The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1877-03-31
She Was Too Secretive.

Z" KNOW she loved me secretly" said
Mr. Ford, telling me of his courtship of
Miss Bramble, over at Hare's Corner;
but somehow l 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 gewgaws and
tlummerY; she was fond of useful things;
and SO my first present to her was coal
galvanized iron. When l hand
ed it to her she gave kind of smile,
and / thought she was going to thaw,
but she didn't. So the next day l brought
her round couple of bars of soap and
tine-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 trlpped on the carpet.
She took those tokens of affection as
calm as statue. They never touched
her a particle. The next time l thought
maybe I'd fetch her with sixteen feet of
! india-rubber hose, with brass nozzle, to
play 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
of the back window with no more mani
festation of a wildly-beating heart than
if she'd been clam.
1t puzzled me like thunder Blamed
if | knew how could break the ice. /
took around pair of tongs and couple
of gridirons, but they never faxed her
offered her a three-legged skillet and
washboard, but it was no use. She had
more self.control than any woman ! ever
saw. went there finally with a molasses
Jug and three or four fiat irons, and the
only display of romantic interest that
she made was to ask me if l, considered
her an internal fool, and 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 repress-
ing herself, putting her emotion under
safety-valve, so to speak.
ooh, Itook her lots of things: cabbage
slicers, tack-hammers, stomach pumps,
sausage. machines, soap-stone griddles,
slop- buckets, dust-pans, dish-cloths,
jellyniolds, 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 feel
ings were too sacred to be revealed even
to me. SO one day dropped in with "A
blue and yellow door-mat and Dutch
cheese. When she saw me coming she
seemed to be afraid she might give way
and unloose the torrent of her passion,
so she flew out of the room making some
remark to someb body in the entry about
idiots l didn't catch the drift of the
conversation. Blowing up the servant
girl, l s'pose. And directly in came the
old man. And the first thing he did was
to kick me. Never said word, mind
you, but just walked near me, 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, UNI
til smelt like glue factory, and then
he chucked me downstairs. I've never
been there since. love Mary too much
to fight with the old man. | thought
maybe she'd write TO me, but she has
not, and it's queer, too, for passion like
she has for me must be killing her by
inches. Don't you think it musty"
had an opinion about that woman's
love, but didn't express il. Ford II go
round there again some day, and the old
man II put load of quail.shOt in him.
MAJ AdeLer.