Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-11-25
THE STORY.


'My First Love Affair"
THE STORY.
Every man, married or single, rich or
poor, who has not had all the sentiment
knocked out of him in severe tussle with
Father Time loves sometimes to revert to
the happiest DAYS of life-the days of his
childhood, when he ran barefoot through
the great city, wore yellow patches on
dark background, and allowed his nose to
shift from pillar to post with all the indie
pendence of proud and bloody savage. l
was Just entering, this period of my life
when l met Louisa Hartmann. How we
met do not now remember, but think it
was in the usual way. | am almost GER
tain it was that way. Louisa was tow
headed Dutch girl year younger than
myself Her father was brewer, short,
burly man, with huge abdomen, and pos
sessed of a mind as astute as his famous
countryman, the removed Wouter van
Twiller of history. The great, roomy
brewery, with its casks and barrels and
watts, and good smells of hops and barley,
was favorite playground for Louisa and
l. We roamed through the spacious rooms
and cellars; we clambered over the casks,
we iabbed our bare toes into the fascinating
malt.
Louisa and l were inseparable compan-
| ions We did not love each other then
with that deep, unalterable love that makes
| the women of Andelusia spear their false
hearted lovers with a ish-knife, but we
| loved as children love. We vowed that we
| would live and die together, and our sweet
est thoughts were of the funeral; the
hearse, gorgeous in new coat of circus
bills; the long, sad procession, with three
brass bands and a monkey, and every
| mourner shedding tears and Dragging about
his or her favorite corpse.
We also played games that were pro-
phetic. Our favorite game was playing
old folks" with slender, graceful sour
dock leaves for ladies, and forked buck
| wheat sticks for gentlemen. They were
all immensely aristocratic. The rough,
| oak-twig man we sometimes used was a
ruffian and murderer. He stole, swore,
fought, murdered and was finally hung in
great style. Love and murder That was
always the plot Of our game of play. Some
of those juvenile tragedies now seem to me
more real than the recent productions Of
great novelists. They were all So real to
US We laughed with our heroes and hero
ines, we wept with them-genuine smiles
and tears. We brought the sleek, gentle
manly buckw heat lover, with the Yankee
doodle pants, to his knees, and compelled
him to wear the bark off, in vain appeals TO
the hard hearted sour-dock ladies. And
occasionally we made the oak-twig muir
derer kill hero and yank him int deep
hole, where we wept over him till his grave
was a b-iny sea and the last spark of
his lie had gone up the spout. Once we
found a twig of such surprising beauty
we could not mai9e common hero of it.
Ii was so matchless so rubicund and Jolly
withal we could not name it till we de-
cided to make saint Of it, and called it
Santa Claus.
But Louisa and l were growing older,
! and were sent to school. and began TO re-
cognze the world. The world was be-
slowing wisdom of a more advanced stage,
and we could, so to speak, hear old Father
Time whacking his sickle against the stones
in the hidden path of lie. We gradually
forsook our twiggy men and leafy women.
We struggled through the primer and the
First Reader the twice one is TWO" and
began to read stories in papers and books,
and begged our elder kith and kin for
stories and remembered everything. Wise
people were our elders. They read and
told us tales of people who lovei-deeply,
passionately and forever; vainly, hope
fully and successfully, and we longed to
be man and woman, 50 that We too, might
love. Already we had declared our love
for each other. We joined hands overrun-
ming water, spat at the moon over lett
shoulders, and INDUCED in other charms
which were supposed to be. of great assist
ance to lovers. But through all our schem-
ing ran a strain of romance, of hopes de-
ferred and DAYS of anguish. That or love
would not run smoothly was our dearest
wish. And Fate was working for that
end We did not know it, but there was
dark cloud of misery hanging over our
future: a cloud that was as black as night
and pregnant with despair.
The old brewer was beginning to recog-
nize our growing affection. He did not
approve of it. He was first cold, then
harsh and stern. He averred that his
faucets were often turned, his garden
blighted, and hops scattered by our pres
ence. At last he told me, with an oath,
that l must go, that my room was better
than nv company, and added a terrible
threat. the substance of which was that if
he ever found us together he would thrash
us both.
And now the fearful cloud came down
upon US, and we were shrouded in its
gloom. Alas alas / loved Romance
was mine-was ours l had longed for
| romance, for troubled course of love, and
| nv longing was grati6ed. So was Louisas
The DAYS that followed were days of an
guish. l thought of my love all day l
| dreamed of her all night. drew fanciful
pictures Of her in " durance vile" and res
cued her, in my mind, dozen times day
| in dozen daring ways. Thus a week
| passed, and l had not seen her. was
afraid of the old brewer, and went not to
| his house. Had l been an older hero,
would have bearded the old fellow in his
| den, and said, after the manner of the great
tragedienne, Hold vile man unnat-
ural par-i ent Release thy daughter, that
she may be welded and receive thy bless
| ing or fear thou my terrible reven-g egg
gelr But was not wise then; l was only
a boy.
| l kept away, or skulked among the
cactus and sage bushes upon the hill. where
| | could watch her fathers house. And one
day-it was Thanksgiving DAY. saw the
object of my affection. She came out of
| the house, into the front yard, with her
kitten in her arms. l wanted to rush down
10 her, to embrace her, and fly with her to
foreign lands But, the brewer l re.
strained myself with dry and heartrend-