The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1877-07-21
An Undem0nstratiye Sweetheart.
Max Adeler.

know Miss Bramble loved me secretly,
but somehow I could never get her to
confess it. | tried to work on her feel
ings with presents, but she baffled me.
She used to say she hated gew-gaws and
fummery; she was fond of useful things
and so my first present to her was coal
scuttle - galvanized iron. When |
handed it to her she gave kind of a
smile, and | thought she was going to
thaw, but she didn't. So the next day
L brought her around a couple bars of
soap, and fine tooth comb. At first |
imagined she was going to fall into my
arms and cry, overcome by emotion.
But no; it was only her foot that trip
ped on the carpet. She took those
tokens of affection as calm as a statue
They never touched hera particle. The
next time | thought maybe I'd fetch her
with sixteen feet of India-rubber hose,
with a brass nozzle to squirt on the
flowers in the garden. But she held in,
she restrained her feelings, she never let
on once. She grabbed those sixteen feet
and passed them out the back window,
with no more manifestation of wildly
beating heart than if she'd been clam,
1t puzzled me like thunder. Blamed
if | knew hOuc | could break the ice. |
took around a pair of tongs and couple
of gridirons, but they never faxed her.
| offered her a three-legged skillet and a
dashboard, but it was no use She had
more self-control than any woman | ever
saw. ] went there finally with amolasses
jug and three or four hat-irons, and the
only display of romantic interest that she
made was to ask me if | considered her
an internal fool. When | told her of
course ! didn't, she upped with the fiat
irons and heaved them through the sash,
and she chucked the molasses Jug over
under the sofa. But she never said right
out that she loved me; kept depressing
herself putting her emotion under a
safety-valve, so to speak.
o, | took her lots of things; cabbage
slicers, tack-hammers, stomach-pumps,
sausage-machines, soapstone griddles,
slop-buckets, dust-pans, dish cloths, jelly
moids, whalebones, hooks and eyes, legs
OF mutton, recipe-books, butter crooks,
and ever so many articles, which would
have stirred up most women, but she
was too bashful to own up; her feelings
"NhN WV SaNiNu W bC 1CNtditu tNtll W
me. So one day dropped in with a
blue and yellow doormat and Dutch
cheese. When she saw me coming she
seemed afraid she might give away and
unloose the torrent of her passion, so she
flew out of the room making some re-
mark to somebody in the entry about
idiots" / didn't catch the drift of the
conversation. Blowing up the servant
girl, | s'pose. And directly in came the
old man. And the first thing he did was
to kick me. Never said a word, mind
you, but just walked near me, lifted my
coat tail and kicked me like thunder
Then he slung the blue and yellow door
mat into the street; then he grabbed the
cheese and smashed it over my head,
until smelt like glue factory, and then
he chucked me down stairs. I've never
been there since. | loved Mary too
much to fight with the old man.
thought maybe she'd write to me, but
she has not, and its queer, too, for a
passion Ike she has for me must be kill
ing her by inches; don't you think it
must?