Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 65, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1909 — A SHOCK [ARTICLE]

A SHOCK

We were leaning over the front gate. I held both her hands in mine and looked into her moonlit eyes, t was twenty, she not quite eighteen. I was going west to seek my fortune. When I had made a competence—l couldn’t bear to consider more than three months sufficient for the purpose—l was to return and take her back with me. “Life in the meanwhile,” she said, "will be one long period of waiting.” “it will seem an age to me.” “You will be engrossed in business. That will make you forget.” “I shall never forget. I shall lay down thirty days for each month pH paper and each morning check oneoff. To see them disappear will be my only comfort” There was silence for awhile. A distant clock struck 11. "In seven hours my train will be pulling out the station. I have yet to pack." “Must you go?” “Yes. Farewell." But another hour passed and I was not gone. The same clock struck 12. I drew her to me. There was a long long kiss. Then I turned and without looking back hurried away. A month of daily letter writing, a month of alternate day writing, a month of weekly writing—the three months that I had laid out wherein to attain the wherewithal to bring her to me—had passed, and I had only just found a position giving me sls a week. The correspondence died a peaceful death. There were no reproaches on either side. In youth associations are forming and reforming rapidly. One autumn it is Charlie and Will and Tom and Lucy and Mary and Fannie; the next spring it is Charlie and Arthur and Pete and Ethel and Maud and Kate. Youth is but a kaleidoscope—the same colors under different groupings. Two years after leaving home I could not tell who wrote the__ last letter, she or I. Three years and I couldn’t have told whether her eyes were black, brown or hazel. Five years, and one day in ransacking among a lot of rubbish I came upon her picture —the picture I had dreamed over for hours at a time. She married and went to another city to live. I didn’t hear her married name, or if I did I forgot it. It was twelve years from our parting over the gate before I saw her again. It was at a summer resort. I had become infatuated with a girl of twenty, fresh as a new blown rose, and when the hot season came I followed her to the country. She was chaperoned by her aunt, Mrs. Schenck, apparently about forty, with grizzly gray hair, a pinched expression and a sharp voice. She had five children, all of them with her, and no nurse. Surely was not that enough to spoil any woman’s attractiveness? I became engaged. It was evening, and I was obliged to leave the next morning. I told my story and was accepted at the last moment before my departure and as everybody at the hotel was going to bed. When I set off for the train she went with me down to the gate, and we stood leaning over it, I without, she within. I held both her hands in mine and looked into her moonlit eyes. I assured her that I should look forward to her return to the city with eagerness, and she promised to cut short her stay in the country. We heard a locomotive whistle, a distant rattle, drawing nearer, and a train stopped at the station below: then presently the moon shone on something white, and a woman came up the path. “Oh, Aunt Juanita,” exclaimed my fiancee, “where have you been?’’ I started. I had cause to remember that name—that uncommon name—Juanita. “To the postoffice to get Frank’s letter. He always posts it to come on this train " "I’m so glad you’re here that you may congratulate us on our engagement. It only occurred a few minutes ago. I am so happy." “I rejoice with you, my dear. I know just how happy you feel, because your lover made me feel just as happy a dozen years ago. j “You are” —I exclaimed. “Certainly I am." “Oh, aunty, whaj does this mean?” “A case of puppy love between two puppies.” “And did he —surely he did not play you false.” "No more than I did him.” “Singular," I interposed, “that I didn’t recognize you.” “Not at all. A woman, especially a married woman with five children, grows old very quickly; while a man usually stands still till he is past forty.” Then, kissing her niece, she said to her; “I wish you every happiness, dear. I can conscientiously recommend your lover und assure you that you will be happy with him. And I ought to know, for I have tested him myself as a fiancee.*' I departed in a singular state of mind. My happiness had received a shock. I regretted nothing. I did lot blame myself nor my first lure. Thus far I had lived under the impression that elderly people had come from some far distant land with which the rest of us have nothing to do. Here was one of my own generation who had passed In a twinkling, it seeded, from the bnd to that bloom wherein the petals falL —Horace B. Gaylord.