Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1915-11-26
The Acme Of
Proposals
By EDITH v. ROSS

One day Marguerite Phillips, was
theirs stately mansion when she heard
something drop. CHANGING about her,
she saw on the ground a bit of paper
luttering in the wind. Going to it,
she found it attached by string to a
stone. Opening the paper, she read:
I am not free to enter your grounds for
near view Of your ravishing beauty, but
there is nothing to prevent my sailing over
you and admiring you from a distance.
Naturally Marguerite turned her gaze
upward and saw an aeroplane passing
over her head.
She had read many stories of WOO
ings, but never anything like this.
Huntsmen had appeared to maidens in
the depths Of forests to speak their
love; sailors had been washed ashore
from wrecked vessels to love fisher
lassies who had rescued them; fugitives
from an enemy had suddenly arisen
from the earth before girls to excite
pity which is akin to love, but never
before had Marguerite known a case
of woman being wooed from the clouds.
AS to her own experience, she had
been courted by numerous suitors, but
never except in commonplace fashion
In the whole list of her wooings there
was not single new idea for a pro-
posal 1t was therefore natural that
by this strange method of announce
ment of a man glove for her she should
be much moved. A pleasurable excite
ment stirred within her, tingling to
the tips of her fingers. She followed
with her eyes the disappearing aero
plane and pictured a man fit to ride
among the clouds looking down upon
those who were crawling like worms
on the earth.
How gOdlike seemed this heavenly
Wanderer compared with any of those
who had yet sought her love! Sol
diers, sailors, men of wealth, men of
intellect, men Of genius had been re-
jected by her, and, though she did not
realize the cause of their failure to
win her, there was one fundamental
reason-none of them had wooed her in
way to strike her Imagination. He
who had come nearest to success was
one with whom she was riding in an
automobile. Driving toward a preci-
pice, he swore that if she would not
love him both should go down to a
frightful death. She yielded, but when
safe on terra firma availed herself of a
woman's privilege to change her mind
The aeronaut passed from her sight
toward the setting sun, his airboat
rocking gracefully. like a bird, between
two clouds, at last plunging down be-
hind another, as if going to his home
in the blood red orb. Clasping her
hands and raising her eyes still higher
into the unhorizoned heavens, she ex-
claimed:
''Was ever Greek girl more honored
by the wooing Of god than by this
daring rover of the ethereal blue?"
Marguerite waited in anxious expec-
tation for the ethereal lover to appear
again, or, rather, for his next message,
for she had not yet seen him. She sat
at her window in the uppermost story
of the house gazing skyward, and ev-
cry time she saw a bird soaring in the
far distant heavens she pressed her
hand to her heart, exclaiming, ''It is
he!' When the weather permitted she
mounted to the roof, where a bower
had been built, and there waited for
her eagle lover.
One day while on the roof she saw
coming an aeroplane. 1t few not more
than hundred feet directly above her.
and bit of paper f1uttered down upon
the roof. But, alas, she saw not the
aerial driver, for until nearly over her
head he had kept high altitude, drop
ping like a stone and catching himself
Il moment before the white paper came
down like a snowflake in the sunlight.
Disappointed in not seeing her lover of
the clouds. Marguerite feverishly read
her message:
Tell me that you will be mine. If you
refuse I will soar higher and higher till /
am lost to earth.
Marguerite provided herself with an
immense piece of cardboard, laid it fiat