KinSource

Minnesota Tales

The Minneapolis Journal, October 3, 1907, p. 5


SUES SWEETHEART HE DIDN'T MARRY.


BUT SWEETHEART CHEERFULLY SPOILS HIS SCHEME.


Frederick Degerlund, Tho He Married Another Woman, Goes to Law to Get Money He Gave Mathilda Granlund to Help Pay Her Passage - But He Doesn't Get It.


It was his daughter and his ducats that bothered Shylock. With Frederick Degerlund, on the other hand, it is his sweetheart and his kroner. These kroner, it should be understood, were 150 in number, amounting to $41 in our money. They were the bone of contention in the lawsuit of Degerlund against Granlund, in the civil branch of the municipal court, the trial of which came to an end today, when Judge Waite handed down a decision for the defendant, and the effect of this is that Frederick loses his kroner. The sweetheart was already lost to him.

As a matter of law, perhaps the story of Mathilda Granlund, the defendabt, should not come first, but as a matter of logic it seems to be entitled to the top line. Mathilda was living in the old country when, as she avers, she received a letter from Frederick, already a citizen of Minneapolis, asking would she come over and be his sweetheart and wife. She didn't answer that letter, but when another came, asking her if she would come and be Frederick's sweetheart and wife provided he would send the money to bring her over, the proposition began to look rather good to her, and upon due reflection she made reply that she would not only come over and be Frederick's sweetheart and wife, but she would pay half the passage money herself. On that condition and no other, she says, Frederick sent her 150 kroner, which she put with another 150 kroner of her own, and journeyed over, fully expecting to carry out the rest of the bargain and become Mrs. Degerlund.

His Fancy Strayed.

But in the meanwhile (this is Mathilda's story, you are to bear in mind) Frederick had allowed his fancy to stray somewhat afield; so much afield, in fact, that another girl was already much better entitled, as a proposition in law, to become Mrs. Degerlund, than was Mathilda. And Mathilda, like a sensible girl, was not rendered inconsolable by this. On the contrary, she cast for those proverbial good fish that always remain in the sea, and in the course of a few months she landed one. That is to say, she married another fellow, while Degerlund married the other girl.

So Frederick lost his sweetheart. To be sure, that didn't much bother him, but how about the kroner! The kroner would get on his mind, and the more he thought about them, the more he wanted them back. That is why he brought the suit at length. In his complaint he set up and asservated that the money was merely loaned, in a neighborly way, but in the full expectation that it would eventually be repaid. Frederick hadn't a word to say, in his complaint, about having wanted Mathilda for his sweetheart and his wife.

But when he took the stand to testify in his own behalf, the lawyers did not omit to inquire about that.

"Didn't you send this money on condition that Mathilda was to marry you, at once she arrived in this country!" they asked.

"Oh no; nothing of the sort."

"What did you send if for, then!" they persisted.

"Why, to pay the freight on her," answered Frederick, looking very innocent.

Mathilda had Kept Frederick's letters until she reached this country, when they mysteriously disappeared. She had her theory as to what became of them, but that didn't change the fact that they were gone and couldn't be produced in evidence. However, it was just as well for her. Judge Waite took her testimony rather than Frederick's, and found no cause for action.


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