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The Indestructible Lilac in the days that were
by Olive Evanson
$20.00
Chapter One
Robbie was completely lost in thought as he sat on the plow seat while his horses, with the measured steps of those long accustomed to following the furrow, made their way to the edge of the field, then stopped. They knew that they should now turn to go back, but waited patiently. Robbie, startled by the stop, took up the reins and turned the horses and plow into position for the return furrow.
For some time now he had thought about a girl he had met the previous autumn when he had made a quick trip to the south country college to attend a discussion on the various types of hay and grain. He had become friends with a young man attending the same discussion who had offered lodging at his home with his mother and where he had met Beth, the girl whose dark curls, blue eyes and radiant smile he could not shut out of his thoughts. He had heard that some men, and also some women, fall in love at ‘first sight’ and he wondered if this meant that they were meant for each other or was this ‘love at first sight’ just a physical attraction?
He wondered if all men saw the same attraction or if each man saw love in a very personal way. Some women were not at all beautiful, like his brother Alan’s wife, but Alan loved her dearly and they always seemed to be so happy, so there must be some quality in each one that attracted a certain type of man. He had never before pondered anything like this as he now did and it enveloped all his thoughts. He had not much to say to anyone and ate his meals with his brother in silence until Alan startled him with the question, “What’s the matter with you Robbie, are you in love?” His short answer was “Maybe.”
He thought this over for some time. Maybe he was in love, but it occurred to him that men who were in love usually got married but that was something that never entered his mind, until never marry an ordinary farmer up in the bush country on the north edge of the prairies, but his mind kept jumping ahead of reality and he would find himself wondering if she would like his farm and especially his horses – all big, beautiful, black creatures. He took good care of them and with the knowledge that grows from kindness, responded with an intelligent devotion enjoyed only by the man who treats his animals with respect.
Oh, surely any woman would love his horses, but could she be happy so far away from her parents, and what about the winters when the wind howled with the ferocity of a pack of wolves and blew the blizzard snow into drifts higher than a man’s head, and snowflakes hitting his cheeks felt like tiny knives. Surely she would like the creek running across his farm with it’s beautiful clear water chattering over millions of small stones of a thousand different colors and shapes, and sometimes sounding like the rustle of dry leaves in autumn, sometimes sounding like small children’s laughter and sometimes with a louder chuckle as if it had a secret all its own. Surely she could see beauty in his trees. The poplar and birch that turned to such beautiful colors in the autumn when one had time to shuffle through the carpet of leaves and see squirrels scampering for newly discovered hiding spots they didn’t need when the trees were covered with leaves.
There were Spruce and Pine there too, and here and there a Tamarack, which some of the older people named Larch. Over there in the Spruces, one could hear the Ruffed Grouse drumming his intent in the spring and summer and often see the stupid Spruce hen with the little red spot over her eye and who would never move until almost stepped on. Someone had told Robbie that he could always find his supper in that little forest, but he never had any intention of killing the wild creatures. That might be alright if one was lost or hungry, but he was neither lost nor hungry and enjoyed seeing these creatures feeling secure, especially in the early summer when a grouse would appear with several little bundles of fluff hopping after her. How could any young woman not love the magic of bird life and the incredible instinct in their ability to survive? He gave so much of himself to these thoughts that he sometimes reminded himself that maybe he was a bit extreme - to the point where he forgot to eat, but he never neglected his farm work, which kept him on an “even keel”.
He decided to write to her to say that he intended to travel south when the autumn work was finished. He had written to her once before as she had said he might when he asked if she wouldn’t mind. He had written mostly about his plans and about his area and that he had that day caught a trout, but this time he wouldn’t bother with any nonsense, just tell her he was going south and hoped to take her to dinner.
When he had written the letter and turned it over to the safekeeping of the postal service, which was a God-send to the early homesteaders like himself, he felt as if a burden had been lifted from him while at the same time another uneasiness took its place. He wondered if she would answer. She had never answered his first letter, so he wondered if her parents would let her write to a stranger up north and what he had been told of them when he lodged with his friend who was her cousin was that they showed not so much control as concern.
He understood that, as he had had the same from his Father and Mother when his Mother was still alive. That dear lady, whose memory he treasured and who had taught him how to be a gentleman, how to treat all life with respect without interfering with their way of life and that humility and modesty were better than bravado and boasting. She taught him to believe in a power that controlled all that has been and ever will be, but left man with free will. She taught him simple prayers saying that if you believe in a power greater than yourself, you will always have a source of comfort when you need guidance.
