People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 53, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1893 — THE GUARD IS WORSTED. [ARTICLE]

THE GUARD IS WORSTED.

Mr. Trotter Ask* a Question and As Brought Up Sharp. “Can this be love?” Tenderly gazing down into the limpid eyes of Agatha Swoggles, whose fluffy bang rose and fell regularly on her throbbing temples, Vernon Trotter asked himself this question while he took a clandestine hitch at his suspenders. About the couple lay the strange villages of the Midway Plaisance, shimmering in the moonlight. Low songs of night birds came to their ears in dreamy cadences, mellowed by distance and the warm night wind which greatly stirred the leaves above their heads. Happy in sweet soul communion, Agatha and Vernon gave no thought to their environments nor to the depressing fact that the morrow would bring toil, wheat cakes and bad Sixty-third street coffee. A long-drawn sigh was the only answer from the girl to the murmured query of her idol. Words could not express the sweet restfulness which overflowed her heart as she trustingly burrowed her little head into his shirt front No word escaped her lips and for some moments the youth gazed at her with eyes in which the love lights shone, straining his ears to catch a sound. But his ears stood the strain and returned to their normal position, for the girl spoke not An awful fear beset the heart of Vernon, causing him to start and gasp, while he clasped still closer to him the beloved burden within his arms. Could it be, he thought, that he had been mistaken? No, that could not be, for he was a Columbian guard. Why, then, this silence which echoed across the Plaisance and died away into the summer night? Again the youth leaned down close to her face—so blose that her face-powder made delicate tracery upon his ear. Gazing into her eyes, he said again: “Can this be love?” At this the young girl started. A gleam shot into her eyes, lighting up the darkness for eleven feet arofind, and she said: “Well, it seems to that if I had been monkeying around as long as you have I’d know whether it was or not, without asking any foolish questions.” —Chicago News.