The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1877-03-31
The First Time.

Is THERE a man among you all who
does not remember the important era in
his life when he went home with girl
for the first time?
All! you all recall it distinctly
Just how you stood on the broken
door steps of that old red country school
house, after singing school broke up, and
waited for Ann Eliza to put on her hood
and shawl, and finish up her gay gossip
with the other girls. How long you
thought she was in getting through. You
could have put on forty hoods and shawls
in the time. How strange it seemed to
you that girls should have so much to
talk about. How you stood first on one
foot and then on the other, and tried to
make yourself believe it was the cold
which put you in such tremor all over.
And you pleased yourself with fancy
ing how surprised she would be when
you offered her your escort, never dream
ing that the coquettish little jade knew
just as well what was going to happen
as you did. How did she find out? All,
don't ask us-we know nothing about it;
but you trust the girls for always finding
out that sort of thing. The intuition
comes to them as readily as swimming
comes to gosling.
By and by, after an age of laughing
and talking, and mut1iing up in furs and
scarfs, the girls pour forth, dozen or
more, and your Ann Eliza mixed up with
two or three other girls, and looking SO
straight ahead, and so profoundly igno-
rant of your presence, that your courage
begins to ooze out, and it is only by a
desperate effort that you leave the other
boys and approach her, with your little
set speech on your lips.
All the other boys laugh, and all the
other girls giggle.
But you are desperate, and hurry up to
her with your elbow stuck out at an acute
angle, and" Miss Brown, may l see
you home tonight"
How she does start, and how astonished
she looks-quite as much so as if she had
thought you at the antipodes all along;
and you would never mistrust from her
appearance that she had endured the tor
ture of cruel papers all day with espe-
cial reference TO your taste-and washed
her face in lemon juice and oatmeal be-
cause she had heard you say you detested
freckles.
She is clicked half to death" at your
preference, for she hates those Smith
girls, and she knows they have been
makinga dead-set" at you, but she is
as cool as cucumber at your proposal.
And why? That is conundrum we
give up. We know nothing about the
why's and wherefores which control a
woman's heart, especially the heart of a
young and pretty one.
And when she has kept you waiting
till there is lump in your throat which
threatens to sutfocate you, and your
knees knock together, and you feel as if
you wished you were at home in your lit
tie bed, she puts out two fingers and
fastens them to your coat sleeve, and
you set forth.
You are elevated to the highest pin
nacle of felicity, but you are frozen as
dumb as a festive tree-toad in the middle
of January,
You wonder what you shall say, and
almost wish the earth would open and
swallow you up and save you from the
necessity of making talk" By and by
she breaks the silence with the original
remark:
Every fine evening"
And you start as if bombshell had
exploded at your feet, and blurt out:
Yes, guess it is?'
After you get safely home, and up
stairs in the dark, with your boots in
your hand for fear of rousing the old
folks, you will think it all over again,
and wonder how you ever had the cour-
age.
All, well, it is all over now, busy man
of the world; and Ann Eliza has silver
threads in her hair, and grandchildren
at her knee, or maybe she is sleeping
quietly in some green valley under the
daisies; but you remember that first walk
alone with her as if it was but yesterday.
Kate Thorn, in ". Y. Weekly.