No Wine At The Wedding

"ÏTo wine at the wedding?" And Charlie May's nose went up. "No wine at the wedding?" And the corners of Fred Perry's mouth went down. 'No wine at the wedding? Pooh!1' said Major Balstaff, with a nose shaped like a bottle. "No wine at the wedding? Ughl" said young Dr. Sheafe, his eyes red enough with brandy to suggest pepperminls. "ïhere is no doubt about it. The edict has gone fo.-th," said Charlie May oracularly. "Sue Dillingham says so, and when Sue's pretty mouth is set for saying 'No' all the orators in the world, from Demosthenes down, could not change it to saying 'Yes,' provided she thinks a thing ought to be so and so." '■But I shouldn't think Fred Bartol would submit to it," said Major Balstaff, who swelled in public like a gobbler, but in private obsequiously subniitted to the vigorous rule of Mrs. Balstaff. "Fred Bartol has been converted on the temperance question since he becauie interested in Sue," said Charlie May, sneeringly. "That is no discredlt to Mm." This last speaker was Frank Maynard. "O Frank! are you going over to that side of the question ?" said Fred Perry. Frank slightly blushed as all turned their eyes upon him. "No, I have not gone over." The aíter-dinner company oí' loiterers in the office of the tavern now separated to their business duties, all exceptiug Major Balstaff, who strutted up and down the floor of the office, wondering how Fred Bartol could "submit" to a woman in such an important matter as this. Soon there was a pull at the Majur's military coat-tail. "Father, mother wants you," said a little urchin. "Oh! does she? Ahem!- l'll be there instantly, Dicky, teil mother." The office was speedily deserted. Frank Maynard, the young man who declared that Fred Bartol's temperance stand was no discredit to him, thoughtfully reflectedupon the matter as he walked to his place of business. "The wedding comes off to-night," he said to himself, "and no wine is to be there. I am glad of it. There is one person who wou ld go home with a muddled head if they had it, and that peraon would be Frank Maynard. I have so much to do with figures nowadays that I can't afford to have the headache that would inevitably follow my wine at any wedding. Ho! have I got to the ohl depot so soon ?" Yes, there was the depot office in wMch Frank was a book-keeper. "Good afternoon, Mr. Maynard." The speaker was the superintendent of the road, Mr. Ferry. "I wanted to aee you, Mr. Maynard, and ask a favor. You know the Dillingham bridal party going off tonight will be a pretty large one. Mr. Dillingham has been here and chartered a special train to take them all to the city, the company of friends from outside being pretty large. The 'night freight' goes through about the time the party starts, only ten minutes before them. I wish you would be over here and see that things in general are right. They will be right, 1 know ; but the station-agent wants to be off, and I shall be obliged if you will be here." "A.11 right, 8ir." And Frank added to himself : "If there is no wine at the wedding 1 shall bring a clear head with me." The wedding was a very brilliant iiiTair. The reception was crowded. "Everybody ia here," thought Frank Maynard, "and everybody is happy." There were a few exceptions to the general happiness, but these were momentary. When supper was served, and the drinkables proved to be cofle) and lenionade, Charlie May 's nose once more went up, and the corners of Fred Perry'a mouth went down. Such crookedness of features soon disappeared, however. "This coft'ee is superb," said Charlie. "DeliciouB lemonade," said Fred. Major Balstaff, as he contemplated the coffee and lemonade, was about to ejaculate "horrid," but Mrs. Balstaff was ahead of him. She belonged to the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. "How delightful," she exclaimed, "these simple drinks arel" "Delightful !" echoed the major obediently. The only incorrigible arrumbler was Dr. Sheafe. His eyes,"though, the next morning were more comfortable than they had been for some time. Frank Maynard was sincerely happy over the situation. "Miss Dillingham," said Frank to May Dillingham, the bride's sister, "it may seem like gratuitous comment by me, but I like this temperance wedding." "Thank you. Sister Sue did not know how it would work. I like it and I ani glad you like it." "What a nice-looking conple Frank Maynard and May Dillingham niake, major," said Mra. BalstafE. "Very nicelcoking," he replied, and this remark was not an echo, but his own independent opinión. Frank Maynard went to the depot congratulating himself on his clearheadedness and steadiness of nerve. "I shouldn't have dared," he observed to himself, "to take any responsibility about railroad trains af ter some weddings." Frank soon airived at the station. "Everything seems to be right," he said, and there is nothing for me to do except to quietly stand here till the bridal train goes. There's the wedding-party in their car, or will be as soon as Sue Dillingham and her husband arrive. And here comes the hack with that couple. All here now in good season, ten minutes before