Some of these prayers he now found himself muttering while his whole being was in such a turmoil of hope with a touch of fear and apprehen- sion. Apprehensive because maybe she wasn’t remotely interested in him and maybe she was already promised to someone else. He found himself muttering several prayers over that possibility.
He hoped it wasn’t so because he remembered her telling him that she had two years more of college. He would have to do all his “fall work” early and arrange to visit his friend and plan what he would say to her when they met. The possibility that she might not want to see him was pushed out of his mind. She had to see him…he had to hear her voice telling him “yes” or “no”.
He would leave as soon as sufficient food for his animals was brought close to the buildings, as one never knew when winter would arrive. Alan would look after the animals during Robbie’s absence.
He wished there was a quicker way to get where he wanted to be. It would be a tedious journey, first by horseback the twenty- five miles to the small town that was their link with the outside world, and then by train – a very slow train (as he had found on his first trip to the south), but much better than the wagon his parents had used when they first came to this new country in 1906.
He had heard of a new way of travel in a mechanism called an automobile. The first ones he had heard of when he was a boy in Nova Scotia where he had been born were ridiculous appearing things with wheels as high as those on his wagon. It moved along by itself while one held a “stick” to steer with. By 1906 there were some automobiles named Buicks, but they were few and far between.
Well, he thought, it would be a long time before he would give up his beautiful horses for one of these. A contraption made of metal couldn’t nuzzle his coat pocket for a handful of the oats that always was there, nor would it whinny a sound of devotion that his horses did when they saw him approach and he was quite sure it would never help him with the field work. No, he would never waste money that way.
There was another machine that was beginning to show up here and there in these isolated areas called a “Grain Separator”, along with a monster steam machine to make the Separator work. If he had those, he could grow grain on the quarter section that his Mother said was to be his on the day he married. As it was now, he could grow only hay and oats which he cut and stacked as “green feed”.
As he had never received an answer from his first letter he was very surprised when he got an answer to his second and his hand shook when he held it up. Was it from her? No, it was from her father! His knees felt weak…was her father reproving him? He was greatly relieved to find that he would be welcome at their home.
Robbie now told his brother that he must get going before the weather got bad. Alan would have to go with him to bring back his horse. The trip to town would take the first day, they would sleep in the little hotel that night and in the morning they would go in opposite directions. Robbie south on the train and Alan back to the homesteads.
During the night at the hotel, they did a great deal of talking. Alan did the most of it. “I think we should buy one of those Grain Separators and the steamer thing to run it. We could grow grain if we had one. You will inherit Mother’s land and I will have Father’s. A section between us; the bank will lend us the money. We could do some outside work and maybe pay it off in three years”.
Robbie broke in here and said, “You make it all sound so rosy and it would be great if all went as you say, but what if we had a crop failure? But I hope when I come back I will have a house to build and furniture to buy”. Alan then said, “Oh, you can have most of Mother’s furniture and all you have to build is a couple of small rooms added to your shack”. Robbie looked at his brother and laughed. “You always were a dreamer Alan. Mother always said ‘if Alan had wings, he’d be up there with the stars’. But the girl that will marry me is not going to live in a shack”.
Alan looked at his younger brother with love and thought how Robbie had formed his sentence. If he had said “the girl I marry” it would make him appear superior, but saying “the girl that will marry me” carried a different connotation. Alan’s voice softened when he replied, “Robbie, you are so much like our dear Mother”.
They were silent for a little while after that remark while memories of their boyhood came to mind and stories were then related. She had been a real Mother, playing their games with them, doctoring little scratches as if they were life threatening tragedies which sometimes made it necessary they sit still long enough to eat a cookie while she could finish whatever she had been doing. Going with them on great lion hunts as they walked among the trees, always being there for them when they came to her with their trouble or joy, sympathizing or praising…discussing, but never scolding and always with generous love. Alan related a story that she had told him of the time she told their father that as their first child was named Alan, and the second Beulah, a girl that she would like to have a child named for every letter in the alphabet, to which their father replied, “I have no wish to clutter my house with twenty-six children”.
But Mother, always a tease said, “Never any more than ten at any one time would be children”. But Robbie’s arrival had changed all that. Robbie’s was a difficult birth. The only doctor available was young and seemed more helpless than a help. James paced the floor while his wife cried for help. She tried not to as she could see it distressed her husband, but at times had no control. James grabbed the doctor by the arm saying, “My, God, man, do something, my wife is dying”.
