The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-05-30

= II tell you just how If was, and
II test your credulity right at the
start. Make you smile. too.
81 was handsome boy
S'Gee! but you do laugh, don't you2
And yet l had tried to prepare you for
it. Well, l was handsome. Had lust
as good right to be so as any other
boy. My eyes were clear, blue and
intelligent | had red cheeks and a
heavy suit of brown. silken hair. Be
sides I was shaped like the statue of
a young Greek god.
"Tbat sweetheart of mine and / grew
up to love each other, just naturally,
and in fact we didn' t know it until
too late.
''When the war came [ went out to
the ocean and storm of practical patri-
otism. Of course she stayed where the
placid little lake of home-peaee makes
those happy who live forever on its
shores 1t sparkles and dimples in the
springtime and from it, in summer.
come cooling breezes. In autumn its
myriad of furled leaves, like tiny ships,
drift in fleets to its leeward shores,
and in winter it glazes and glints in
crystal floor, for carnivals of mirth.
"'Before the storm of patriotism was
over. a great, big man, who was not
nearly so practically patriotic-or lido
tic-as l was, came along there and
told my sweetheart things that / had
not thought to tell her. Moreover, he
was aceumulating gold while 1 was not
gathering anything more substantial
than glory, but I was fairly windrow-
inc that. 1t has melted like the snow
forts of boyhood.
"Those who had the direction of her
ways directed her toward him and he
gathered her in. He has her yet.
After the storm went down, strange
as it may seem. there was no calm for
me-perhaps there was too much calm.
sweetheart, then came long spells when
I didn't see her at all. At last 1t
dawned upon my opaque heart and
brain that I was in love with that lit
tie woman, and always had been. She
was before me and with me in every
moment of life, sleeping or waking
Sometimes I thought l would try to
steal her and sail away with her, to
the isles where the mango apples grow, :
and all that sort of thing. But |
thought better of it, and she-Heaven
bless her!-wouldn t have thought OF
it at all. Besides, the law stood up in
front of me, with a bludgeon and a
snarling look, which together were very
hindersome.
81 did the next worst thing, how
ever. [ told her that | loved her, al
ways had and always would. To my
utter establishment, dismay, and happi-
ness, thereby perplexing me more than
ever, she confessed-that she had loved
me in the old days, and-but she loves
her husband.
$50 this sort of thing has gone
on for years, and years, and years.
1.-THE other day | was telling her
that she was the only woman I had
ever loved and that she was always
pearl She said:
g You're a dear old fellow, but you
must not talk that way
- ooh, That IS all right, I said. Il
am old and homely enough to be a
privileged character.
'.She leaned over, her elbows on the
marble between us, hands to her face,
and looked searchingly and inquiringly
into my eyes. Then as if deeply be-
WuueItu anu duIdASu. SHS SdAu.
* No-o-o, Are you homely, Honey7'
Yes, indeed, picturesquely home
~ Don t you see that | am old, and
wrinkled, and bald, and STOPPING, and
lame, and querulous, and fdgety,
and
"'No,' she exclaimed, Il only see
my gallant boy sweetheart, and his pa
tient. knightly, holden soul. I remem-
Der the flash of your sword in the sun
light that morning when, as the boy
captain that you were, marching with
your men to the war, you saluted the
cheering village girls in passing. The
CLEAN of that blade has always kept
you and your eyes before me.
'Say, my son, L have chung to a spar
amid the crawling canyons of the ocean,
until dashed breathless and unconscious
upon long stretch of white beach on
an arid island of the seas; [ have faced
the fierce sirocco and foremost focal
fire of battle, time and again, and felt
its fiery breath blow back the brown
locks that then were mine; inspired by
a something whose achievement might
be borne to her, / have poured out
stream of impassioned eloquence before
an audience of heroes and statesmen,
until they climbed to chairs and tables
yelling: 'Old man, you're a king!'
But never-even in the deepest intens-
ity of any instant at such times as
these have I had such satisfaction and
triumph, or more of a yearning for
more of life, than when my old sweet
heart leaned over and said, with the
light of love in her eyes and its music
in her voice:
Moo! Are you homely, Honey?
Well Hattie, the major told me his
love story and / have written it for
you.