condition. But it seemed ages to George before they whirled up to the platform at Groton, and then he did not wait to practice any courtesy. He leaped out impetuously, knocking over an old lady with a flower pot and a bird cage in her hand, demolishing the pot and putting the birds into hysterics. The old lady was indignant, and hit George a rap with her umbrella that spoiled forever the fair proportions of his bridal beaver, but he was too much engaged in thought of his lost bride to spare a regret for his hat. He flew through the astonished crowd mashing up a crinoline here, and knocking over a small boy there, until he reached the clerk of the station. Yes, the clerk believed there was one lady who had come alone; she had gone to the Belvidere House —She must be the one. George waited to hear no more. He hurried up the street to the place, where the landlord assured him that no lady of Katie’s style had arrived; perhaps she had stopped at Margate, ten miles back. George seized on the hope. There was no train to Margate until the next morning, but the wretched husband could not wait all night—he would walk. He got directions about the roads; was told that it was a straight one—for the most of the way through the woods—rather lonesome but pleasant. He set forth at once, not stopping to swallow a mouthful. Excitement had taken away his appetite. The fine day had developed into a cloudy evening—the night would go darker than usual. George hastened on, too much excited to feel fatigue—too much agonized about Katie to notice that he had split his elegant French gaiters out at the sides. After three or four hours hard marching he began to think that something must be wrong. He ought to be approaching the suburbs of Margate. In fact, he ought to have reached the village itself sometime before. He grew a little doubtful about his being on the right road, and began to look about him. There was no road at all, or rather, it was all road; for all vestige of fences and wheel tracks had vanished— there was forest, forest every where. The very character of the ground beneath his feet changed at every step he took. It grew softer and softer, until he sank ankle deep in mud; and, suddenly, before he could turn about, he fell in almost to his armpits. He had stumbled into a quagmire! A swift horror came over him! People had died before now in places like this—and it would be so dreadful to die thus, and Katie had never knew what had become of him. He struggled with the strength of desperation to free himself but he might as well have taken it cooly. He was held fast. Thus slowly the hours wore away. The night was ages long. The sun had never taken so much time to rise in; but probably it realized that nothing could be done until it was up, and was not disposed to hurry. As soon as it was fairly light, George began to scream at the top of his voice, in the hope that someone who might be going somewhere might hear him. He amused himself in this way for an hour; and at the end of that time you could not have distinguished his voice from that of a frog close at hand, who had been doing his very best to rival our hero. At last, just as George, was beginning to to despair, he heard a voice in the distance calling out— ‘Hallo, there, is it you or a frog?’ ‘It’s me,’ cried George, ‘and I shall be dead in ten minutes! Come quick! I’m into mud up to my eyes!” Directly an old woman appeared, a sunbonnet on her head and a basket on her arm. She was huckleberrying. ‘For land sake,’ cried she, ‘you’re in for it, ain’t ye? ‘Sarved ye right! I’m glad of it! Didn’t ye see the notice that the old man put up, that nobody must come a huckleberrying in this ere swamp?’ ‘Huckleberrying!’ exclaimed George angrily. ‘You must think a fellow beside himself to come into this jungle, if he knew it! Huckleberrying, indeed, I am after my wife!’ ‘Land sake! Your wife! Well of all things, I declare I never!’ ‘She got on the wrong train, and so did I; and I expect she’s at Margate, and I started from Groton last night to walk there, and lost my way. Help me our, do, that’s a dear woman. The old woman steadied herself by a tree, and being a woman of good muscles, she soon drew George out—mud from head to foot. He shook himself. ‘There, if you’ll show me the way, I’ll go right on.” ‘No you won’t, either! You’ll go right over to our house and have a cup of coffee and something to eat, and a suit of the old man’s clothes to put on while I dry yours; and I’ll send Tom over to Margate with the horse and wagon to bring your wife.’ ‘Your’e a trump,’ cried George, wringing her hand. ‘God bless you! You shall be rewarded for your kindness.” Mrs. Stark’s house was only a little way distant, and to its shelter she took George. Tom was dispatched to Margate to hunt up Mrs. Jameson; and George, arrayed in a suit of Mr. Stark’s clothes—blue swallow tailed coat, home made gray pantaloons, cow hide boots, and white hat with broad brim—for the Starks were Friends—felt like a new man. They gave him a good breakfast, which did not come amiss; and, while Tom was absent, the old lady made him lie down on the lounge and take a nap. Tom returned home about noon. He had scoured the whole village, but found nothing, Only one passenger had left the train at Margate on the previous day, and he was an old man with patent plasters for sale. Poor George was frenzied. He rushed out of the house and stood looking first up and then down the road, uncertain which way to wend his course. Suddenly the train from Groton swept past, and a white handkerchief was swinging from an open window, and above the handkerchief George caught the gleam of the golden hair and blue ribbons! He cleared the fence at a bound and rushed after the flying train. He ran till he was ready to drop, when he came upon some men with a hand car, who were repairing the road. He gave them ten dollars to take him to Groton. He was sure he could find Katie there! But no. The train had not stopped at all. This was the express for Buffalo. But a bystander informed him that a lady answering the description he gave of Katie had been seen the day before at Danville, crying, and saying she had lost her husband. George darted off, He caught with avidity at the hope thus held out. It must be Katie! Who else had lost her husband? A train was just leaving for Danville.