The doctor’s reply was, “There is nothing I can do.” James called to the native woman who had been summoned to care for the house and children as she seemed to know much more than the young doctor. She sent a boy for her own mother who came quickly and both women seemed slightly offended by this young doctor who seemed to convey the idea that they didn’t know anything about cleanliness. They would like him to know that the Micmacs were clean and had been delivering their own babies for hundreds of years.
The older woman went to James and by signs and words managed to tell him that the baby was crossways and would have to be moved or both the mother and baby would die. She kept saying “Get man out”, “man go away.” He gathered that they found the doctor a nuisance and only in the way, yet wanting to be the boss. The young doctor objected to leaving his patient and said “These women are savages, no better than animals!” James looked him full in the face and with raised voice said, “Sir, we all are animals. You are doing nothing. You said my wife is dying. If she is to die, it will not be a dark spot on your reputation. So leave the women alone.”
The older woman had brought with her a liquid they used as a painkiller, made by boiling the inner bark of a type of willow1. This she made Angela drink. It was bitter but she was too weak to resist. James brought to the room whatever the women called for, which was mostly hot water, and after what seemed to James to be hours, the men heard a weak baby sound. James was on his feet instantly and quickly entered the room to inquire about Angela, who was more asleep than awake.
He looked at his new son whose little body seemed bruised and out of shape, but the older woman kept repeating “good boy, very good boy,” and while shaking her head and lowering her According to the Universal Standard Encyclopedia, this same willow was used in the early manufacture of aspirin.
The young doctor agreed that the baby was normal and became less miffed when the women told him to take back his patient as he would now know what to do for her. The older Micmac once more told James in private that Angela could not have any more babies, to which James replied, “Well, that is the best news that has come from this near tragedy,” but he never told Angela for several years.
When Angela became strong again, she almost worshipped her little Robbie; whether it was his curly brown hair and his blue eyes, or his wonderfully caring unselfish nature, or because he was the last child she could have, it did not matter. For the rest of her life, he was her joy. She knew she would have no more as she had heard the two women talking, but she never told her husband for years, and when they did confide with each other, they realized once more the depth of their love.
The brothers mentioned several of these events in their parents’ lives before Alan fell asleep, but Robbie did not sleep. He took from his pocket a small paper-wrapped package, opened it and gazed for several minutes at the ruby ring his mother had given to him when she was dying. She had taken two rings from her fingers, the ruby and the other a small pearl, and put them in Robbie’s hand, saying, “You will need these some day, keep them safe.” For several months previous to this, his mother seemed to be tired, her face pale and often showing pain, but she never admitted to the children or her husband that she suffered a great deal.
Robbie’s memory went back to his boyhood in Nova Scotia when his mother would take the children on great excursions of make believe. They lived not far from the ocean and sometimes were taken to view some great sailing ships that were becoming obsolete because steamships were being developed, which were much faster and did not have to depend on the wind. The boys preferred the sailing ships and wished they had been old enough to have worked on one and often imagined themselves a Captain going to all the far-away places that their father had read to them about.
This was the only time the boys and their sister had much attention from their father, who was a silent man, more given to reading and experimenting with his plants than to adventure. Once, when the boys asked their mother if papa was ever a sea Captain on a sailing ship, she had answered, “Oh no, he didn’t like the water”. He had heard too much about “The August Gales,” commonly known as “The Widow Maker,” which was a bad storm on the Atlantic Ocean, which always happened in August when so many fishermen were far from home at sea and of the many men who never returned. She also told the children that Papa preferred his books and his work at the university.
James Andrew Webster had come from Scotland at age 25, settled in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and began his teaching as a Professor of Botany in the Dalhousie University, where he spent the next thirty years before retiring and deciding to see what the West had to offer in plant life.
Robbie did not have the pearl ring with him at the hotel, but while looking at the ruby, he remembered one of his mother’s last stories when she gave him the pearl, telling him rather shyly that the pearl had been from a young seaman to whom she had become engaged when she was 19. He worked for her father who was captain of his own ship. The young man had brought the pearl from the West Indies, but both men were lost at sea, so her mother had started up a sort of boarding house where seamen could stay in between ‘shipping out’ times.
The sailing ship had been insured with Lloyds but no one knew if there had been anything of value on the ship, so it was a long time before the insurance was paid.
