Part Love Story, Part Travelogue Pt 11
Our
Love – Story
My Grandmother Margaret E. Winslow, 1908
BY SWEETHEART (SHARED BY J. STEWART)
( click here for other installments)
Installment #11:
Saturday brought your attendance at the theatre with Roger where you enjoyed the play but not the company. So you were glad when you reached your room and dressed for dinner. At the table Mr. Stewart said, “What time do you start for your dance with Roger tonight.” You replied that you were not going upon which he looked so triumphantly pleased that you rather objected to his insinuating, “Well, how did you manage that?” You explained with what you considered admirable consistency and singleness of meaning that you didn’t think it wise to go to a dance on the Fair Grounds where there would be nobody you knew so you had substituted the theatre in the afternoon. Oh! Other Funny Self, of course you didn’t think that Mr. Stewart divined the true reason for your decision though his frequent compliments on your executive ability aroused your suspicions that he might have guessed. So you and Mr. Stewart went down to the garage where he disappeared for a mysterious telephoning. When he reappeared you took a car and rode to the houseboat you had visited before. There you found the host, Mr. Terrell, and Mr. Noah about to embark on a call farther up the lake. Of course you were invited to join them and soon the “Hello Bill” tied up to the Taylor’s houseboat. There the girls were discovered to be out but the callers made themselves at home and most of the evening you played accompaniments for Mr. Terrell to sing. One of the songs was Tosti’s “Goodbye” which you will always associate with that evening. Mr. Stewart sat near you smoking and enjoying, ~ you knew that. Whenever you made a motion as if to leave the piano he would beg you to keep on playing. That was a happy evening, dear Other Girl. The trip back made gay by singing and the twinkling shore lights, you staid at the houseboat for a few moments. On your own porch you resisted firmly all Mr. Stewart’s attempts to make your parting an affectionate one. His talk was of what you were beginning to mean to him and once he asked, “Won’t you be my little girl?” “No,” you replied hastily. “I’m nobody’s little girl.” “Well just promise to be my little girl while you are in Seattle,” he urged. “I guess I am more yours than anybody’s,” you laughed, “if enjoying and appreciating the good times you have given me count that way.” His arms were around you now and the light from the street showed you that your words had given him pleasure. You felt that he was very dear as a friend and guardian but the “chief end” in your catechism was to keep him as such and neither encourage him or think of him as anything nearer. Dear Other Girl, you were so sincere in enjoying him purely as a kind friend that I love to remember it. Even when you tore yourself from his second kiss and told him with blazing eyes that you did not like it and were very much hurt, you were heartily sincere. You told him that he was not a gentleman to disrespect a girl’s wishes so completely as to kiss her against her will and that you had been close friends at home with a boy for seven years and he never kissed you. Of course in after times he may say you laughed at his uncomplimentary disposition of that boy and claim thereby that you couldn’t have been very much incensed. But my own Other Self, I know how you pondered and suffered over your new sensations, feeling more and more your loneliness mingled with some new sensations that you could not name. It was a reconstruction period, Other Girl, and reconstruction periods are always times of great stress to mind and heart.
What would your home dears have said to see you sitting up in a high bootblack’s chair on Sunday morning with Mr. Stewart by your side and two sons of Italy busily polishing your shoes while you read the Post-Intelligencer? It was a lark for you, tho’, wasn’t it? And Mr. Stewart so perfectly fitted into every novel experience that each new one was enhanced. After being polished you went back to your room and dressed in your pretty white serge suit ~ Mr. Stewart tho’t it pretty too ~ and you and he started off for church. While you sat in the great auditorium, hearing the chimes play the doxology and catching up every now and then with the unique minister’s unique delivery of his strong sermon your thoughts were ranging far and wide. Sometimes they alighted on Mr. Smith who had gone on a sailing trip which you and Mr. Stewart had skillfully avoided, sometimes they were projected to the afternoon and evening, wondering what your companion had planned for them. You gathered that Mr. Stewart was not in the habit of attending church and you hoped you were not boring him by impressing him as an escort, when to your utter delight he said with all seriousness in his tones as you gained the street, “Thank you Margaret, for taking me to church. I am glad to have gone.”
You soon discovered that you were invited to take the sail to Tacoma which your companion explained was Seattle’s rival city and famous for its docks. So toward the boat you hurried stopping to purchase a bag of fruit to serve as a picnic lunch on board. Such crowds as there were bound for Tacoma with their shoe-boxed sandwiches and their graduated children. Nicely settled on the port deck astern you and Mr. Stewart prepared to enjoy with an enthusiasm generally conceded to people of fewer years than either of you could count. You laughed at all his stories and he laughed at all yours. You merrily pitched banana peels over the railing while he indulged chiefly in a comfortable looking cigar. What a happy sail that was dear Other Girl, with the shore of the Sound slipping by reminding you strongly of the beautiful Maine coast where you had spent many happy summers. At last you abandoned your camp chairs and strolled to the bow where you watched the entrance into Tacoma harbor. Having gone uptown, Mr. Stewart put you on a car bound for Point Defiance Park, he said, which proved to be a pretty beach resort. Directly behind the beach was a high bluff composed of a curious foundation of stratas of sand and clay. Hundreds of people had scratched their initials on its face which, having hardened, gave the appearance of hieroglyphics. On the cliff and behind it were the tallest, straightest, hugest-trunked trees you had ever seen growing up many feet before they extended any branches. After you had enthusiastically looked around, Mr. Stewart patiently pleased with your enjoyment, you sought the beach and sat on an old log while the waves broke on the sands. I am unconscionably glad, my Other Self, that you have left such a beautiful memory with me as I have of that happy hour by the water. The old love of the sea and the new joy that was beginning to steal into your heart have made that day memorable. A sort of peace settled down upon you and you felt that it was right for you to be as happy as you were. You and Mr. Stewart wrote some postal cards as you sat on the log. One of them he sent to your address in Seattle and the next morning the postman brought it to you and with it a not unpleasant perturbation of mind. You talked of many things that afternoon on the beach; of your home, your trip, even of Stanley. You recalled how effective the latter topic had been in your problem of the minister but you found it did not affect Mr. Stewart in the same way. He only put his arm around you and hinted at a secret in his heart which you might share if you would. How dearly shall I always remember one thing he told you. It makes me happy all over again as it did you when he said, “I couldn’t tell you last night, little girl, how I enjoyed hearing you play. I’ve thought of it all day, it was so good to sit and smoke and listen.” Ah! dear Other Girl, did a door in your heart spring ajar at those words? You know, wherever you are and my heart is wide open at the glorious remembrance and more glorious prophecy. At last the shadows warned you that it was time to start for the return boat which upon investigation you discovered had gone. So you decided to have supper in Tacoma and take the interurban electric to Seattle.
I found all these photos on the internet. But we can certainly picture Margaret and Ray on the beach with the "hugest trunked" trees on the slopes....I'm guessing she may have been seeing Redwoods for the first time, maybe...?