The time passed most delightfully to all present. Mr. and Mrs. Gray moved about among the guests dispensing pleasure and enjoyment wherever they went. But the bride and bridegroom were the chief attraction; she, with her naturally exuberant spirits, heightened by the excitement of the occasion, and yet tempered by her husband's dignified cheerfulness; and he, with his fine conversational powers and affable manner, drew around them an admiring crowd wherever they were. The young ladies and gentlemen promenaded and chatted gayly, while the more elderly ones grouped themselves together in different parts of the room for the purpose of social conversation.
Supper was served in liberal, handsome style; and Mr. and Mrs. Gray, assisted by Mr. and Mrs. Truman, attended to the wants of their guests in the most obliging and attentive manner. And when the hour arrived for the company to disperse to their respective homes, each one went away happy in the thoughts of having passed a most agreeable hour.
Mr. and Mrs. Gray accompanied their daughter to Weston the day after the wedding, when they met with a most welcome reception from Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, who had provided an evening entertainment for the bridal party, and had called together many of their friends.
They remained several days, during which time they saw their daughter nicely and comfortably ensconced in a neat little brick cottage, situated in a very pleasant part of the village, and which was henceforth called "The Parsonage."
Annie, or, we should rather say, Mrs. Lewis, united with the little church of which her husband was now the almost idolized pastor, on the Saturday after her marriage. It had been so arranged by Mr. Lewis that they should be married on Tuesday previous to their church meeting, that she might thus soon cast her lot among his people. She was welcomed with warm hearts and affectionate greeting; and when, on the following morning, her husband led her down into the stream, where but a few months before he had followed Christ in baptism, they received her from the liquid grave, a member of the household of faith, a laborer with them in the vineyard of the Lord.
JOHN E. HATCHER
Col. John E. Hatcher ("G. Washington Bricks"), a newspaper humorist who won wide fame in his day and generation, but who is now quite sealed over and forgotten, was born near Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1828. When a boy his parents emigrated to Tennessee. At the age of twenty years Hatcher became editor of _The American Democrat_ at Florence, Alabama; and in 1852 he purchased _The Mirror_, a paper which General Zollicoffer had established at Columbia, Tennessee. Some time later Hatcher disposed of that property, and accepted a position on the _Nashville Patriot_. He was fast gaining a reputation for his humorous sketches, paragraphs, and rhymes, which were floating through many Southern newspapers under his pen-name of "G. Washington Bricks."
Hatcher relinquished the pen for the sword when the Civil War began, becoming an officer on the staff of General Cheatham. After the war, or in 1867, Colonel Hatcher settled at Louisville, Kentucky, joining the staff of Prentice's then fast-expiring _Journal_. When, in the following year, the _Journal_ was united with the _Courier_, he became editor of the _Daily Democrat_; and when that paper was consolidated with the other two to make _The Courier-Journal_, he became one of the editors of the new paper, and continued to write for it so long as he lived. For a short time he did some special work for a Louisville publication known as _The Evening Express_, conducted by Mr. Overton.
A few years before his death Colonel Hatcher returned to his old home at Columbia, Tennessee, and founded _The Mail_; but he became "outside editor" of _The Courier-Journal_, laying down his pen for that paper only with his death, which occurred at Columbia, Tennessee, March 26, 1879. Consumption caused his demise and robbed Southern journalism of one of its finest minds. Colonel Hatcher married Miss Lizzie McKnight, daughter of a prosperous merchant at Iuka, Mississippi, and the early death of their only child, a daughter, coupled with consumption, hastened his own death. As an editorial paragraphist Colonel Hatcher has never had a peer in Kentucky or the South.
Prentice, the father of the paragraph, was a wit; Hatcher was a humorist; and his writings were often credited to Prentice by those who were not acquainted with the inner workings of the office. Henry Watterson has written this fine tribute to Colonel Hatcher's memory:
He was one of the silent singers of the press, but he lacked nothing of eminence except good fortune; for he was a humorist of the very first water, and had he lived under different conditions could not have failed of the celebrity to which his talents entitled him. Born not merely poor, but far inland, with no early advantages, and later in life with none except those furnished by a rural newspaper; ill health overtook him before he had divined his own powers.... His wit was not so aggressive as that of Mr. Prentice. But he had more humor.
He died in the prime of life and left behind him a professional tradition, which is cherished by the little circle of friends to whom a charming personality and many brilliant gifts made him very dear.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Courier-Journal_ (March 27, 1879); _Oddities of Southern Life_, by Henry Watterson (Boston, 1882).
NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPHS
[From _The Courier-Journal_]
Garters with monogram clasps are now worn by the pretty girls. They are rather a novelty yet, but we hope to see more of them.
"The New York _Telegraph_ advises people to marry for love and not for money." Good advice, certainly; but inasmuch as you will always be in want of money if you marry for love, and always in want of love if you marry for money, your safest way is to marry for a little of both.
Some of our contemporaries will persist in speaking of us as a "rebel." That we fought for the stars and bars with a heroism of which Marathon, Leuctra, and Thermopylae never even dreamed, the bones of half-a-dozen substitutes which lie bleeding upon as many "stormy heights and carnage covered fields" bear testimony abundant and indisputable, and that we suffer ourselves still to be called a "rebel" without unsheathing the avenging dagger and wading up to our knees in gore, is simply because there is already as much blood upon the hands of our substitutes as we can furnish soap to wash off without becoming a bankrupt. Nevertheless, if this thing is much longer persisted in, there may come a time when virtue will cease to be a forebearance. One more taste of blood, this sanguinary arm once more uplifted to smite, and the world will shudder.
General Grant says he won't call an extra session of Congress unless the war in Europe is likely to give us trouble. So he is determined that if the gods bring us one calamity, he will immediately step forward with another.
For list of candidates see first page.--_Banner_. For the candidates themselves--but you needn't trouble yourself to see them; they'll see you.
The French General Failly, who was killed by a Prussian shell, and was afterward murdered by his own soldiers, and subsequently blew out his own brains, is now a prisoner at Mayence--whether dead or alive, the telegraph does not inform us.
The Glasgow _Times_ tells of a man in Georgia, fifty years of age, who never in his life drank a glass of whiskey, smoked a pipe, or courted a woman. The poor wretch has lived utterly in vain. The man who has never sat by a beautiful woman, with a pipe in his mouth, a glass of whiskey in one hand, and the whalebones of her palpitating stays in the other, and "with a lip unused to the cool breath of reason, told his love," has no more idea of Paradise than a deaf and dumb orang-outang has of metaphysics. Even without the pipe and whiskey there is, strictly speaking, nothing disagreeable about it.
The United States navy has but one Admiral Poor. We wish we could say it has but one poor admiral.
WILLIAM C. WATTS
William Courtney Watts, author of a single historical novel which is regarded by many as the finest work of its kind yet done by a Kentucky hand, was born at Salem, Kentucky, February 7, 1830. His family has no record of his school days, but he was married to Miss Nannie Ferguson when a young man, and six children were born to them. Watts's early years were spent at Salem and Smithland, Kentucky, but he later went to New Orleans as a clerk in the firm of Givens, Watts and Company, cotton brokers. He shortly afterwards joined the New York branch of this New Orleans house, known as Watts, Crowe and Company, as a partner in the business; and from New York Watts went to Liverpool, England, to represent the firm of W. C. Watts and Company, which was the foreign title for the New Orleans and New York houses. For some years the business was very prosperous, and Watts, of course, shared largely in the firm's success. After the usual congratulatory messages between England and the United States had been exchanged, Watts is said to have sent the first cablegram across the Atlantic. After many years of prosperity, failure overtook the house of Watts, and he returned to New York, setting up in business with a Mr. Slaughter.
Some time subsequently he came back to Kentucky, making his home in Smithland, but rheumatism ruined his health, causing lameness, and making him an invalid for the remainder of his life. In Smithland, during days of illness, Watts wrote his splendid story, _The Chronicles of a Kentucky Settlement_ (New York, 1897). This novel of early Kentucky life is one of the most charming and delightful tales ever told by an American author, although founded upon fact and, in a sense, twice-told. _The Chronicles_ is the only book Watts wrote, and he has come down to posterity with this single story in his feeble hand. The preface, signed on the sixty-seventh anniversary of his birth, was done but ten months before his death, which occurred at Smithland, Kentucky December 27, 1897. He is buried in the cemetery of the little Kentucky town over which he cast the glamour of romance, almost unknown to its citizen of this day, and still unappreciated and unheralded by Kentuckians. His _Chronicles_ is known only to the student and collector, as it was never properly put before the public, though published by a powerful New York firm. His family knows little of his life and is quite careless of his fame. In years to come the _Chronicles_ may take high rank among the finest series of historical pictures ever penned of a single Southern settlement, and then William Courtney Watts will come into his very own.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Courier-Journal_ (December 28, 1897); letter from Watts's daughter to the author.