The young botany professor was a permanent resident at the boarding house, and soon knew he was in love with Angela, but kept it to himself, as he knew she was still feeling the loss of her sailor. There was another truth that bothered the educated man very much, which was that Angela had no education at all. But there was so much about her that was good that he found it impossible to put her out of his mind. Eventually, they were married and continued on living with her mother until it was evident that Alan was soon to be born and her mother said that a boarding house was no place for a crying baby. So they found a home of their own where all three children were born.
When the children were growing into adults, Alan worked in a bank, while Robbie worked with a carpenter. Beulah had decided on education and eventually had a good position in the office of the university in which her father taught. They were a happy thrifty family and all saved their money until 1906 when Robbie was twenty years old, and their father decided to retire
.He thought it would be an interesting change in their lives if they moved west. They had heard so much about the wonderful west to where so many were moving, and all about this “homesteading” business. He thought there might be any number of plants he could investigate and work with and as all had money, why not? The boys said yes, they would go, but not Beulah; she preferred to stay where she was and as she was twenty-three, could decide for herself.
Angela too had money, as her mother was gone, the boarding house was sold, and her father’s insurance collected, so there was no reason to refuse. It seemed a very long distance to this “West”, but all thought it would be a great adventure. So their father had gone ahead to see what were the possibilities of finding land for himself and his two sons. After living thirty years in a city, he was amazed at the size of the country for so few people. One could travel for miles and not see a single person. As his train moved into the west, he noticed some farms in their beginning. In some cases, there were a few buildings with a faint air of prosperity, but he got quite a shock when he saw that some houses were built of sod!
When he arrived at his destination, he met a land agent who was more than willing to show him what was available. They traveled by team and democrat over all manner of country. Roads, if any, were just trails, and the vehicle bumped over rough and smooth alike, stopping here and there to see a piece of land.
James was not interested in any of them. He told the agent, “There are four of us. I want four pieces of land close together; one of them need not be much good for farming, as I do not intend to farm.” This surprised the agent, as the prime reason for anyone coming to the West was to farm. He eyed his new client with mild suspicion, but was somewhat reassured when James said, “My two sons will be farmers, my land can be pasture.” Suddenly the agent said, “Ah, I know the perfect place, twenty-five miles from town. We will have to go tomorrow, there is no time today. My horses will rest tonight and we will leave at six o’clock tomorrow morning. Be sure you bring a good lunch, as it will be night when we return.” Robbie finally fell asleep after making sure that the ruby ring was in his pocket..
Chapter Two
When Beth came home from classes one afternoon, her mother handed a letter to her that had arrived that afternoon. When Beth looked at the return address on the envelope, she saw that the letter was from that man from the north country that she had met at her cousin’s small gathering a few months ago. It was a new experience for her to get a letter from a man in another part of the world and she felt a small thrill sweep over her body. She at first took it as a school girl thing like this new habit of exchanging small verses on cards with pictures of cherubs and seraphim or flowers, there were so many new things happening or being done that one never before had heard of that no one need be surprised. When she read the letter she felt a small realization of being a woman attractive to man.
She pondered the letter’s contents for some time. It was a very ordinary letter, more like one from a brother to his sister. He mentioned how his area of the country was becoming very settled with people from just about everywhere taking up land and that eventually there would be good roads and schools. He also mentioned that his parents had come there so much earlier and now he himself had a good farm and beautiful horses and cattle. Last of all, he mentioned that one day he had caught a trout from his own stream. She read the letter so many times she had it memorized but could not truly understand it. Some of it read like a proposal of marriage, but mostly just a friendly letter. She was not particularly interested in the geography of a far off north prairie country or its roads, good or improved, and she had seen big horses harnessed to dray wagons hauling loads and sometimes at the fair but she never wanted to pat them or feed them a piece of apple or carrot as so many other children did.
She had grown up very sheltered but not excessively controlled.
She had been free to make most of her own decision as long as she obeyed the golden rule and the Ten Commandments and she must accept with good grace the results of a ‘not so good’ decision. And what was the significance of his having caught a trout? She hadn’t the faintest concern or knowledge of the life of a fish, or how it would be caught. Her only experience with fish was when she was a child and with other children would try to corner the minnows at the edges of the nearby river, or wade in a slough to find a tadpole, but these events did not leave much of an impression. Her real love seemed to be flowers and color. She haunted the woods in springtime, looking for the elusive shy little Violets and later for the tall stemmed elegant ladylike Shooting Star, to which some children gave the unattractive name of ‘Rooster Heads’.
All the flowers that bloomed in their season were to her a joy to see and study their intricate composition. She would spend all the time possible at the flower show gazing with delight at plants and flowers she had not seen in the woods and wished her parent’s yard could be much larger so that she could have a large flower garden of her own.
