HER NINTH WEDDING.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2148, 2 August 1907, Page 3

HER NINTH WEDDING.

In the picturesque little Indiana town of Newburg lives Mrs. Polly Weed Baker, In towns of the sizo of Newburg gossip is its own excuse, but where did gossip over find such wonderful material as in the life of Mrs. Baker? For this lady has been married no fewer than nine times, and, according to a writer in a Now York pnpor, is still dissatisfied, loveless, and alone! By the same authority we are told that she has “lost track” of the dates of her weddings; ; she remembers them only as roman- ! ces and tragedies. It was in the fif- ■ ties that Polly Castle lived at her j father’s home near Newburg. Liko j every young girl, her dreams were | colored by romance, and one day ; young Henry Fouquay came into her life, and all the world was spring. They married, and for seven years they tried to solve tho riddle of happiness together. It took them a few minutes to be made man and wife; it took seven long years to find they were not mated. But she would have fought for her happiness, would even have put a smiling mask on the face of her sorrow, but Fouquay would not be content with the masquerade ; he sought something more real, and one day the law put an end to the farce, and Polly Fouquay came face to face with tragedy. Fouquay was her first love. Perhaps even now he has a heart-, • for ,after all, a woman may be happy with any man, but the man she is willing to be unhappy with is the man she loves. TVas it the thought of this first love that first attracted her to his soldier cousin, James Fouquay? If she sought happiness in reminiscent pleasure, James Fouquay sought for his in more material ways. And one night when his blood was hot and his brain afire, he snapped out a revolver, and, but for the unsteadiness of the hand that had once protected her, this little wife of Newburg would have been lying in her grave these many years. Divorce followed, and she returned to her father’s farm. Disheartened and weary, the pursuit of her ideal began to tire her; she would have rested. But Fate in the person of her father spurred her on.

Taking a fancy to one of kis farm hands, he could see no reason why Polly could not care for him too. She didn’t care; heartsick as she was, whatever life had in store for her at this moment was immaterial. It was the ennui, of passion, tolerance, that she gave to James Henry Robinson. And he was only a man; he sought happiness elsewhere. The honeymoon was scarcely over before she discovered his infidelity. Again the law stepped in, and she was single once more. Then into her life, fullgrown, came the most wonderful instinct the heart' of a woman can contain—the love of love. The woman who possesses it clothes the beggar in purple, sprinkles perfume on dead roses, touches all shadows with the sunlight of her caprice. George Boydon was a shadow. Morbid, filled with dark thoughts, he came to her at the moment when her heart ached for love. For a while his sad nature appealed to her that subtle fascination that the mysterious hap for all women. For ten years this fascination held. She began to see the outlines of happiness. How eagerly she watched and prayed. She fought the passing of another love song, but the threats of suicide became too loud, too frequent, and the hand of the law finally closed the door and left the man on the outside. Four years passed, and at a peried when years count- Then came one of the sweeter romances that she loves to recall. Samuel R. Weed was his name. He courted her, he married her, and four more years slipped along. Four years of peace, four years of so-called happiness, and then came death, and she was again loit alone. She had gone too far in her search for the unobtainable, she could not turn back. The siren cal of love had changed to a commanding tone. The gossip of the sewing circle has it that she tried her luck wit one of her former husbands; at any rate Boydon, the morbid 'one, soon afterwards becamo her mate again. She had found him in Evansville penniloss and a drunkard, but with a remnant of the old fascination still upon him. She gave him another chance, and. hoped for herself. He made short shrift of himself one night, jumping into a well to his | death. She tried to follow him, bu death. She tried to follow him, but her friends restrained her. With the death of Boydon went his fascination for her, and one day she became the wife of R. Edward Edwards, a painter. The Methodist Minister did not sanction the marriage, but the law had no scruples and allowed the experiment to be tried, and when after a short time it turned out a failure, the law, with its accustomed consistency, gave the lady freedom. She lived alone in the homo that love had built, and for a long while was content to draw aside from the path she had taken and review the past. Perhaps she wanted to take the one good quality each one of her husbands had possessed and build them into something like an ideal that beckoned to, her. Then one day, tiring of trying to, breathe life into the creatures of her fancy, she married again. WiHiam Boker, an electrician, drifted into the little town, he was to work on the wires of an electric railway, and the work was a matter of months. He sought rooms in the town, and fate pointed to the path that led to Mrs. Edwards’ home. She gave him rooms there and a permanent abode in her heart. He grew weary of both. He left her; she strove to keep him; fought with the despair of one who feels her last hope of happiness slipping from her finders; but he cursed her, deserted her, and—again the law will have its tun}! ■

Lord Linlithgow, in tho course o a ltter to a friend in Molbonrne, rc fers to an incident that happone' while ho was Governor of Victori; in tho onrly ninotios. Ho was tin guest- of Mr Hyland at Wurrnam Pool' in 1891, and ho says:—“l wol remember tlio episode nbout tin I whisky distillers. Poor Brisbano, in: clerk, brought mo my paper wit! the protended portrait of Mr. Christii and I exclaimed, ‘Why that is mo, I know myself by tho frock coat. I was married in ltl” It appears that Detective Inspector Christie had been despatched from Melbourne to Nirrnnda, tho rugged and heavily-tim-bered country east of Warrnambool, to capture somo illicit whisky distillers, who had been trading in the district for some years. Disguising himself as a swagman, ho offocted the capture after somo shooting, and so great was tho public excitement that an evening papor published in Warrnabool promised its readers a photograph of the detective. When the photograph appeared it was that of Lord Hopotoun, and below in large type appeared the words, “Dotcetivo J. M. Christie, the Terror of Illicit Whisky Distillers.” Speaking at the annual re-union of the Huddard-Darkor Company, Mr W. T. Appleton, managing director, said that the company waß still progressing and keeping pace ,vith tho times by the addition of tew tonnage to its fleet. Since tho ast- gathering ho had been to Engand, and placed eiders for two now iteamers. One of these, a cargo boat lamed the Yarra, was now on her vay out to Australia, having left s'owcastlcvon-Tyne oil Ist Juno, in barge of Captain W. H. South, wlio ,s well 'known on the Australian coast. The other, a twin-screw passenger steamer, intended for tho AustralianNow Zealand trade, was being built " at Dundee, under tho supervision of Mr. Wm. Cumming, tho company’s superintending engineer, and should soon he launched. They had decided to call tho vessel the Tilimaroa. Very shortly, Mr. J. L. Webb, one of the directors, and Captain Free R.N.R., tho marine superintendent, would lie leaving for England to take tho Übmnroa over from the builders, and bring her out to Australia. Mr. Appleton thanked the staff generally for the assistance given to him in carrying on the work of tho company.