Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1875 — LOVE BY TELEGRAPH. [ARTICLE]

LOVE BY TELEGRAPH.

Miss Pearl Silverly was telegraph operator at Jones’ Station, and Lucy Lorillard operator at Nineveh, the next point of communication, with nothing but the •distance to prevent their intimacy. They had never met, however, except electrically, and were total strangers to each other till one New Year’s morning, when it occurred to Miss Pearl to send the following telegram to her nearest neighbor and fellow-laborer: “To Lucy Lorillard— A happy New-Year. Pearl Silverly”— partly because she was idle, as hers was a branch route, with very little business and less pay, and partly because she was in need of a Mend and a friendly word. She had lately been in the habit of amusing herself wondering if this Lucy Lorillard found life pleasant, had father, mother, lovers and friends, and was like herself in nothing but in being a telegraph operator. The answer returned promptly: “ Thanks. The same to you, and more also. If wishes were horses, etc.” “ Rather slangy,” thought Pearl, “ but good-natured. I guess she has a brother at home.” And so the ice, once thawed, had no chance to stiffen again after this. fThere was little business, as I said, going over the lines from Jones’ Station to Nineveh, and, as the operator at the last-named place seemed likewise to have unlimited leisure on hand, the two held frequent electrical tete-a-tetea, and Peart began to feel as if she had known Lucy Lorillard from infancy —as if they had gone to school arm in arm and learned their lessons from the same hook. , Pearl’s home, if it deserved the name, was in her uncle’s family, where there were three cousins and an aunt, but no uncle now; a home where she hardly felt at home, where she enjoyefl no companionship, where she was perpetually harassed'and annoyed, where her opinions were ridiculea, and her sentiments and tastes received no sympathy; a home where there was no’ room for expansion except in the way of “long-suffering and bearing all things.” She always had a dread of returning to this roof-tree at night, a sort of ecstasy at leavingnt in the morning, especially after this new friendship had begun to coruscate across her days. To be sure, she ate her daily bread and slept the sleep of the just at Aunt Hidden’s, but she hoped and aspired and lived at the telegraph office, since friendship is as much a necessity to the human being as good dinners and soft couches. She could never exactly tell how it came about, but gradually, from exchanging pretty civilities apd pleasantries and the news of the day across the wires, she found herself presently telling this Lucy Lorillard, upon whom she had never set eyes,""almost everything she knew and felt and suffered or enjoyed, and receiving experiences and confidences and. words of comfort in return from said Lucy Loril-

lard. Nothing was too trivial and nothing too great for-the two to discuss across the lines between Jones’ Station and Nineveh, which had suddenly sprung into remarkable activity, and which at one time caused Lucy to remark, telegraphically, “ Our lines have fallen in pleasant f laces;” while Pearl answered: “When am here at the office, and can rap out a message to you, I forget who I am, and feel no longer homesick for a home that doesn’t exist, and alone in the world. You are in my .thoughts, sleeping or waking. If it weren’t for you, dear Lucy, I think my heart would break. No one cr.n tell how grateful I am for your friendship.” Lucy: “You silly puss! grateful to me, indeed! I receive a great deal more than I give. lam so happy that you think of me sometimes. Keep thinking. To live in your thoughts is a’ kind of immortality.” “Come! who’s silly now? Anybody would think we were lovers.” Lucy: “So we are, aren’t we? I wonder if-we should know each other if we were to meet by accident.” “ I should know you, of course—see if I wouldn’t. You’ve got great dark liquid eyes, such as poets rave over, with dark curling lashes, and a flickering color on your cheek, and thick waves of light brown hair; you’re tall and slender, and have a fatal dimple in your chin. There!” “ You’ve omitted my principal feature; otherwise you flatter my poor face and figure.” “Oh, an aquiline nose; and, let me add, you are fond of perfumes and