— He sprang on board, and suffered an eternity during the transit, for it was an accommodation train, and everybody knows about those horrible delays at every station. But they reached Danville at last. George inquired for the lady who had lost her husband. Yes, she was all right—she had gone to the American House to wait for him. She expected him by every train, till he came, said the ticket master. He hurried with all speed to the American. Yes, she was there, said the clerk; she was waiting for her husband; room 221, right hand, second flight. George flew up stairs, burst open the door of 221, and entered without ceremony. She was sitting by the window looking for him, with her back to the door. He sprang forward, and holding her in his arms, rained kisses upon her face. ‘My Katie! my darling! my darling! have I found you at last?’ She turned her face and looked at him before she spoke, and then she set up such a scream as made the very hair stand on George’s head. ‘You are not my James! Heaven!— help! heavens! Somebody come, quick! I shall be robbed and murdered! Help!— murder!—thieves !’ George stood aghast. The lady was middle aged, with false teeth, and a decidedly snuffy looking nose—no more like the charming little Katie than she was like the Venus de Medici. He turned to flee just as the stairway was alive with people alarmed by the cries of the woman. They tried to stop him, but he would not be stayed; he took the stairs at a leap, and landed somewhere near the bottom, among the wreck of three chambermaids, and as many white-aproned waiters. And before any one could seize him he was rushing down over the front steps. A lady and gentleman were slowly ascending them, and George in his mad haste, ran against the lady and broke the rim of her bonnet. ‘You rascal!’ cried the gentleman with her, ‘what do you mean by treating a lady in this manner?’ and he seized our hero by the collar. Then, for the first time, George looked at the couple before him. “Tis Katie! Oh, Katie!’ cried he, for this time there was no mistake; it was Katie and her uncle Charles. ‘Oh, my wife! my darling!’ He tried to take her in his arms, but she fled from him in terror. ‘Take that dreadful man away,’ she cried. ‘I am sure he is insane or drunk! Only see his boots and his awful hat!’ ‘I tell you I am your own George! Oh, Katie, where have you been?” exclaimed he. Katie looked at him now, and recognizing him, began to cry. ‘O, dear! that I should have ever lived to see this day! My George that I thought so pure and good, faithless and intoxicated! Oh, Uncle Charles, what will become of me?’ ‘My dear niece, be patient,’ said her uncle. ‘I think this is George, and we will hear what he has to say before condemning him. Mr. Jameson, I met your wife in the cars yesterday, and she informed me that you had deserted her at the Windham depot. Of course I could not believe that your absence was intentional, and I persuaded her to remain here while I telegraphed to the principal stations along the road for information of you. Why did I not receive an answer?’ ‘Because the telegraph does not run into old Mr. Stark’s huckleberry swamp, where I had the honor of spending last night,’ said George, losing his temper. ‘But this extraordinary disguise?’ ‘My clothes were muddy, and I have got on Mr. Stark’s,’ said George. And though the explanation was not particularly lucid to those who heard it, they were satisfied. ‘My dearest George!’ cried Katie, rushing into his arms; ‘and so you did not desert me, and I shan’t have to be divorced?’ ‘Never, my darling! And we’ll never be separated again for a moment.’ ‘No, not for all the baggage in the universe! Oh, George, you don’t know how I have suffered.’ The crowd could be kept ignorant no longer, for scores had assembled round the hotel, drawn thither by the disturbance.— Matters were explained, and cheers long and loud rent the air. The landlord got up an impromptu wedding dinner, at which Kate presided; and George, looking very sheepish in Mr. Stark’s swallow-tail, did the honors. They proceeded on their tour next day— and soon afterward Mr. and Mrs. Stark were delighted to receive a box by express containing the lost suit of the old gentleman, and the wherewithal to purchase him another, besides the most handsome drawn silk bonnet for Mrs. Stark that the old lady had ever seen. ‘There, old man,’ said she, turning from the glass at which she had been surveying herself in the new bonnet. ‘I allers told you that huckleberry swamp would turn to something, if it was only to raise frogs in. Guess I hit it sometimes.’

 The Vincennes [IN] Weekly Gazette 21 April 1866

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: With this, the final entry in our June series on weddings, brides, grooms, and courtship, one hopes that the young couple had better luck managing the rest of their life together.

Look for all kinds of informative posts, including some on on summer amusements and the seaside, in the month of July.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,”where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes.