The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1876-11-15
Two Dollars a Year.
a GIRLS FIRST LOVER.

Others msy come after him-others
usually do come after him. for seldom /,
1t that a girl marr.es her first love-hut
to none does she ever attach that strange
intangible interest, sacred with never
expressed plthos, which sttaches TO her
first sweetheart Her memory Of him
Is like the faint delicate perfume which
still clIngs about that first wild rose of
summer that he gave her during the first
tete-a tete walk that they ever took to-
gether in the woods How well she re.
members it all 1t was the first summer
after she left school. 1t was a little out.
OF the way summer resort where she was
staying with party of friends, and where
he CHANGED To come, too, and, after meet.
ing her. fingered.
She was little huttered to find her
self walking alone with him, quite by
accident, Of course both tried to keep
up livel y and natural conversation, and,
as consequence, it was perfectly absurd,
somewhat constrained, and altogether
fragmentary.
Then he saw this rose, the only one
upon bush full of buds that grew close
to the moss grown trunk of fallen tree
gust over the source OF tiny stream of
water that wound, like a tangled thread,
III and out among the trees. He gath
cred and gave it to her with half shy,
half laughing loOk-so transparency
conscious in its endeavor to be uucon-
sciouS and with a remark intended TO be
sprightly.
And she took it, between IA blush and
a smile, with swift; uplook from eyes
that were busily playing hde-and-seek
under the becoming shelter of long
ldshes.
She tucked it in at the waistband Of
her dress, just as she would have done
any other rose.
He does not know-he will never
know-that as soon as she was alone in
her room, with the door locked, she drew
it carefully from her belt and kissed it
daln.ily, though with repressed passion,
before she exalted it to the position of
honor in her pet vase, a bit Of pretty
china, just big enough to hold this one
flower fifty, and in honor of il filed care
fully with clear cool water by her own
pretty fresh fingers, rs rosily tipped as
those of Aurora in the act of drawing
aside the curtains of the dawn.
What was the unspoken compact be-
tween them that caused her, standing
before her glass in her simple white
dress that evening, to pose her flower
shyly among the FURNISHED waves of her
hair?
VIII she ever forget how his eyes
thanked her? VIII she ever forget the
night on which she wore it? Was there
ever another night like that? VIII
there ever be again?
For her, no. For every girl who has
yet to meet her first love, yes. There
will be just one such for each girl, but
never another.
Was it the earth she trod on How
beautiful everything was As if the world
was Just new made The lights, the
music, the gay chatter, bright smiles,
ringing laughter And when she danced
with him she seemed to have wings to
her feet. Then at last they were alone to-
gether in the cool, fragrant, dewy darkness
outside and to he together, to be arms
in arm, to hear each others voices, that
was all they cared for. There was no
other world for them that night. They
were separated from our common earth
by such swift flowing tide Of deep but
unspokon delight Unspoken, because
young affection is too sacred for words.
First love is born dumb, and learns
speech but slowly. Deep down in each
heart was the rapturous consciousness of
loving and being beloved by the other,
which is worth lifetime Of " / love
yous
1t brimmed each heart with a sufiicing
delight, even as a fiower-cup is brimmed
with dew. The sun will drink the dew
up by and by, even as the world drinks
up this fountain Of innocent gladness.
But the dew has been in the flower cup
and in the girls heart. First love, whose
memory never departs.
The wild rose in her hair was withered
when she again stood before her glass,
with flushed cheeks and new brightness
in her eyes. But she laid it-as care
fully as a young mother might lay her
first born in its cradle-between two
pages Of Tennyson, upon poem that he
had read to her the day before. 1t rests
there still.
70 careless observer, what matters a
worn copy Of Ternyson, with withered
wild rose pressed between its leaves?
But to her it is all that is left, maybe,
of the purest and tenderest romance Of
girls life: it is the first gift Of her first
lover