The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1891-08-15
AFTER MANY TEARS.
GirlhoOd RecolleetiOns Awakened
By a Long-Buried White Rose.

it l keep little squares of paper, with
hair inside, and aiittle which hung over
my brothers bed when we were chill
dren, and other things as small. have
in it a rose. Other women also have such
boxes where they keep such ~trifles. but
no one has my rose.
When my eye is dim. and my heart
grows faint, and my faith in woman
fickers. and her present Is an agony TO
me, and her future a despair, the scent
Of that dead rose, withered for twelve
years, comes back 10 me. know there
will be spring, as surely as the birds
know it when they see above the snow
two tiny, quivering green leaves Spring
cannot fail us.
There were other flowers in the box
once; a bunch Of white acacia flowers.
gathered by the strong hand Of a man,
as we passed down a village street on a
sultry afternoon, when It had rained.
and the drops fell on US from the leaves
Of the acacia trees. The flowers were
damp; they made mildew marks on the
paper l folded them in After many
years l threw them away. There is
nothing Of them left In the box now but
a faint smell Of dried acacia. that recalls
that sultry summer afternoon; but the
rose is In the box still.
1t is many years ago now; l was a girl
Of fifteen, and | went to visit in q small.
up country town. 1t was young in those
days, and two days journey from the
nearest village; the population consisted
mainly Of men. A few were married
and had their wives and children, but
most were single. There was only one
young girl there when | came. She was
about seventeen, fair and rathe fully
feshed; she had large, dreamy blue eyes
and wavy light hair; full, rather heavy
lips, until she smiled, and then her face
broke into dimples and all her white
teeth shone.
The hotel keeper may have had q
daughter, and the farmer in the out
skirts had two, but we never saw them.
She reigned alone. All the men wor-
SHIPPED her. She was the only woman
they had to think of. They talked of
her on the 'stoop," at the market, at
the hotel; they watched for her at street
corners; they hated the man she bowed
to or walked with down they street.
They brought flowers to the front door;
they offered her their horses; they begged
her to marry them when they dared.
Partly there was something noble and
heroic in this devotion of men to the
best woman they knew; partly there
was something natural in it, that these
men. shut off from the world, should
pour at the feet Of me woman the wor-
ship that otherwise would have been
given to twenty; and partly there was
something mean in their envy Of one
another. If she had raised her little fin
ger, suppose, she might have married
any one out of twenty of them.
Then | came. ! do not think | was
prettier. do not think / was so pretty
as she was. | was certainly not so hand
some. But | was vital, and l was new,
and she was old. They all forsook her
and followed me. They worshiped me-.
1t was to my door that the flowers came;
it was / had twenty horses offered me
when | could only ride one; it was for
me they waited at street corners; it was
what | said and did that they talked of.
Partly | liked it. | had lived alone all
my life; no one ever told me that |
was beautiful and a woman. | believed
them; | did not know it was simply a
fashion which one man had set and the
rest followed unreasoningly. l liked
them to ask me to marry them, and to
say no. l despised them. The mother
heart had not swelled in me yet. | did
not know all men were my children, as
the large woman knows when her heart
is grown. was too small to be tender.
| liked my power. was like a child
with a new whip. which it goes about
cracking everywhere, not caring against
what. could not wind it up and put it
away. Men were curious creatures who
liked me, / could never tell why.
Only one thing took from my pleasure;
| could not bear that they had deserted
her for me. | liked her great, dreamy
blue eyes, ] liked her slow walk and
drawl. When | saw her sitting among
men she seemed to me much too good to
be among them. would have given all
their compliments If she would once
have smiled at me as she smiled at them,
with all her face breaking into radiance,
with her dimples and flashing teeth. But
| knew it never could be; 1 felt sure she
hated me; that she wished | was dead;
that she wished | had never come to the
village. She did not know, when we
went out riding. and a maj who had
always ridden beside her came to ride
beside me, that | sent him away; that
once when a man thought to win my
favor by ridiculing her slow drawl be-
fore me | turned on him so fiercely that
he never dared to come before me again.
[ knew she knew that at the hotel men
had made a bet as to which was the
prettier, she or l. and had asked each
who came in. and that the one who
had staked on me won. | hated them
for it, but | would not let her see that |
cared about what she felt toward me.
She and | never spoke to each other.
If we met in the village street we bowed
and passed on; when we shook hands we
did so silently and did not look at each
other. But | thought she felt my pres
enee in a room just as | felt hers.
At last the time for my going came. /
was to leave the next day. Some nj l
knew a a party in my honor. to which
all the viTlape was invited