The Bloomfield times. [volume] (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1867-187?, 1873-04-15
A PROPOSAL IN THE DARK
ssXT ES, will PROPOSE" said Mr.. Pat
terson Conklin. "She expects

me pretty strong hint. When she sang,
Why don't the men propose, Mammal
I'm certain caught her eye. Yes, and
there was an interrogation point in her
very glance. She expects it, she has
right to expect it, and I'll do it."
Mr.. Conklin, having delivered himself
thus, put ON his coat and hat, and taking
a cane under his arm, sailed out into the
street.
Mr.. Patterson Conklin was a bachelor
of forty-five years. He was naturally pre-
disposed to matrimony, and had been just
on the point of committing it at least
twenty times in as many years. There had
been but one trouble-he could never bring
himself to propose. He had courted more
fair damsels than he had fingers and toes,
and he had lost them "'l, merely because
he couldn't or wouldn't ask them to name
the day.
Now Mr.. Conklin had been in love at
least twenty times, and yet he remained
unmarried. If you had asked him why is
this thus, he would have answered you as
follows:
"Every true lover has these little loves
before the great one comes; they are like
those pretty pieces of carved wood which
Columbus found floating in the Atlantic,
forerunners and signs that he was drawing
near his great goal and approaching the
end of his wandering across the ocean,
Now have reached the goal. The great
love aforesaid has arrived. The lady upon
whom lavish this great love is most beau
tiful, and her name is Minnie Clelland.
Tonight / shall lay my heart and fortune
at her feet"
This pretty little story about every true
lovers little loves foretelling the greater
one was not original with Mr.. Conklin.
He had found it in a novel that he had
picked up one night at Minnie's.
But, leaving Mr.. Patterson ConlIlin to
pursue his way, we will, if you please,
run on before, and taking glimpse at the
family of which his dy-love, the beautiful
Minnie, was the bright particular star.
Clelland, M. c., very soft spoken, sweet
tempered, round-bodied gentleman, over
whose shining bald head fifty summers had
bloomed and faded; Mrs. Clelland, small
black eyed woman of forty, who honored
her husband, and believed that his was the
most towering and gigantic intellect that
the world had ever seen, notwithstanding
the fact that Dobbs, the editor of the op-
position paper, persisted in calling him can
IDIOT" ga bag of wind, " ga cats paw for
the party leaders," and other choice names
too numerous to mention. Mrs. Clelland
was slow to wrath, but if she could have
fixed her bands in Dobbs hair only once,
his next editorial would have been written
in pain and anguish, without a scalp to hide
| his emotions
The other members of the family were
Minerva, maiden lady of forty-two, a
sister of the Hon. Horace, and Minnie, the
daughter, sweet little creature, who had
drank the sunshine of twenty summers still
bloomed in her cheeks, just as the old port
her father had drank bloomed in his nose Z.
Upon this particular evening the family
were gathered in an upper room, dignified
by the name of Mr.. Clelland's study. The
honorable gentleman himself was pacing
his room, with one hand behind him read
ing the evening paper aloud. Mrs. Clelland
was listening with rapt attention to the
mellow voice of her husband, the only mu
sic in which she took delight; Miss Clelland
was knitting and occasionally casting a
glance towards Mr.. Billy Montgomery who
was seated by the window with Minnie
whispering soft nonsense in her ear, as he
held her little hand in his.
SCI rather expected that Mr.. Conklir
would call this evening"" said Mr. Clel
land, laying down his paper
80, hope he will p cried Minnie, ''ant
if he asks me to sing, I'll repeat the dose
gave him last evening. Did you motto,
how he blushed when sang, why Don
the Men Propose? p
And if he should propose ?'' queriet
the honorable Horace.
shouiu "OSVPOo Vi OO'hsN, ""D"Ni0'
Minnie. 81 never had a proposal in my life
and am going to accept the first offer"
: Never had proposal9" whispered tn
young gentleman in the window sill.
"No Bill"
"Then what the deuce-what have
! been doing?'
"Well l don't know, Billy, Pm sure.
only know that you haven't asked me {