The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1877-07-12
An Undemonstrative Sweetheart.
[MaxAdeler

hA
know Miss Bramble lovedme secretly,
but somehow 1 could never get her to
confess it. I tried to work on her feel
ings with presents, but she bafied me.
She used to say she hated gew-gaws and
fummery; she was fondo of usefulthings;
and so my first present to her was acoal-
scuttle = galvanized iron. When !
handed it to her she gave a kind of a
smile, and l thought she was going to
thaw, but she didn't. So the next day
1 brought her around a couple bars of
soap, and a 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 1 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 a wildly
beating heart than if she'd been a clam
1t puzzled me like thunder. Blamed
if 1 knew hon. l could break the ice. ]
took around a pair of tongs and a couple
of gridirons, but they never faxed her
1 offered her a three-legged skillet and 9
dashboard, but it was no use. She hac
more self-control than any woman l evel
saw. 1 went there finally with amolasses
Jug and three or four ~hat-irons, and the
only display of romanticintere that she
made was to ask me if l considered hel
an internal fool. When / told her Of
course 1 didn't; she upped with the fat
irons and heaved them through the sash
and she chucked the molasses jug ovel
under the sofa. But she never said right
out that she loved me; kept depressing
herself, putting her emotion under {
safety-valve, SO to speak.
o, 1 took her lots of things; cabbage
~slicers, t~ack-hammers, stomach-pumps
sausage-machines, soapstone griddles
slop-buckets, dust-pans, dish cloths, jelly
molds,~ whalebones, hooks and eyes, leg,
of mutton, recipe-books, butter crooks
and ever so many articles, which would
have stirred up most women, but sh,
was too bashful to W up; her feeling
were too sacred to be revealed ever t
me. So one day 1 dropped in with
blue and yellow doormat and a Dutcl
cheese. When she saw me coming sh,
seemed afraid she might give away ant
u~nloose the torrent of her passion, so sh,
flew out of the room making some re
mark to somebody in the entry abou
"idiots." 1 didn't catch the drift of tn,
conversation. Blowing up the servan
girl, I s'pose. And directly in came tn
old man. And the first hing he did wa
to kick me. Never said a word, minC
you, but just walked lear me, lifted m,
coat tail and kicked me like thunder
Then he slung the blue and yellow door
mat into the street; then he grabbed tn,
cheese and smashed it over my head
until Ismelt like a lue refractory, and thel
he chucked me down stairs. I've neve
been there since. 1 loved Mary to,
much to fight with the old man.
thought maybe she'd write to me, bu
she has not, and its queer, too, for
passion like she has for me must be kill
ing her by inches; don't you think i
must?