the night freight slips tlirougli. What a good time they are having! " Yes, they were happy. Above the dull, muffled sound of the lazily-escaping steam from the locomotive, Frank heard the merry jest and hearty laugh. "Time for the freight expres?," said Frank, looking at his watch. "And there it is !" Yes, it liad turned the curve near the depot, and was thundering along, its brigkt head-light flashing liko the flery eye of some monster that was roaring down the track. It came nearer, and was about crashing past the depot when Frank started. He had been watching the play of the sharp light of the locomotivealong the track. As the light came closer and closer, like an awow of üre-8hot along the rai!, he noticed a point in the rail where the light suddenly ceased ! Did the rail come to an end there? "ís the switch- " Frank did not want to think the word "wrong" was the next one, and yet he fouud it shuping itself in his thoughts as he asked the question, "Is the switch - wrong ?" The next moment he said: "The switch has not been set right! The freight-train is on the track leading to the train of the bridal party, and one train will telescope the other 1" Frank comprehended the whole situation at a glance. At one end of the depot was the train containing Sue Dillingham and husband ind friends. He conld see the fomis through the shining windo ws of the car. He fancied he still heard their echoing peala of lauehter. Who thought of risk, of harm ? Who saw any shadow of death falling within a hundred feet of them ? At the other end of the depot was that advancing train, relentlessly advancing; moving towards the bridal car with a fatal precisión, a hideous monster with the glare of a demon in that piercing, threatening eye. It was a fiend of death coming, the iron wheels of the locomotivo urging it forward, and then ). iiind were twenty heavily loaded cars contributing their fearful momentum. It was a long, heavy, terrible battering-ram driven steadily, mercilessly, fatally forward to crash into the joy, the jubilant hopes, the Ufe only a few feet away ! A weight of responsibihty like a fearful incubus pressed upon Frank Maynard. It seemed to crush him into a terriñed, hopeless iuactivity. He made one efiort, threw oS the load, and sprang tor the switch only a dozen feet away f rom the freight locomotive. He seized the lever of the switch, pressed it lack, threw the misplaced rails into their proper position, and instantly the huge locomotive crashed by, s weeping harmlessly past the unheeding bridal party. What a nightmare dropped from Frank Maynavd's shoulders! "Thank God for a clear head to-night!" said he. "Ah ! Maynard," cried Charlie May, ru8hing up to him. "you did a glorious thing, old fellow." "Yes," added Fred Perry, who was close behind Charlie, "we supposed everything was right until you grabbed that switch." Two such tongues were enough to cover with gossip the territory of a large town in twenty-l'our hours, and all about the depot they detailed the switch afiair. The Dillinghams and their friends rushed out of the bridal car to express tneir gratitude. "We owe a good deal to you," said the bride and her husband to Frank Maynard. "I feel it i3 due to the fact that you had no wine at your wedding," replied Frank. "And you may thank yourselves," he modestly added. "Well, we can't repay you," said the bride. "No, no, indeed, exclaimed May Dillingham admiringly. However, Mr. Dillingham tried to cancel a part of the debt, and, as he was president of the road, secured a very fine position for Frank. In two years May Dillingham also cancelled another fraction of the obligation by consenting to speedily become Mrs. Maynard. "So," said Mrs. Balstaff, "there is to be another weeding at the Dillinghams." "I hope they will have wine at it," silently reflected the major. "I hope they will not have wine at it," audibly observed Mrs. Balstalï. "Don't you?" "That's what I think exactly," echoed the major, submissively flourishing his military coat-tails. In an article in N&ture, Edward Huil takes the ground that it was the enormous ancient tides which caused ;he vast planes wbich can only be due to the grinding and denuding power of marine forcé. He urges that the Iemand of the geologist for "unlimited time" is one which the astronomen will not concede, and geologists must pay some respect to astronomers and mathematicians, after all. He puts bis theory in this terse sentence, and the italics are his own : "What we require ia not time, butforce, in order to account for the planing away of vast masses of obdurate strata over extensive areas." We have suspected that the main question is one more of foroe than of time, but if it was the ancient tidal forcé that did the work, it is still a question to what period in the e'„ernity of the past it daten back. A florist will introduce next summer the "Oscar Wilde sunflower." The plant is dwarüsh and pyramidal in form ; the flowers are small, with jetblack center, surrounded by an overlapping row of broad, deep, golden-yellow petal?. The peail üsheries of the Persian Oulf alïord support to about 8ö,00O families.