A WEDDING AND A DANCE[15]
[From _Chronicles of a Kentucky Settlement_ (New York, 1897)]
A few weeks after the race there was a grand wedding, and, this time, Squire Howard united in holy matrimony Jefferson Brantley and Emily Wilmot, the ceremony taking place at the residence of the bride's father. Joseph Adair and Horace Benton were the groomsmen, and Laura Howard and Ada Howard the bridesmaids. A young lady from Princeton was to have been one of the bridesmaids, but illness prevented her attendance, and Ada Howard took her place. The residence of Mr. Wilmot was too small to admit of dancing, but the company present had a merry time--the fun and frolic being kept up until a late hour. It was then the custom to "give" (hold) the infare at the residence of the groom's parents or some other near relative, but, as Mr. Brantley had no relatives in the county, his infare was held at the Brick Hotel in Salem, and great were the preparations made on the occasion--never had such an elegant and sumptuous table been spread in those "parts"; there were meats of many sorts, including barbacued pigs, and cakes, pastries, fruits, nuts, and wines and liquors in abundance. Silas Holman and Billy Wilmot were never in better trim, and their fiddles seemed the fountain of such ecstatic sounds as to set the nerves of old as well as young tingling with a pleasurable excitement which could only find its true expression in the quick and graceful movements of the dance. And dancing there was, and such dancing! There was Bird McCoy, who could "cut the double shuffle,"--spring into the air, strike his feet together thrice before lighting, and not lose step to the music. And among the young ladies--many of them country girls whose lives in the open air made them as active as squirrels and as graceful as fawns--were many good dancers, but it was conceded that among them all the slight, sylph-like Ada Howard was the best--"the pick of the flock." And the mirth and fun grew "fast and furious," and the "dancers quick and quicker flew." Nor did the fun and frolic cease until faint streaks of light in the East heralded the coming morn. They almost literally
"Danced all night 'til broad daylight, And went home with the girls in the morning."
And yet, be it said that, while there was a good deal of drinking that night, there was no drunkenness, rowdyism, unseemly behavior, or ungentlemanly conversation; for woe to the young man who at such a time and place, when ladies were present, had violated the recognized rules of decorum!
It is certain, however, that several young persons came very near that night being "fiddled out of the church." There was one gay, good-humored, hearty country girl who, when "churched" for dancing that night, admitted that she was "on the floor with the so-called dancers"; that she had a "partner," and took part in the movements; but, she contended, that inasmuch as she had not _crossed her feet_, she had violated no rule of the church. "What," she asked, "if I walk forward and backward and turn and bow _without_ music, is that dancing? And if I do the same when there _is_ music, does that make it dancing?" And the good old brethren, who were sitting in judgment, after mature deliberation, came to the conclusion that they were not "cl'ar on the p'int 'bout crossin' the feet." "And," said one, "if we err, let it be on the side o' marcy." "Yes," replied another, "but let the young sister understand that she must n't do it ag'in." And so the matter was settled.
FOOTNOTE:
[15] Copyright, 1897, by G. P. Putnam's Sons.
J. PROCTOR KNOTT
James Proctor Knott, he who made Duluth famous, was born at Lebanon, Kentucky, August 29, 1830. In 1851 he became a Missouri lawyer, and later a member of the Missouri legislature. For a time he was attorney-general of the state but, refusing to take certain test oaths prescribed for officials, his office was declared vacant and he returned to Lebanon, his birthplace. In 1866 Knott was sent to the lower house of Congress, and he was re-elected two years later. On January 27, 1871, he delivered his celebrated Duluth speech upon the St. Croix and Superior land grant, which effort brought him a national reputation as an orator and humorist, but which injured him as a constructive statesman--if he ever was or could be such a statesman!
