The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1886-11-18
NIGHT IN GREENLAND.

NIGHT IN GREENLAND.
Ths woys Of Cesrtship In the Land u Tai.
low Candles and Bsrhiss Seals.
In the countries Of the extreme north
the nights are six months long. What
q place that must be to spend an even
ing with young lady! Just think Of
III Think Of it. ye poor young swains
who are obliged to make your call no
longer than the miserable space Of four
or five poor hours. Think Of the pic
mic an Esquimau dude has when he
starts out for call on his inamorata!
He arrives at her house just after dark,
and the two sit In the front parlor for
few weeks, not realizing that it Is long
past the hours of cleaning and that
the room is as dark rs the tricks of a
politician. Then her mother comes in
and lights the gas, saying: ''Ithink you
children would have better sense than
to sit here in the dark. You had better
have little light on tho subject"
Then the old lady skips out to give
the young people chance, for she
doesn't believe in young girls losing
time, and in Greenland there is only
one night year. After her departure
the young couple sit on the sofa and
look at the photograph album for .
week or two. This is no novelty to
them, as they know every photograph
in the book, frsm hers, taken when she
was in short skirts, to his, taken only
yesterday morning, representing him
leaning over the back Of q chair, twirl-
ing his alleged mustache and smiling SO
persuasively that he looks as II he were
trying to get trusted for half dozen
shirts. They sit closer and closer as
they begin to get more deeply interest
ed In the photographs. She snuggles
up to him and points with her sealskin-
gioved finger to the portrait of her
cross-eyed aunt, who was bitten BY q
Spitz dog the might before. He is deep
ly moved, although be has seen the pic
ture before, and. az he draws nigh to
take a closer look, he presses his arms
lightly around her waist, whose symme-
try is concealed by her bearskn Mother
Hubbard. After his manly arm has
been there few days. she notices it,
calls him a ''horrid thing" and founces
across the room to the piano. She plays
for o fortnight, and then he, wearying
of looking at the pictures in "Bunyan's
Pilgrim Progress on the center table,
tip-toes across tho floor and embraces
her just as she strikes a diminished
seventh on the piano. She turns around
on the piano-stool with an alluring little
giggle, and their lips moet in one brief
but blissful kiss, about four days In du-
ration.
This is all very pleasant. of course,
and they sit holding each others hands
and looking volumes of Byronic poetry
into each others eyes for q few more
weeks, when an interruption takes
place. The parlor door squeaks, and in
the twinkling of hook-and-eye the
young man occupies the sofa at one end
of the room and Is reading the evening
paper, while the young woman Is look
ing over the music. It is an embarrass-
ing two hours for both of them. when
the father enters and looks suspiciously
from one to the other. The old gentle
man comes ostensibly to bring the
young people some candies to eat BY
way of little supper, to be washed
down by bowlful of snow. In reality,
however, he is there to see how they are
behaving themselves. Anon he leaves
them, first winding the clock in a rather
suggestive manner, and then setting the
alarm four months ahead, in order that
he may surely get up in time for break
fast.
What q relief when he is gone! The
two kindred souls again proceed to in
tercommunion, and no sounds are heard
but the barking Of the pet seal out in
the wood-shed and the suggestive tick
ing of the well-trained clock as the
weeks fly swiftly by. 1t seems to the
twain that the night is yet young, when
in about two months and halt her big
brother comes home from the theater
where melodrama in one hundred and
forty-seven acts has been rendered by
the regular stock-company. Her brother
is Late, because, being somewhat smit-
ten on the leading lady of the company,
he took her out for little supper last
ing the greater part of week. He NO
sooner vanishes than sound as of two
heavy boots falling on the floor above
warns young Lothario that he must
soon depart. The old gentleman's boots
falling on the floor mean that adieux
must be cut short, and that there must
be no hanging over the front gate fol
thirty-six or forty-eight hours. The
young lovers grapple each other In 9
convulsive embrace. It seems hard
that they should have to part. and that
he must 60 so soon, but it must be.
Fate is against them. Time waits fol
no man, and the Spitz dog is united.
They cling about each others necks fol
three weeks, breathing vows of fealty
and then kissing her again (time TWEEN
ty-four hours) he hurries to the gate
Just a. o gruff voice is heard from the
top of the stairs. saying:
.'Clarissa, is that young man never
goingP"
Clarissa answers: '.Do 20 way from
the hall. pa. Somebody might SET
you.''
Then she locks the door, goes to hel
boudoir and dreams about him-to hel
the only him in all this wide, wid'
world = for the next two or thre'
months.
In some respects Greenland is th'
place to Chicago NesOs.
r Couldnt Have Been . Woman.
Bagley-That was painful affair il
Frankford last week.