jewels.” “ I am fond of one Pearl, certainly.” “ Now it is your turn to portray.” Luev: “Well, your eyes are large and blue, like forget-me-nots.” “ Aunt Hidden says they’re like burned holes in a blanket. * Don’t deceive yourself.” “Your nose is Grecian." “It has earned me the name of Pug at home, however—not willing to contradict such a Daniel as yourself.” “Your complexion is like the lily.” “Pad, by your leave.” “ Your hair is a skein of yellow floss.” “Pardonme; they call it unmitigated red at Jones’ Station; but no doubt they are color-blind.” Sometimes they conversed in this novel manner about the books they had read and the journeys they would take when their ships came in; about the music they thirsted to hear; about Now and Hereafter. “It struck me oddly the other day,” telegraphed Pearl, “ that I had never heard your voice. Wonder if I should recognize it. When I listen to the ‘ Traumerei ,’ which somebody plays next door, 1 seem to hear you speaking tome.” Lucy: “You shall hear me some day —to some purpose.” “I hope so. Would anyone believe that a companionship between two who had never seen each other could be so sweet? I sometimes fear that it’s too good to last.” “ Don’t you ever come to Nineveh, shopping?" “ No; I’m too poor. I don’t mind telling it, because I suspect you of she same infirmity. Don’t you ever come to Jones’ Station?” “Often—in spirit.” “ I used to be so miserable before I knew you! I used to think there couldn’t be anybody so unhappy. The beggarwoman had her child, the old crones at the work-house were friendly with each other, the humpbacked girl in the alley had a sister; and now /—have a friend!” “ ‘ Friendship is love without the wings,’ the poet says. Wouldn’t you rather say: /1 have a lover?’ ” “Nowyou’re teasing. There’s no love worth having without: friendship for a foundation.” “Amen.” Later: “ I’m going to confide to you how foolish I’ve been. I was invited to a ball —a county ball. Cousins Liz, Belle and Fan accepted. I made their gowns— Such beauties! pink and blue and seaSeen tarlatans, like sweet clouds. I felt ce Cinderella, and sat down and had a good, enjoyable cry after they were gone. I had nothing but my old brown alpaca to wear. I couldn’t sleep half the night, thinking of what I had lostsuch giddy galops, such mazy quadrilles! —though of course I would have been a wall-flower!” “ 1 The flower that all are praising.’ ” “ No; nobody but you.” “ No? I fancy you resemble the woman I heard a clergyman praise in his sermon last Sunday, with whom he said it was pleasanter to meet than a poem of Browning’s, Paul’s epistle, or a chapter of Epictetus!” “ I shan’t listen to such flattery. Our meeting will be one of disillusions.” Sometimes the telegrams were after this fashion: Pearl: “What are the latest things out in suits at Nineveh?” Lucy: “ The young men.” -—No trifling. How are overskirts?” “ Very much puffed up.” “ Perhaps you can tell how they dress the hair now?” “ With brush and comb still.” “I mean is it worn off the forehead now ?” “It is very much worn off the foreheads of the young ladies who crimp, and oft the crowns of the men who live in their hats.” “ How do you wear your own, pray?” “ Curled.” “Splendid! Have you such a thing as a lover?” » “ I have one devoted lover, for a surety.” “Splendid! I’ve sometimes thought—but no; you’ll tell him.” “ You won’t mind when 1 assure you that my lover is only myself, Lucy Lorillard. Now, you’ve sometimes thought ” “It would be delightful to be first in somebody’s heart.” “ No matter whose?” “ What a plague you are! It seems to me it would be so delightful to love somebody better than yourself—so well you could die for him!” “He would be a fine ‘ figger of a man’ to you die for him.” 7 “ You do know how to put an extinguisher upon sentiment.” ■V . A