Most of the yard was planted in vegetables but she did see that the white blossoms in the pea patch were weak substitutes for the magnificent Sweet Pea blossoms she had seen at the flower show. But her greatest joy in the yard was the Lilac at the back fence. This was her favorite when in bloom as she said the scent of these lovely mauve clusters would meet her as she turned into her own street. As she sat on the side of her bed, she re-read the letter which she kept under her pillow as she had done since its arrival.
After putting ‘out’ the lamp-light she would lie awake thinking about that clean looking fellow she had met and tried to remember some of what he had said. He seemed so sincere about everything. He wasn’t given to nonsense or joking in his conversation as were so many of the young men she knew at college and was surprised to learn after noticing his kind manner that he was a farmer as she had sort of imagined farmers as not knowing much about good manners. She remembered with a startled thought when he said goodbye after the small gathering at her Aunt’s house, he had wished her success in her second year at college, that she had had a sudden moment of wishing she could go with him. She wouldn’t tell her parents of that momentary wish, but she would now show them the letter. Both parents knew that she had received a letter from a fellow up north. The return address told them that much, but they just waited for her to confide in them as was her usual way in showed the letter to her parents.
Her father’s response was “It is well mannered. He sounds like a fellow reaching for something he doesn’t know how to catch, but a good way to start a friendship”. He remembered his own frustration at finding a wife when a fellow had to ask the girl’s father for her hand and of the happiness that was denied some young people when Father said, “No”. Or, even if Father said “Yes”, a fellow never had a minute alone with the girl he loved without some elderly aunt sitting nearby pretending she was asleep, but far from it. However, he thought, with some satisfaction, this was 1912, when some girls and certainly men had much more freedom of thought and action.
Her Mother’s response was quite different. When asked if the letter should be answered, her mother did not say ‘No’, but neither was there a ‘Yes’. Her answer implied that a young woman did not write to men she hardly knew – and to just wait to see if a follow-up letter would come, adding that in her day, a young woman who wrote to a man was considered to be nothing more than a hussy. So, the letter was not answered, but she kept it and for the next several months did a great deal of thinking and wishing that he would write again.
She remembered his quiet unassuming manner and his firm handshake when he had said good-bye. She remembered too that his hand was not soft, but a bit rough and that brought back the memory that he was a farmer so she started paying more attention to news about people settling on the land north of them. She wondered what it would be like if she eventually married a farmer, certainly she would have plenty of space for flower gardens and it would be pleasant to take lunch down to that creek he said was so clear, and of course it would be so pleasant to live in the country.
The fact that farmers’ wives had some work to do never entered her head. She had never done any work at home or ever gave a thought to how work was done. Her school work never suffered as she enjoyed lessons and lectures and she had a very secure home but lately she had less time for her young friends. She very much wanted to ask her cousin about this fellow he knew up north but young ladies did not enquire about men they had met only once. That was what her mother had told her. She often wondered how such a strict thinking woman as her mother ever married such a jovial, wise and understanding Irishman as her father.
She was shuffling through some fallen leaves one afternoon on her way home from classes enjoying the rustling sound while absent mindedly wondering what she should do with her life. There was not many avenues open to women – her classes had mostly men, in fact the whole college was mostly men all intending to be doctors, lawyers, engineers or anything with an air of importance to it, but what was there for women?
She could not imagine herself sitting in an office as a stenographer and certainly did not want to be a seamstress or milliner so there seemed not much for her to choose from. Becoming a nurse was out as she hated being around sick people and she certainly didn’t like the work. Some women were becoming school teachers but most school teaching jobs were given to men. She caught sight of a pale mauve Aster still clinging to life as it poked itself through a picket fence. She caressed it’s fragile petals now showing bits of brown at the edges and thought of “the short life of beauty”. So many lovely flowers whose whole life’s existence was just a few weeks, while her mother’s beloved Lilac would continue to grow for many more lifetimes.
Her mother had brought the first Lilac in that area from her home in New Hampshire, where at one time the Lilac grew wild and eventually was named the State flower of New Hampshire. She had disturbed the hibernation of a small Lady Bug who came crawling from the Aster onto her fingers. She was sorry she had disturbed its sleep and immediately remembered a little story she had learned as a child in catechism class – that because of the help the lady bug was to the farmers in the middle ages by destroying crop pests, the beetles were regarded as a kind of intervention from the Virgin Mary and thereafter known as Ladybugs or Ladybird or as “Bird of Our Lady”She quickly put the little thing from her fingers back onto the Aster and thought with sadness of all the small creatures like Butterflies and others whose life in the sunshine was so short and so fragile at anytime, while creatures such as Elephants could live for two hundred years.
