Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1898-07-20
AN OLD MAIDS SONG.

$1,000 N'''' 49, 'hAh Nt'lSAoA "
as "the fourth floor front" She knew by
heart tho landlady's stories of pressing
present needs and of past af1uence. She
had nothing to learn in the matter of sub
stituted gas jets, and her feet were trained
to skip the torn spots in the stair carpet.
Altogether there was nothing in the old
maids position in her boarding house to
account for her serenity.
Down town the old maid was a STE
nographer in a law office where prettiness
was at a discount as a hindrance to unre-
hitting toll. She did not realize that her
chief attraction to her employers was this
lack of distractlng features and complex
ion. Long as she had lived in the sordid
but educating boarding house she had not
everything that was to be learned
about motives, and she believed that her
fathers old friendship with the lawyer
had much to do with her position.
Before that remote day when the old
maid first came to the law Office and the
boarding house she had lived in the coun-
try. Even yet, when the spring rains
ZANE down and drenched the grim pave
ments, she had a swift, fleeting sense Of
late SHOWS melting by the rim Of the
brooks and Of timid flowers pushing
through the soft earth, and in the oity
parks her mind turned toward peaceful,
pastoral ways, and her eyes were filed
with visions of billowy, blossoming trees,
of plowmen moving across upland fields,
of the waking up of life and industry. In
short, the old maid was a poet, although
the crude little expressions Of her emotions
never met the keen eyes of critics or even
the kindly eyes of her friends.
Well, nee upon a time the singer came
to the boarding house on the square. He
was young and his audiences-they wer6
largely Northumberland that nowhere
else was there a singer who caroled out
songs and sobbed out ballads so knowingly.
Whether or not he was peerless Is a ques-
ton, but at any rate he had made a great
success, and people wondered that he
should come to the dingy abode of the
boarders and the old maid. Some said
that 1t wal because he had lived there in
the days before he was known to fashion,
and some whispered knowingly that the
lady to whom the singer sang lived over
the way in the stone house with the bal
comics at the windows and the guarding
lions at the door. Be that as it may, it is
a fact that when tho singer came to the
city for his series of concerts and r~ecitals
he sanctifled the abode of the old maid
with his presence for a whole week. And
the old maid was agitated mysteriously by
his presence, though it is doubtful whether
he even saw her shabby little figure.
One night she slipped down the stair
way when the house was still and slipped
a paper beneath the singers doorsill. The
paper bore q set of verses written In the
fine hand Of a woman who was educated a
quarter of q century ago and a little note
that read:
"If you should sometimes find this
worthy to sing, I would be the happiest
woman on earth"
Now the singer felt a brutal Indifference
about all happiness save his own, which
had been sorely tried that night by the
lady Of his songs. So he merely muttered,
"Confound imbeoile womenp' Then he
looked at the verses and went gloomily to
bed. But through the night, as he reflect
ed upon his blighted hopes and the hard
ness Of his fate, some of the old maids
lines sang themselves through his mind.
I'll see thee in each flower that grows.
Thou art not lost while lives the rose,
Not lost while lives the rose.
the foolish refrain insisted.
In the morning the silly rhymes would
not be banished. He found himself hum
ming them to an air, and by and by-so
weak was he, owing to the cruel lady--he
sat down at the piano and played the air
softly.
1t was the same week that he gave his
great concert at the hall up town. With
Indifferent generosity he offered the land
lady tickets to b. distributed, and 30 it
happened that the old maid and l went to.
gether.
The old maid was very pink and tremu-
lous, and not being in her confidence, L
could not understand her state After all
there was nothing in a successful singer
Of S8 to excite a spinster stenographer Of
30.
The singer had sung grand opera arias
and the music from masses. He had sung
Scotch ballads and German love songs.
But he could not sing enough to satisfy
his audience. After each properly num-
bered selection he was recalled again and
again. Finally he came out and said:
ST wish 7 could tell vou the author of
tho r,ords r ~, go,nr ~ s;no Thov yora
sent to me ANONYMOUSLY in mannscrint.
and 7 have M MEANS If oiv;ng credit to
whom n 10 due
The old maids anoers ou,vered. She
hroatbad sohhina,v and drew closer to mo
and T wondaraa yyhathsr She ware vo;no
crazy.
nL~~. ILL., go -. 49, 1i~,.111 -aona
h,,t -. co.. 49,, ,o,o = .,,oon.s rl,o ~,
dience listened ~intently, the women look.