“This dream has determined us – we shall never marry” — Three-Cent Silver Trime Coin

Today, the Three-Cent Silver Trime Coin remembers a vintage news article that is perhaps more fiction than fact from 158 years ago.

This story told by an “editor,” who refers to himself with plural pronouns, can be found in several books of anecdotes from the mid-1800s.

This version came from the Painesville Telegraph of September 29, 1859:

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An Editor’s Dream.

A bachelor editor, out west, who had received from the fair hand of a bride, a piece of elegant wedding cake to dream on, thus gives the results of his remarkable experience:

We put it under the head of our pillow, shut our eyes sweetly as an infant, blessed with an easy conscience, and soon snored prodigiously.

The god of dreams gently touched us, and in fancy we were married! Never was a little editor so happy. It was “my love,” “dearest,” “sweetest,” ringing in our ears every moment. Oh, that the dream had broken off here! But no! some evil genius put it into the head of our duckey to have pudding for dinner, just to please her lord.

In a hungry dream we sat down to dinner. Well, the happy pudding moment had arrived, and a huge slice almost obscured from sight the plate before us.

“My dear,” said we fondly, “did you make this?”

“Yes, love, don’t you think it is very nice?”

“‘Tis the best bread pudding I ever tasted in my life.”

“Plum pudding, duckey,” suggested my wife.

“Oh, no, my dearest wife, bread pudding. I was always fond of ’em.”

“Call that bread pudding,” asked my wife, while her lips slightly curled with contempt.

“Certainly, my dear—reckon I have had enough at the Sherwood House to know—bread pudding, my love, by all means.”

“Husband, this is really too bad; plum pudding is harder to make than bread pudding; and is more expensive, and a great deal better. This is plum pudding, sir!” and my pretty wife’s brow flushed with excitement.

“My love, my sweet, my dear love,” exclaimed we, soothingly, “do not get angry, I’m sure it’s very good, if it is bread pudding.”

“You mean wretch,” replied my wife, in a higher tone, “you know it is plum pudding.”

“Then, ma’am, it’s so meanly put together, and so badly burned, that the devil himself wouldn’t know it. I tell you madam, most distinctly and emphatically, and I will not be contradicted, that it is bread pudding, and the meanest kind at that.”

“It is plum pudding,” rose above the din, as we had a distinct perception of feeling two plates smashed across our head.

“Bread pudding,” we groaned, in a rage, as the chicken left our hand, and flying with extremely swift motion across the table, landed in madam’s bosom.

“Plum pudding,” resounded the war cry from the enemy, as the gravy dish took us where we had been depositing the first part of our dinner.

“Bread pudding, forever,” shouted we in defiance unsuccessfully dodging the soup tureen, and falling beneath its greasy contents.

“Plum pudding,” yelled the amiable spouse as noticing our misfortune, she determined to keep us down by piling on our head the dishes with no gentle hand. Then, in rapid succession, followed the war cry. “Plum pudding,” she shrieked with every dish.

“Bread pudding,” in smothered tones, came from the pile in reply. Then it was “plum pudding” in rapid succession, the last cries growing feebler, until we just distinctly recollect, it had grown to a whisper. “Plum pudding” resounded like thunder, followed by a tremendous crash, as my wife leaped upon the pile with both feet, and commenced jumping up and down.

Then, thank heaven, we awoke, and behold it was a dream.

This dream has determined us—we shall never marry.

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The Three-Cent Silver Trime Coin shows with an image of an advertisement with a man cutting into a plum pudding, circa 1876.

Three-Cent Silver Trime Coin