Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1912-09-26
The Home Circle
Thoughts from the Editorial Pen


She was twenty and she had a
crouch. She was young and pretty
with life all before her-yet had she
a crouch. An ugly, wicked old thing
he was, and he touched her and
smoothed out the dimples of laugh
ter and recast the mould of her fresh
young lips, so that they dropped at
youths prerogative, and curving up
ward. Over her pretty, unusually
merry eyes he drew a somber veil,
which dimmed their light.
For this calumny-this lie which
he put upon her-this disfiguring
change from youthful beauty and
sweetness, to dourness and sourness
she should have dismissed him
from her presence. But instead, she
nursed her ugly old crouch, and pet
ted him, and kept him by her all of
one sweet summer day-thereby los
ing that one precious, never-to-be-
regained period
No young girl with her first suitor
was ever more proud than this twen-
ty-year-old girl was of her crouch.
Come out and play" called her
young companions. I'VE are going
to take lunch, and climb to the top
of Mount Ashland"
She might have gone, for when
she was normal she enjoyed all the
things which healthy young blood
suggests
You'll not go" insisted her guest,
thn Of
good time without you You stay
here with me-"
So she listened to him, and the CAV
young voices died away in the dis
tance. And then, paradoxically. be-
cause her crouch had meddled, and
cheated her of her good time, she
clung more closely to him than ever,
and she blamed her friends and
everybody in the whole world be-
cause she was except just
herself and the crouch.
Once she looked out of her win
dow. She saw the wonderful lights
and shadows on the hills, and she
knew that the pines of her beloved
mountains offered inviting shades.
The peak was clean-cut, and glowed
with glittering splendor, close up
against the skyline, while down in
the valley below some fleecy white
clouds drifted lazily. The whole
landscape beckoned to her, and whis-
pered, Come and sketch me-"
She glanced longingly toward the
sketchbook and palette and other
paraphernalia, for the artist was
strong in her. But the crouch, whom
for the moment she had forgotten,
again claimed her, and said grudg-
ingly, Don't go. You would forget
all about me, out there in the blessed
sunshine, with the shadow of the
peak, with its majesty. and stiffness
guarding the picture you would
make. Stay here in this stuffy room.
And don't look out of the window
again-for it's dangerous to me-"
So she obeyed the behest of her
ugly, ridiculous old crouch. Her
having him at all was ridiculous
for what concord hath a crouch and
twenty years?
She shut out the sunshine and
laughter and beauty and Joy, and
gave herself up wholly to the enter
tainment of the ugly old crouch.
The day wore on-the precious day
which had begun so auspiciously-
the day which had begun just for her
Ito do with as she chose-to make
OF benefit or to waste. And the only
use she made of it was to shut her
self in with a crouch.
At eventide, when the gay COM
pany of which she was one had gath
cred about the wide fireplace. and
were toasting marshmallows and tell
ing stories, she wearied of her
crouch. She had not found him
very good company through her lost
day.
Her lusty youth fairly wrestled
with and downed him. Then she
threw him out of the window. and
laughed as she saw him vanish like
a puff of smoke-for, after all. he
was no more than that.
The laugh brought the dimples
back to her cheeks and the laughter
to her eyes. All the ugly lines of ill
temper that the crouch had marked
on her face smoothed themselves out
and she was twenty years. minus a
grouch-twenty years-magical time
of youth.
When she Joined her companions
she became the merriest one of the
bunch-all the more merry because
she had lost so much time.
What was the matter with YOU
today?" some one asked How did
you come to have a grouch?"
She puckered her pretty brows in
thought moment, and then
laughed. ITO save my soul, l don't
remember" she said.
Thus it usually is, when a crouch
takes up his (note the masculine
gender) abode with any of us. We
know not from whence he came, or
why, or wherefore. We can give no
satisfactory explanation as to our
own reason for admitting him into
our own consciousness.
He is a sly, invidious, sneaking in
truder, who should be banished from
civilized society. But he gets in,
someway. He has a card of en-
trance into the most select set. 1t
cannot be his appearance which en-
titles him to the card, nor can it be
his genealogy, for he can claim no
higher personages for his family tree
than i'll temper, and envy, and jeal-
ousy.
We know him for what he is. We
know him IN ha tho most uplifvin a,