Part Love Story, Part Travelogue Pt 13

Our
Love – Story

My Grandmother Margaret E. Winslow, 1908

BY SWEETHEART (SHARED BY J. STEWART)

( click here for other installments)

Installment #13

1909 Franklin Model G. This is the car Ray and Margaret drove to Snoqualmie Falls. (except I doubt that Ray's was bright red!)

At the ferry slip on the lake, Mr. Stewart had just time to eat a little snatch of lunch. While his order was being brought he dashed out to purchase some fruit and cheese for your picnicking and you cut up his beef for him and buttered his bread which facilitated matters upon his return. In fact he rewarded your foresight with the assurance that he was sure you would make a good wife, to which you did not feel called to reply. Once you were tucked in on the other side of the lake, Mr. Stewart put down the top, as it was a gray day, and climbing back beside you, let the car leap ahead to your great delight. Then such a thrilling afternoon, dear Other Girl! Over country roads you flew, through aisles of great forest monarchs where you seemed like some toy fury at the foot of a colossus, immovable and grim. Sometimes you flashed by great gaps in the forest where fires had blackened and leveled its majesty; sometimes you spun by logging camps and little lonesome looking villages. The awesomeness of it all and his little attentions made you feel very close to your guardian. Now and then he would take one hand from the wheel and clasp it over yours with the question, “Are you happy, Sweetheart?” You would answer smilingly and most truthfully that you were and perhaps it was the influence of the forest but somehow you forbore to correct the name he gave you.

This picture of Snoqualmie Falls is from Margaret's album ~ she purchased it.
So magnificent!!

From my Grandmother Margaret's album ~
Is this picture out of focus, because she was excited, or because the car was vibrating?

When you started on your ride he had said, “I didn’t want you to go away from Seattle without having seen the falls, Margaret. I think they are wonderful.” So you were wondering how soon you would come to them, glad in your heart that he loved the beautiful in nature and wanted to share it with you. At last he told you that you were almost there but could not see them from the road. So you possessed your soul in a tiptoe patience until the car began to climb up a narrow green-fringed road that led to a very Robin Hood glen. It was dark in there under the trees and damp but the air was filled with a roar and you ran toward an opening ahead of you. Mr. Stewart caught you and insisted on carrying you over the stumps and pools to the edge of the cliff. There were the beautiful falls, a sheet of foaming white that sent a mist curling up from the dark pools below to the very top of the chasm. The beauty of the sight and the emotions that crowded fast upon you forbade your speaking for a long time. Finally you retrieved Mr. Stewart’s intent gaze and told him how you appreciated his bringing you to see the beautiful spectacle. When you overcame your first awe you said that the falls seemed to be reaching down white fingers and he thought rather that they were white sky rockets shooting the wrong way. How you wanted to sit on the edge of the wall and just gaze for a while but Mr. Stewart was most authoritative in his refusal to let you. Suddenly he amended his denial with, “But someday, Sweetheart, we’ll come back and you can stay as long as you like.” “Won’t you stay, too?” you asked quickly, then stopped in confusion. “You bet I will,” he assured, and as your intuition supplied his meaning your heart did not shrink from the thought. But you hastened to comply with his suggestion of hurrying away in order to catch the last ferry and you gained the car laughing. There you rescued the fruit from the tonneau and fed your chauffeur as he kept his hands on the wheel ~ most of the time ~ and his eyes on the road ahead. Even though a horse that wouldn’t turn out of the road delayed you a little you reached the ferry in time and were soon at home. Being too late for dinner there you dressed in your little blue summer dress and went down to Stokes where you sat with your transformed chauffeur at the little table you called yours. One thing marred the harmony of that tete-a-tete. You were speaking of your cousin Constance and after saying, “One thing I’ll do for you gladly, Mr. Stewart, is to write a recommendation to the girl you fall in love with,” you added, “I might almost be willing to write it to Constance and that is great praise.” Quick as a flash he asked, “Has she any money?” and after a return fire the subject languished. From Stokes you took the car, Mr. Smith joined you and your trio went to a dance to which it had been invited by Miss Gilchrist whom you met at the houseboat. There you spent a very enjoyable evening dancing by turns with Mr. Smith and Mr. Stewart, who sounded his praises in your eager ears. Miss Gilchrist insisted on your spending the next night with her, which gave you, for some unaccountable reason, a keen pang of lonesomeness to contemplate. So you hurried to your guardian, “Oh! Mr. Stewart, Miss Gilchrist wants me to stay with her tomorrow night. I thought ~ perhaps ~ hadn’t you suggested something else?” you finished desperately. “Well I guess yes” ~ the sun came out ~ “every night you are here belongs to me” ~ the birds began to sing ~ “and I’ll tell her so” ~ your lonesomeness had vanished. He took you by the hand and led you to Miss Gilchrist. “This is my little girl while she is in Seattle,” he told her, “and I can’t spare her for a night. I’m sorry but I just can’t let you have her tomorrow night,” and though Miss Gilchrist was irate at his interposition you were comforted.

Here is Margaret from a few years later at Niagara Falls ~ but all bundled up, as she was on their drive...

My Grandpa Ray at Niagara Falls a few years later ~

Finally you insisted upon leaving the bright dance hall and turning toward home. On the homeward ride Mr. Stewart kept his arm closely round you, and, vanishing Other Girl, you liked to feel it there for it seemed so right and natural that the close of your happy day was happy, too. After Mr. Smith had gone in leaving you two alone and very close together you said with shy earnestness, “We have had such a happy long time together today, tomorrow will be kind of lonesome like without seeing you till six o’clock.” “It has been happy, hasn’t it, Sweetheart?” he answered, “but there are happier ones coming when you are my little wife.” You attempted to deny the suggestion twice, but both times you were kissed into silence. I am smiling, Other Girl, because I remember that you went to bed still denying it fervently in your thoughts but with contradictious burning on your lips and in your heart.