The evening dark was creeping over the streets when she realized that she was slow in getting home so she hurried for the last short distance and was soon in the kitchen where her father sat reading the newspaper while her mother seemed slightly annoyed as she handed Beth a letter. She knew instantly who the letter was from and with her heart pounding took it to the parlor to be read in private. He was coming back! This time she would listen to all he would say. But why was he coming back? The letter did not say, and when? It merely said “when my fall work is done”. So, what was his fall work and how does one know when it is “done”? For the first time in her life, she wished she knew something about farming. She had heard or read that a farmer’s work was never finished and that it was very repetitive, but wasn’t anything very repetitive? The sun came up and the sun went down, daylight and dark changed places constantly. Everything she could think of repeated itself.
She felt a strange sensation go through her body and tried to control the slight tremor in her voice when she handed the letter to her mother who read it and handed it to her husband at the same time announcing that “supper was ready”…nothing more. Beth wondered what she should say and was finding it hard to get her food past her throat. Her mother was completely silent. Beth raised her eyes to look at her father, hoping for some reassurance and was greatly relieved and mischievously amused when he winked back at her. She remembered that he had always been on her side in everything, maybe spoiling her too.
She loved her jovial Irish father who had been a Boston Policeman for twenty years before moving west with his wife and daughter. His wife was from New Hampshire and who now waited for Beth to ask if she might answer the letter. But when no such request came for what seemed a long time, she burst out with “You are not to answer that letter”.
After a few moments of acutely painful silence, Beth’s father spoke saying, “I will answer his letter and I will tell him he may have two dinners with my daughter; the first one at my table in my house and the second also in my house but by themselves”. After that statement, silence reigned again for a few minutes until mother, as always, changed the subject by, “I guess we had better get the last of the garden cleaned up tomorrow.” Her husband, Mike, pondered over the use of the plural “we”, as no one but herself was ever allowed in the garden, but he knew his wife and understood her abruptness.
He knew she was a good woman who found it hard to show any affection and was not given to flowery speech. He knew too that what really was troubling her was that she dreaded losing her daughter, a daughter she ignored almost entirely. When Beth was four years old there had been twins born to her parents, but neither one lived beyond two days. This the mother could not understand. Her husband told her that “God’s will is almost always hard to understand or accept, but accept it we must.”
She had no other choice but from that time on became a bitter, silent obstructionist to most everything that would bring happiness. He looked at her and wondered if when Beth was gone, would she soften up a little and could they return to the days when she had been a loving, joyful person instead of the bitter woman she had become and who found fault with most anything and stopped planting flowers inside the front fence because she resented children leaning over to pick one or to just look at them. “Other peoples’ brats” she would mutter. His eyes dampened when he thought of what he once had, but now seems forever denied. He loved her but his love seemed to be the most helpless part of their marriage.
She gathered the dishes from the table and took them to the dishpan to be washed. Beth, who had never in her life washed a dish or held a broom in her hands was anxious to go to her room where she could read and re-read his letter. She thought it much too business-like – just that he would be in her town and hoped to see her, signed “Respectfully yours, Robert Webster”. Why would he not say, “Lovingly yours”, but she knew that would be wrong and her mother would say, “You burn that letter”.
She knew she loved him and once again tried to recall every minute of the time at the small gathering of friends in her cousin’s home when he did not particularly single her out but did arrange to be beside her when refreshments were served. He had talked of the fall colors and the wild Geese that made their way over his farm and hoped some day to see the Pacific ocean, as he had lived by the Atlantic ocean, none of which she found of much interest except the “fall colors”, but when he questioned her about her interests she seemed to have nothing to say. She remembered now, with the letter in her hand, that when he has said good-bye and shook her hand he had not shaken it at all, just held her hand a moment longer than necessary, while their eyes met for a moment. She knew this was something young women were not to do and was made aware of that when she noticed her Aunt standing nearby with her hands folded neatly in front as she wished each of her sons’ guests a “good night”. It was nine o’clock and this fellow from the north country was to board his train in a few minutes, while her own Father would soon be there to take her home. She was so sure she loved this fellow and wondered what she had accomplished with which to impress him. She sat for some time wondering just what had she accomplished?