Knott was in Congress again from 1875 until 1883, when he was elected governor of Kentucky. Governor Knott was not an overly forceful executive, but the people enjoyed his witty stories and speeches, and thus his term wore on and out. It was an era of good feeling, Kentuckians smiling and taking their governor good naturedly at all times. His brief eulogy to remember James Francis Leonard, the Kentucky telegrapher, was the finest literary thing he did while governor of Kentucky. The governor was dean of the law faculty of Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, from 1894 to 1901, when, old age coming on, he returned to his home at Lebanon, where the final years of his life were passed, and where he died on June 18, 1911.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: _Oddities in Southern Life and Character_, by Henry Watterson (Boston, 1883); _The Life of James Francis Leonard_, by J. W. Townsend (Louisville, 1909).
FROM THE DULUTH SPEECH
[From _Oddities in Southern Life and Character_, edited by Henry Watterson (Boston, 1883)]
Hence, as I have said, sir, I was utterly at a loss to determine where the terminus of this great and indispensable road should be, until I accidentally overheard some gentleman the other day mention the name of "Duluth." [Great laughter.] Duluth! The word fell upon my ear with peculiar and indescribable charm, like the gentle murmur of a low fountain stealing forth in the midst of roses, or the soft, sweet accents of an angel's whisper in the bright, joyous dream of sleeping innocence. Duluth! 'Twas the name for which my soul had panted for years, as the hart panteth for the water-brooks. [Renewed laughter.] But where was Duluth? Never, in all my limited reading, had my vision been gladdened by seeing the celestial word in print. [Laughter.] And I felt a profounder humiliation in my ignorance that its dulcet syllables had never before ravished my delighted ear. [Roars of laughter.] I was certain the draughtsman of this bill had never heard of it, or it would have been designated as one of the termini of this road. I asked my friends about it, but they knew nothing of it. I rushed to the library and examined all the maps I could find. [Laughter.] I discovered in one of them a delicate, hair-like line, diverging from the Mississippi near a place marked Prescott, which I supposed was intended to represent the river St. Croix, but I could nowhere find Duluth.
Nevertheless, I was confident it existed somewhere, and that its discovery would constitute the crowning glory of the present century, if not of all modern times. [Laughter.] I knew it was bound to exist in the very nature of things; that the symmetry and perfection of our planetary system would be incomplete without it [renewed laughter]; that the elements of material nature would long since have resolved themselves back into original chaos if there had been such a hiatus in creation as would have resulted from leaving out Duluth. [Roars of laughter.] In fact, sir, I was overwhelmed with the conviction that Duluth not only existed somewhere, but that wherever it was it was a great and glorious place. I was convinced that the greatest calamity that ever befell the benighted nations of the ancient world was in their having passed away without a knowledge of the actual existence of Duluth; that their fabled Atlantis, never seen save by the hallowed vision of inspired poesy, was, in fact, but another name for Duluth; that the golden orchard of the Hesperides was but a poetical synonym for the beer gardens in the vicinity of Duluth. [Great laughter.] I was certain that Herodotus had died a miserable death because in all his travels and with all his geographical research he had never heard of Duluth. [Laughter.] I knew that if the immortal spirit of Homer could look down from another heaven than that created by his own celestial genius upon the long lines of pilgrims from every nation of the earth to the gushing fountain of poesy opened by the touch of his magic wand; if he could be permitted to behold the vast assemblage of grand and glorious productions of the lyric art called into being by his own inspired strains, he would weep tears of bitter anguish that, instead of lavishing all the stores of his mighty genius upon the fall of Ilion, it had not been his more blessed lot to crystalize in deathless song the rising glories of Duluth. [Great and continued laughter.] Yet, sir, had it not been for this map, kindly furnished me by the legislature of Minnesota, I might have gone down to my obscure and humble grave in an agony of despair, because I could nowhere find Duluth. [Renewed laughter.] Had such been my melancholy fate, I have no doubt that, with the last feeble pulsation of my breaking heart, with the last faint exhalation of my fleeting breath, I should have whispered, "Where is Duluth?" [Roars of laughter.]