Part Love Story, Part Travelogue Pt 12

Our
Love – Story

My Grandmother Margaret E. Winslow, 1908

BY SWEETHEART (SHARED BY J. STEWART)

( click here for other installments)

Installment #12:

The hotel that first presented itself was not inviting for a meal, so Mr. Stewart suggested you have something light at a restaurant there and finish up at Stokes where your little table was waiting for you. As you knew, the following of his suggestions always forboded a pleasure, you agreed, and after the hour’s ride in the observation car where you watched the moon struggling through the long gray clouds, where Mr. Stewart explained why the electric light sputtered, and sang his Sigma Chi songs and you were very happy, you hurried to Stokes and sitting across from each other ate ~ what? I must confess I don’t remember which argues that perhaps you didn’t know. Perhaps you didn’t, Other Girl, for you were approaching another goodnight. It came after you had talked on the piazza for a long while and Mr. Stewart had been solicitously affectionate ~ it did feel good to have someone you trusted and admired put his arms around you and you may have drooped toward him a little you were so tired. You thanked him for your happy time and when he earnestly asked you to kiss him you begged him not to spoil the beautiful day and shook his hand when he promised not to if you so wished it. He pleaded hard but you remained obdurate even though he drew you so close that his breath was on your lips and whispered, “It’s mighty hard not to, little girl.” Impulsively you drew his forehead down and kissed it lightly. “Thank you Margaret,” he whispered and you went to bed with those haunting tones in your ears and the tenderness of that kiss on your lips.

It rained the next day. You awoke to a gloomy sky and planned to read in the house as you had no umbrella. But while you were taking a little nap your English landlady knocked at your door to say that Mr. Stewart was downstairs. You descended rubbing the sleep from your eyes and found that he had brought in his umbrella for you to use in case you were going out. You thanked him heartily for his thoughtfulness and took advantage of it to go downtown and then out to your friend’s in Madrona Park. There you and she spent the afternoon lazily lying in the hammock and playing the phonograph until you made ready to go. Her hostess urged you to stay to dinner but you hesitated as the two boys had invited you to go to the theatre that night. The girls suggested that you telephone Mr. Stewart and you did. When you heard his voice over the telephone you said, “Is this Mr. Stewart?” “Why, hello! Sweetheart,” he answered and although it wasn’t the first time he had called you that, you overlooked it preferring to consider it as just “his way.” So you explained and he promised to call for you with the automobile. True to his word after dinner your two escorts drove up and were introduced to the girls. A hearth fire was blazing cheerily and crackled a snapping accompaniment to the tuneful records on the phonograph. Mr. Stewart was making himself very much at home when you called him out into the hall and suddenly looked at his cuffs. “I told you remember,” my Other Self spoke, “that if you were still using pins for cuff links that I should have to buy you a pair?” “Yeth ma’m,” he lisped in mock despair. “Well, here they are,” you replied, producing a wonderful ten-cent pin chase marked with an S. He was really pleased which in turn pleased you until you tried to put them in for him and he remarked, “That isn’t right. You’ll have to do better than that when we are married.” It wasn’t the first time he had said that either but you did feel it incumbent upon you to be stern this time. But how could you be for long when he drew his cuffs way down, turned the new buttons ostentatiously outward and pranced around as if he were a child with a new toy. You had to forbid him to show them to the others or he would have exhibited them with all due pride. So when you left for the theatre and all the time you were trying to keep your shocked self from laughing at the awful jokes that elicited from Mr. Stewart, “If only your mother could see you now, Margaret,” you were enjoying your little secret with him about the cuff buttons. The curtain down, Mr. Smith invited you to go to the College Inn where you had a little to eat but a great deal of fun piling up salt cellars to Mr. Stewart’s disconcerting ~ you thought. You were not sorry ~ but you laid to those salt cellars the fact that he made no remonstrance of any kind to your proferred hand clasp as a goodnight. You wondered, I repeat not sorrowfully, though you did hope he were not cross with you.

At eleven o’clock the next morning, Oh! Sleepy Other Girl, you were still in bed. But how you did hurry into your clothes when you were made aware that Mt. Stewart was downstairs. All your boarding school practice stood you in good stead for within ten minutes you were greeting him in the hall. He had come to share his plan with you of autoing to Snoqualmie Falls, a distance of about forty five miles. I rather think I remember that he was pleased at your enthusiastic reception of it and smiled at your concern on the grounds that the picnic might interfere with his business. “It will be combining business and pleasure,” he told you, which you accepted, inviting no further explanation. So after your lunch which you had in a pretty tea-room down town ~ you thought the happy time ahead worth a little celebration ~ you hurried home to dress warm and comfy for the long ride. Your little English landladies were so excitedly solicitous that insisted upon your borrowing a “fur” coat which was warm if not all as to name and style that you would have chosen. Your guardian tucked you into the front seat, you delightedly honked the horn and off shot the Model G with two happy passengers.