Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1908-07-08
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
"A Shock.

[Original.1

(Original.l
We were leaning over the front gate.
I held both her hands in mine and
looked into her moonlit eyes. was
twenty, she not quite eighteen. l was
going west to seek my fortune. When
l had made a competence couldn't
bear to consider more than three
months sufficient for the purpose
was to return and take her back with
me.
Life in the meanwhile" she said.
"will be one long period of waiting"
1T will seem an age to me-.
you will be engrossed IN business.
That will make you forget
Il shall never forget. l shall lay
down thirty days for each month on
paper and each morning check one OIL.
To see them disappear will be my only
comfort"
There was silence for awhile. A dis
tant clock struck II.
In seven hours my train will be pull
ing out of the station. have yet to
pack"
''Must you goa"
Eyes. Farewell"
But another hour passed, and was
not gone. The same clock struck II.
I drew her to me. There was long
long kiss. Then I turned and without
looking back hurried away.
A month Of daily letter writing, a
month of alternate day writing, q
month Of weekly writing-the three
months that l had laid out wherein to
attain the wherewithal to bring her to
me-had passed, and I had only just
found position giving me SIS week.
The correspondence died peaceful
death. There We're no reprOaches on
either side. had found a pleasant set
Of young people with whom l had be-
come intimate, and my sisters wrote
me that a great deal was going on at
home. In youth associations are form
ing and reforming rapidly. One au-
tumn it is Charlie and Will and Tom
and Lucy and Mary and Fannie; the
next spring it is Charlie and Arthur
and Pete and Ethel and Maud and
Kate.
Youth is but kaleidoscope-the
same colors under different groupings.
Two years after leaving home l could
not tell who wrote the last letter, she
or I. Three years and l couldn't have
told whether her eyes We're black,
brown or hazel. Five years, and one
day in ransacking among lot OF rub
bish l came upon her picture-the pic
ture I had dreamed over for hours at
time l was astonished that should
ever have thought it beautiful.
She married and went to another city
to live. l didn't hear her married
name. or if did forgot it. 1t was
twelve years from our parting over the
gate before saw her again. 1t was at
q summer resort. had become in
fatuated with a girl of twenty. fresh
as q new blown rose, and when the hot
season came followed her to the coun-
try. She was chaperoned by her aunt,
Mrs. Schenck, apparently about forty,
with grizzly gray hair, pinched ex-
preston and sharp voice. She had
five children all of them with her, and
no nurse. Surely was not that enough
to spoil any woman's attractiveness?
I became engaged. 1t was evening.
and I was obliged to leave the next
morning. l told my story and was &C.
copied at the last moment before my
departure and as everybody at the no.
tel was going to bed. When l set off
for the train she went with me down
to the gate, and we stood leaning over
her hands in mine and looked into her
moonlit eyes. 1 assured her that I
should look forward to her return to
the city with eagerness, and she prom
ised to cut short her stay in the coun-
try. We heard locomotive whistle. q