Lfrter: Pearl: “ I’ve got something dreadful to tell you.” “And bad news travels fast.” “ I’ve got a lover.” “ I knew that before. What’s dreadful nbout it?” “ Oh, I don’t want him; he’s old. He might be my grandfather.” “ Saints and ministers of grace defend us!” “ And Aunt Hidden says it’s my duty to marry him.” “ And I say you sha’n’t.” “He walks with a crutch, but Aunt Hidden says I can ride in my carriage. He is deaf, but she reminds me that I am not dumb. He wears a scratch, but she assures me that ‘ scratch’ is only masculine for chignon.” “ Did I understand that you were willing to die for him ?” “ I’d sooner die than marry him.” “ Good. But you won’t do either.” “But I must decide to queen it at Gable Hall or be turned out of house and home.” 7 _ “My arms are open to you, as well as’ my doors.” “ How well that would sound, dear Lucy, if you were only a nice young man whom I might love! I hope you don’t think I’m improper.” “ I think you’re an angel, and the pink of propriety.” “ ’Squire Gable brought down the family jewels to dazzle me. Liz tried them all on. I couldn’t touch one. I felt that the dead women who had shone in them would rise up and curse me if I should purchase -them at such a price, and so cheapen love and all womankind. ’Squire Gable has a grandnephew who will come into his property if he marries no one, but he takes no notice of the young man, because his mother married against the ’Squire’s wish. This is all hearsay, however; it may not be true. But in the meantime the nephew is quite poor, they say. I pity him.” 1!| “ And pity is akin to love.” “ Yes—love’s poor relation.” Still later: Pearl: “ Advise me, dear Lucy. Aunt Hidden warns me that if I refuse Squire Gable she will wash her hands of me. So I temporize, like a foal.” “And the woman who hesitates is lost.” “ I demand a month for reflection. But when the month is ended, what am I to do? My salary here as operator wouldn’t buy my salt. I don’t know how to do anything else; nobody would give me board as a cook, sewing-girls are a drug in the market, and to beg I am ashamed.”

“ If you marry him, I’ll forbid the banns. All that I have is yours.” “ But the trouble is you haven’t got anything to speak of, you dear old goose.” “Not much, to be sure; but enough for us two.” “I can’t take even your bounty. You know the old story—poor and proud.” “Yon would rather take my heart and make no return?” “To tell the truth, I’m afraid to meet you. Now you can believe me everything that is beautiful; then there’ll be no more illusion, and you may not like the result. And I should die if you turned against me.” “ Then promise not to marry the ’Squire; take his poor grandnephew instead.” “If you’ll forward the young man. They say he lives in Nineveh, and that he’s one of nature’s noblemen. Do you know him?” “ I doubt if you’d agree to the description if you knew him as well as I do. However, you might prefer him to his granduncle.” “ I should prefer the King of the Cannibal Islands.” “Then why reflect'so long?” “ To gain time.” “ To waste it, I should say.” “bo be it. I’ll refuse him to-morrow, and trust to luck.” “Never put off till to-morrow what can be done to-day.” Later: “ I feel so wicked! I shall not refuse the ’Squire, and I shall not marry him. He was found in his library chair stiff and cold last night. Aunt Hidden says no doubt he has left me something handsome, and if he hasn’t, it’s a justice upon me! I shall never accept an iota. It belongs to his poor nephew, and would be only legalized highway robbery.” “You have the nephew’s prospects very much at heart; he ought to feel flattered.” Later still: “ Liz and Aunt Hidden went to ’Squire Gable’s funeral. I had a nervous headache, and so escaped. IR came home raving over the ’Squire’s grandnephew, the only mourner—she had eyes for little else. But how foolish I am! What do you care about ’Squire Gable’s nephew?” “ Perhaps 1 care more than I’d like to own, alas!” “ Ah, sits the wind in that quarter? They sent for me to be present at the reading oi the will. I didn’t go.” “You might have seen the grandnephew.” “ I wouldn’t have gone to see the Grand Lama. But I saw him at church, and thought it wouldn’t be so difficult to fall in love with him as with the ’Squire, upon my word—now don’t laugh—though he isn’t my beau ideal." “ Let those laugh who win.” Miss Liz was wondering if the’Squire’s Dephew would settle down in the old place or go sky-larking over the world, and if Parson Longmeter would bring him to call, or how she should contrive to make his acquaintance, and whether green •or blue became her complexion beat, like the foolish milkmaid in the story; while Aunt Hidden’s mouth was watAing on account of the old china and silverware at Gable Hall, “that might as well have been in the family as not,” she grumbled- “ ana there wasn’t a track in the carpets nor a scratch in the furniture, and I’ve no doubt there’s silks that would stand alone folded away in the attic, and nobody the better.” % And while she bewailed Pearl’s folly Lawyer Verdict dropped in to say that the ’Squire had left his money to Pearl and cut off the poor nephew with a paltry $500! 7;

