Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 May 1907 — OLD FOGY LOVE [ARTICLE]

OLD FOGY LOVE

lam an old buffer now—at least, so I hear the young fellows call me behind my I have had a not altogether unsuccessful life. Why should I deny it? In outward honors at least I have had a brilliant if not great career. “Lucky!’—well, Woodburn will do; ’tis near enough—was the name by which men knew me at the bar, though ’tis only the older generation now which will be able to recall it unless indeed some diligent and sober minded student, digging among the archives of the past, should perchance unearth a certain book on torts and see the name on the title page of this, alas, now antiquated volume. 1 i Then I am back again walking in schoolboy cap and jacket along the Avon banks with Hetty Price—bright, laughing, quizzing Hetty. Ah, what a sad havoc her merry brown eyes made in my youthful studies! She lost me the Latin prize and was the unconscious cause of getting me more than one good swishing, and old Nobs—he became a bishop afterward—could lay it on too. But nevertheless I would not part with that period of my life in spite of the swlshings and for all the prizes that ever fell to the lot of a S—bury boy. It was a bright, merry, mischievous face which ever played hide and seek upon the pages of my books, and it was a corner by the river that I ever saw in my mind’s eye when I should have been following Cyrus in his interminable wars or hamifaering out Irregular verbs with old Le Broeq, the Fredch master. And the fellows wondered what was up with old Woodburn, whose interest in cricket had gone and ever preferred his own company to that of his fellows.

Every half holiday whefi the others flocked to the cricket nets or the fives courts I betook myself off on my own business, meeting Hetty now here, now there, as the necessity for secrecy demanded. She was, I found, a curious mixture of sound common sense, which was her own, and romantic aspirations, which she had acquired from “Bow Bells” and such like literature. Her great ambition in life was to go on the stage, and it was of this that she dreamed as she polished up the glasses behind the bar or drew a tankard of ale for Ben Hoskins, the carter, wlio winked his eye in un-Romeollke fashion as the cool home brewed went down his dusty* throat “But” as»ebe shrewdly remarked, “I am not such a fool as to throw up the Farmers’ for an uncertainty. I am waiting for a chance.’’

“Bow Bells,” “Bow Bells,” Hetty! Many a one has, like you, longed and hoped for the fairy who is “going to change all that” and waited, waited until at last there comes not the good fairy, for she is away in other folks’ concerns, but a wrinkle here, a gray hair there and stern reality to obliterate the rosy dreams of youth. Not long after this I left B—bury through causes which do not concern us now and saw no more of Hetty Price. Our farewell was tender. At the time I thought it the bitterest pang of my life. Once only I heard from her, long years after, when I was no longer amenable to school discipline, and as her letter makes much plain I do not hesitate to produce it in full. I have it still by me somewhere. It ran:

Dear Mr. Woodburn—You will doubtless be surprised to hear from me after all these years, but I thought I would like to know how things are going on. There is also another reason, as the Inclosed will show. Well, I remained at the Farmers’ for a long time after you left—much regretted—waiting for the chance which was so long in coming, but it came at last. I answered an advertisement and left the monotony of the Farmers’ for the wider stage of a traveling company, by which means I hoped to reach the heights of fame. Eighteen months passed by, but, alas, the fame was as far off as ever/and the discomforts present, and, while at one time I envied those behind the footlights, I now grew to envy those in front, until at last I wished myself back again. The chance came, and, as you see, I am here once again, not in my old capacity, however, for I have entered into a permanent engagement, having, under conditions, a theater of my own now. being manageress and part owner thereof. In this business I am associated with another, whose name may be seen on the playbill over the door—to wit, Joseph Maddox, once miller’s foreman, now landlord of the Farmers’. Now. If ever you come to S. again perhaps you will come and have tea with us if you have turned teetotaler, or a glass of beer if you have not, and I will draw it myself for the sake of pld times —that Is, of courserlf you forgive Joseph, who, I fancy, has something to say. From yourt,' with kindest remembrance, HETTY MADDOX (once Hetty Price). Heigho! So Hetty Price had married Joe Maddox! This, then, was the end of her ambitions. Lord, how jealous I used to be of Joe, and Joe doubtless of me! How mad, too, I should once have been if I knew that Joe would marry Hetty! But somehow now I felt that it was only as it ought to have been in the fitness of things. Anyhow all is fair in love and war, I suppose. Good luck to them both, and long may the Farmers’ Arms flourish! And I sent them a present, and at dinner that night I drank to the success of the Farmers’ Arms and the health of its landlady, once Hetty Price—merry, laughing, mischief loving Hetty—my first love.—Englishwo man. Ths Catbird. He’s due in May. His wings are very short, It is said he steals fruit His song is demeaned by catcalls. He is of a slate color. * ’ He has a Jekyll and Hyde temperament He la, exquisitely proportioned, measuring nine inches. Mrs. C. looks much like him and lays six of the prettiest dark green : blue eggs.