Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 215, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 September 1915 — Injured Romance [ARTICLE]

Injured Romance

"It certainly looked as though Providence was helping us,” said the woman who had just got back from her summer home in the country. "My youngest sister, Sallie, is at the romantic period that all girls live through when all you can do to save them is to lock them up in a dungeon, and the law won’t allow that! I’ve been so worried for fear she would marry that man! The trouble is he looks so attractive! But I knew the first time I laid eyes on him that If he lost his money his wife would be the one who would have to slave and economize Instead of him. I felt It In my bones that If the coffee was poor he’d make her wish she had died when she was young and happy! But there wasn’t a bit of use telling Sallie that! I even listened sympathetically when she raved over his taste in neckties, the superb fit of his clothes and the way he looked at one when he talked. And yet they say that girls should be allowed to pick out their own husbands!

“My heart sank when he came across the lake to visit us. Before his arrival I had hopes of John Derrick, who Is so much everything that a girl should fall in love with that of course Sallie wouldn’t pay any attention to him at all. “Gerald was quite the most beautifully got-up Individual," continued the woman who had just got back from her summer home, “when he came out in his white flannels, that you could hope to see, and he bent over Sallie like a duke when he handed her anything. John had to go fishing alone that evening, because Gerald kept Sallie on the porch. He said he was surprised that she would ruin her hands with hooks and minnows and such things. That settled it! A man who dislikes fishing has a kink of some sort in his character. Sallie just sat there drinking In his monologue on higher art and ethics of life and the poetry about her eyes. Meanwhile, poor John was down alone on the pier getting pneumonia maybe and mosquito bites certainly, with no one to sympathize with him. I could have slapped Sallie with good will. “John came back to our place to dump what was left of the bait In the minnow tub and to say good night, and then he went home to his cottage like a soldier, leaving Sallie on the porch with his hated rival. He remarked casually that he believed he’d start early next morning on the canoe trip that he had spoken of and would be gone several days. I could see Gerald’s eyes gleam with satisfaction, and Sallie seemed stricken dumb for a minute with surprise. However, she turned to Gerald the next second with a satisfied sigh that sent John careening off through the geranium bed, thinking it was a path. •Finally I called Sallie In and said it was getting late. Gerald said he believed he’d walk down to the pier and smoke a last cigar and he held Sallie’s hand longer than he had any business to when he said good night. “I was nearly asleep when Sallie woke me. She said that there were queer noises in the yard below. We tiptoed to her window and listened. Now, you have to keep minnows In something big and we have ours in a tub out near the house. And the man who brought the load of stones for the rockery two days before had spilled them out near the same place. I could make out a white gleam and I whispered to Sallie that It must be Gerald returning. The white blot stopped suddenly with an awful ’Woof!’ and I knew he had run into the strip of chicken wire stretched between two trees to keep pedestrians out of a flower bed. He tried again and banged into a tree. Then quite distinctly I heard his opinion of people who did not have electric lampposts and cement walks in the country.

” ‘My goodness! ’ Sallle gasped, in horror. Tlush!* I told her. His exquisite sensibilities are hurt and you can’t blame him!’ Then he came on in the dark again carefully. He stubbed his tie over one rock that had rolled out from the rest, and swore. Then In two seconds he plunged headlong into all of them. The carnage was awful and the language illuminating. “ ‘Be quiet!’ I ordered when Sallle moaned. What can you expect when his beautiful Ideals get bumped that way?’ "Just as Gerald straightened up and struck out again he hit the minnow tub and went in head first. Those fish must have been surprised to shoot through the air as they did. "Sallie was clutching me and .weeping over his terrible temper, but I had presence of mind enough to remind her that his nature was very fine. Then I dragged her into a kimono and down stairs with me, because I wanted to. complete the lessen. I had the lights on when Gerald finally got in. He looked like a cross bear and the victim of a steam roller and a drowning. I said sweetly we had come to see if he needed any help and then Sallie fled. "She seemed sort of subdued during the rest of Gerald's visit and wnen John came back she literally fell on his «eck. Yes, they’re to be married at Christmas! Oh, mercy no! To John, of course.