Pearl hastened to telegraph the news to Lucy Lorillard. “ Now I fear you will not wish to share my cottage, gentle maid?” “ You don’t suppose I’m going to keep the filthy lucre?” answered Pearl. “ I certainly do.” “ I wouldn’t touch a copper of it for the world.” “ If you don’t keep every cent I’ll have nothing more to say to you.” “You’re joking, of course.” “ I was never more serious in my life.” “ I can’t believe it of you.” “If you give up the money you will give me up, too.” “Then dearest friends must part; you are not the one I took you for.” “ I’m your best friend, howeYer,” “ I couldn’t follow your advice and satisfy my conscience.” “ Then you love your conscience better than me.” “ I could not love you, dear, so well, Loved I not honor more.” “Let me persuade you to keep it.” “You cannot; the woman doeii’t live who could.” “ Let me come and talk to you.” “ You may come and talk till the heavens fall.” “Shall our interview take place at your aunt’s?” • “ With Liz at the key-hole and Belle at the closet slide? No; here at the office. The messages are too infrequent to signify ; only you and I have kept the wires from rusting.” “ But all that is at an end. To-mor-row, then, at the office. Ain’t I a disinterested mortal to travel to Jones’ Station just to persuade you to keep a fortune?” “Excuse I call it a fool’s errand.” “Philanthropists are always called names. Au recoir." Pearl waited at the office next day in a fever of expectation. What would this friend be like, whom she was about to deny herself, this friend whom she had once longed and now dreaded to see—persuasive, and difficult to resist, with soft dove eyes? Every step upon the stairs sent a quickened pulsation through her being; yet she was already absorbed in her reverie when the office door swung open and admitted a dark-browed woman. In an instant the color flamed and flickered in Pearl’s cheeks, her eyes dilated, her hands trembled; but the dark-browed lady calmly wrote a’ message and made way for the gentleman who had entered behind her—a somewhat short and thick-ly-built man, with large gray eyes and curling blonde hair and mustache, whom Pearl instantly recognized as ’Squire Gable’s nephew. Again the warm flush stained cheek and forehead. Had he come to upbraid her? Had he come to demand his own, to appeal to her sense of jus tic® What if Lucy Lorillard should meet him, then ? Why not steal a march upon Lucy and put it utterly beyond her power to be persuaded ? Not that she doubted herself. Why not, before he could demand it or reproach her? “Excuse me,” she faltered, “if I take this time to speak to you about a matter that troubles me. You are ’Squire Gable’s nephew. I merely wish te say, as I may not meet you elsewhere, that I do not mean to accept the fortune left me in his will. I shall restore it to the rightful owner as soon as the lawyers can arrange it.” “Your motives are commendable; but do nofflisquiet yourself,” returned the ’Squire’s nephew. “ Another and later will has been unearthed, which renders your somewhat Quixotic design unnecessary, as the bequests are now reversed; I have the fortune and you the SSOO. Pardon; but I have a message to write.” Which he scratched hastily off, and gave to Pearl, who presently dropped in aheap into the nearest chair and burst into tears at the discovery that Lucy Lorillard was a man! The telegram read: Let me persuade you to accept not only ’Squire Gable’s money, but his graceless nephew, Lucy Lorillard. “It was perfectly inexcusable, I allow,” Lorillard averred, later; “but what can a man do when a pretty girl wishes him a happy New Year? I took pains to satisfy my eyes many a time and oft, and found she "was more than fancy painted her. And as for the rest I have my maternal grandfather, one John Lucy— Seace to his ashes! —to thank for the igacy of his name, which I always despised till I found out that Pearl Silverly loved nobody so well as Lucy Lorillard.” And so, you see, Pearl was persuaded, after all.