Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 86, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1909 — MYRTLE MEADOWS [ARTICLE]

MYRTLE MEADOWS

“Dear Jean—l wish will all my heart that you could be here with us. It is simply glorious—the freedom, the restfulness, the thought that one may spend long, beautiful, lazy days with nothing to do but be happy. “No grim, type-writing machine staring one out of Countenance, a constant reminder of monotonous duties and work unending. No wo-man-hating employer with steel-blue eyes and patrician features to remind one that he is hand-painted, threefired French china, and you are only the commonest of kitchen pottery. “Thank goodness, that is all left behind in the old real estate office in Chicago, and Hazel and I revel in our liberty, eating crisp vegetables Just from the garden, devouring plump, fried spring chickens and golden, clover-flavored butter, and then we bathe and fish to our hearts’ content. “You see we are boarding in the dearest old farmhouse. We couldn’t afford to go to one of the fine Delevan Lake hotels, and now we are glad we couldn’t. We can wear our kimonos to our noontime dinner if we choose; we row on the lake, ride the fat ora horses and Hazel even tried once to help-milk the cows, but she made an awful mess of it. “Then we read and whistle and sing and string beans and hull peas, and this afternoon we put up a good joke on some one, we don’t know who yet. We were helping Mr. Brown pack some baskets of the biggest, most luscious blackberries you ever saw in your life, when I was seized with an idea, and Hazel and I wrote the softest, mushiest gush of a note that we could manufacture and signed two men’s names to it —John Hastings Dalrymple and Frank Huntington, giving the Delevan postofflce as our address. “We said we hoped our little whitewinged messenger might fall into the hands of two sweet maidens ‘fancyfree’ and begged if it should that they would write to us. We read the note to Mr. Brown and he laughed till his fat sides shook and promised not to give us away if he ever found a letter at the postoffice for the sentimental young men, so now we’re expecting bushels of fun out of it. "If any girls at one of the big hotels should happen to buy that basket of berries and answer that note won’t they feel too silly for anything after they find out how they’ve been fooled? Of course, we wouldn’t have gotten up such a correspondence with strange men, but it will be all right with girls. "How I hope some haughty, aristo cratic young ladies who would scorn a common girl stenographer may fall into our trap. “Can’t you come up for a week at least while we girls are here? “With no end of love. “Myrtle Meadows.” * * * * “The Lilacs,” June 25th. “Dear Jane —<What a dear you are to answer so promptly, and such a bright, newsy letter! Why I felt as if I had been having a jolly time- in Chicago myself, when I had finished reading it. You were perfectly right in dismissing Howard. A man who drinks to excess before marriage, isn’t apt to quit afterward, and it pays to stand firmly by one’s principles. I’m sure I shall, always. “Of course, it is easy to be good out here on the farm where there are no temptations only—but, that reminds me, ‘actually some simple girls did find the note we put in that blackberry basket, and answered it —but foolish things! “But their note wasn’t nearly so gushing and sentimental as ours, and what do you thin!;? They dared to lecture us on our Impudence in wanting to get up such a correspondence. They said we might easily get our affections entangled by regular adventuresses, and that we ought to be thankful so have fallen only into the hands of girls just graduated from school. “I tell you we both felt rather small and mean and silly ourselves after we had read that sage letter, but we were somewhat comforted by the closing page that grew quite poetical and friendly, even if It was unsophisticated and school-girlish. “And they assured us that they felt a friendly interest in our welfare, that they almost envied us our busy, happy life in the country, that they felt sure that at heart we were good and brave and true men, and finally consented to keep up the correspondence. “So, while it isn’t just as we expected, it will be great fun to fool them anyhow. “I am so sorry you can’t have your vacation before August, but you mrfst be sure to come here to board even if we are gone. Lovingly. “Myrtle Meadows.’* • • • • "The Lilacs,” June 28th “Dear Jean-Thank you so much for the books and papers and the little turn-down collar that is so neat and dainty it will always remind me of the thoughtful friend who made it. “Hazel and I are becoming quite excited over our correspondence with those strange girls. They are develTifllll wumin i'*iilip, anl a&jmuLtheia

very congenial and wonderfully interesting. I can hardly wait for their letters to come, and Hazel is just as eager. “We feel now that we’ll never be contented until we meet and have made friends of them, though of course they are not doing right by corresponding with supposed-to-be strange men. That’s the only thing we don’t like about them. “We get a letter from them! every day, now. They are staying at The Highland hotel, and we want to get Mr. Brown to drive up there with us some day this week, to see if we can’t pick out our unknown correspondents. “I’ll let you know what happens if we go. Myrtle Meadows. “Oceans of love.” • • • • “The Lilacs,” June 30th. “Dear Jean—We went, but we don’t KSow whether we saw or not. and we’re sure we didn’t conquer. “We were all eagerness and eyes when we went into the big hotel dining room, and not a girl escaped our scrutiny. "Finally we selected two sweet, re-fined-looking girls as our strange friends, and as we passed their tables on our way out, Hazel purposely caught her foot in the tailor-made skirt of one of them and stumbled and apologized most gracefully in a way which would have made any ordinary girl say something in reply, “But that girl merely acknowledged the apology with a cold nod, and began talking to her friend again as unconcernedly as if we had never existed. “Hazel blushed furiously and I felt awkward and uncomfortable, and just then I happened to look across the room, and there sat Mr. Ried, my handsome employer, you know. “He gave me such a queer, piercing look, that I felt as if he could see right through our little sham, and I was glad to hurry out of his sight, barely returning his bow. “And that's all there was to reward us—no romance, no anything but disappointment. “We’re determined to meet those girls yet, though, and I’ll tell you later how we are going to manage it. “You’re in luck to have had your brother give you such a lovely dimity gown, and lavender is your* color. “We are going after ferns now. Good-bye, dear heart. Myrtle Meadows. • * * • “The Lilacs,” July sth. “Jean Mclntosh, you’ll never, never guess what a perfectly awful thing has happened! I’m so shocked and ashamed and surprised that I can hardly write at all. "We wrote and asked those girls to meet us last Thursday afternoon underneath a certain peculiar old tree halfway between the farm and ‘The Highlands.’ “We didn’t really believe they’d do it. Somehow, judging from their letters, we thought they were girls yrho wouldn’t do such a rash and improper thing; still, we hoped they would come, and realizing how foolish such an act would be. “We asked them to each wear a red, red rose, and said that we would wear red roses, also, and that very afternoon we got a reply saying they would be on hand Thursday afternoon. "We were both glad and sorry; glad that we were to really see them at last, and sorry that their womanly instincts had not prevented them from consenting to meet two strange young men. even if they were simple farmers. “We decided to give them a lecture for their lack of prudence when we met, and then be friends forever after. “So we put on our prettiest gowns because we wanted to make a good impression, you know, and went gayly to our trysting place. “Oh, Jean, it’s dreadful to think of even yet, and hot, cold, horrified, delightful little chills and thrills run up and down my spinal column as I write of it. “When we reached the old gnarled tree with its rustic seat, .bird-concert, and glossy green leaves, we found — not two pretty, half shy, blushing girls as we had expected, but Mr. Ried and Dix Donahue, Hazel’s longtime friend and admirer, and each wearing a triumphant smile and a red, red rose. “We saw how it all was in a minute. They had bought those berries, had read that note, and Mr. Ried’s familiarity with my handwriting had betrayed our plot, at the very beginning. “Well, you can imagine how we felt —maybe. I Just stood there with the blood coming and going in my face, frightened till I was afraid to raise my eyes, while Mr. Ried came forward and took my limp hands in bis strong ones in a way that, made my heart almost choke me. “Hazel and Dix began by laughing merrily, but they disappeared so soon afterward that I could scarcely believe they had ever been there. “ ‘So this is my friend, John Hastings Dalrymple, who writes enchanting letters to strange young ladies, is it?’ said Mr. Rlsd“And to save my life I couldn’t think of a thing to say, and—and—could you be my maid of honor the tenth of next October, dear Jean? Your happy, happy friend. Myrtle Meadows. —Laura L. Rittenhouse.