Where and When Flat Dwellers Make Love
Tina FAVORITE PLACE FOR THE FAMILY BENEATH TILfl BAND LOVERS NAIVELY HEEDLESS OF THEIR SURROUNDINGS.
PAVILION.
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SOLITARY FlGtTRKS WHO LISTEN TO THE Mt'H7t: T JR rtrE TnOUOITr the MAN WHO BQUAT3 DEJEOTKDLY AT THE PARK'S FRINOEL
IT BRINGS UP.
(Copyrighted, 1903, by Guy T. V. Isknlskki.)
JJS THE rain ceased ita gentle fall
k I and turned into a slight driule,
I two figures emerged out of the
"TSl darkness Into the glow of an
irwiiJ electric light and walked along
the purk path to a bench, whos Dack
ground was a clump of fragrant flowered
bushes.
"Such a perfectly cosy place!" breathed
the young woman, as the man took a hand
kerchief from a pocket and carefully wiped
the water off two s;ats.
Then they Bat down with contented
sighs; and a few minutes later, when the
dwellers of the neighborhood poured Into
the square with the peeping out of the
first star, they were "two souls with but a
single thought." Neither the constant
Shuffling of feet on all sides nor the varied
prooesrlon before the pair caused them to
unloose Interlocked hands, or her to take
her head from close proximity to bis shoul
der. Their mutual contemplation bespoke
Ignorance of the presence of broadly smil
ing strangers.
It is such scenes as this that makes the
mall park of New York City on a sum
mer's night an excellent chart of the human
heart and mind. Day in the average metro
politan perk Is tame and monotonous.
Everybody is more or less conventional.
Humanity is on its dignity. Even the
few children scattered about and the
grown idlers on the benches play and doze
with a restrained air. But with fall of
night the park becomes a board on which
the framut of human feelings is run; and
much that Is serious and tragic, amusing
and comical, and frlvlloua and inane is
seen and heard in and beyond the reach of
the yellow lights.
This Is true of any night when the city
gasps for breath, but especially Is it the
case when the band plays. Then the peo
ple pour out In greater numbers. Then,
under the spell of the rollicking notes of
the latest ragtime, or the memory-awakening
strains of "My Old Kentucky Home"
and other old-time favorites, the conver
sations usually kept for family or friendly
circles take place with refreshing freedom
In the open. No one seems to give a
thought to the probability that the person
seated next on the bench Is unwillingly
being taken into heart and home confi
dences. The small park of the metropolis on a
sunnier night Is always the favorite tryst
lng place of the lovers who live there
abouts. It is the only place left to them
where they can whisper their "sweet noth
ings." A flat takes no thoughts of the
heyday of youth; the parlor and sitting
room Is too often one. But when the bass
drum thunders and the trombone's sonor
ous notes float over the benches the lovers
are legion. Young couples who are timid
on other nights and envious of the braver
spirits across the path forget all about
their surroundings, lose their bashfulness
and tenderly clasp hands and draw closer
under the mellowing bars of "Aonle
Laurie."
This is the best time of all for the
photograper after studies to get in good
work. So Intent will the lovers and the
other people be on their affairs that they
would not notice the camera pointed in
their direction, and when the flashlight
goes off they will still remain ignorant of
the fact that they have been taken holding
hands or wrapped In reverie.
The couples a-woolng are not to be found
beneath the band pavilion. Thither flock
those who love music for the noise it
makes the small boy and his sister. There,
too, are found the staid married couples
and the children's parents, so that the fa
vorite place for the family party in the
park is marked and made unchangeable
by the youngsters.
The wooers are found on the outskirting
bencbes in company wlUt aoJIUiry figures
who listen to the music for the thoughts
it brings up, and the homeward-bound
workers, who pause for a moment to catch
a strain and then tramp on again.
Here, as the melodies sound softly from
the bandstand, such scraps of conversation
as theso are borne on the air for all who
happen around to hear:
"Ar thur?" very timorously from the
seat along the walk underneath the big
elm tree.
"Yea, dearie," in a heart-mellowed mascu
line voice.
"Ar thur, do do oh, Ar thur, do you
still love mo, after"
And a smacking sound tells the wide,
wide world that Arthur does.
The "Humph!" of a man in overalls as
his pIpe-and-muNlc reverie is disturbed, and
the "Gee, listen to the damn IJIts!" of a
rounder on the same bench, follow.
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GLADYS LILIAN M'GINTIE OF WILDER, Neb.. AGED 18 MONTHS AND
HER PET PLAYFKLLOW-Pholo by Hure, Wllber.
A few minutes later, an a drawling bass
voice asks, "Luclndy, reckon it's putty nigh
de time us two been glttln married, ain't
It, honey?" an urchin scamperlig toward
the pavilion calls the park's attention to
his discovery:
"Eh, (lore's a big black coon makfn' love
to a yaller gal back dere!"
Whatever the comments of the outside
world, they seem to have no effect on the
lovers. They are usually as oblivious to
them as a well dressed couple, who had
come from a private house bordering on
the square, were to an old woman who
dropped beside them for a few minutes' rest
before trudging on agnln with her lndcn
basket. They did not loosen hands for an
instant, and the girl did not even turn
around to look at the woman as she seated
herself. Small wonder that the man who
squats dejectedly at the park's fringe car
ries home with him many a lover's secret
when he would far rather go to his bed
comforted by the knowledge that on tho
morrow he would be at work again.
But the lovers, naively heedless of their
surroundings, are matched by the fathers
and mothers within the glare of the pavilion
lights. Even he who walks afar off cannot
escape their frank remarks.
"Johnny! John ny Rob erts!" screams
a mother, holding a struggling child in her
arms, to a small boy fast making his way
into a crowd of youngsters farther in the
park. "If you don't come here this minute
I'll give you another whlppln' like last
night's!"
"Didn't I tell you she treated her chil
dren shameful?" triumphantly asks a
woman, evidently Johnny's mother's closest
neighbor, of her companion. "She's the one
that deserves the licking!"
"And I says to her" from a pugnacious
type of woman farther down the human
border of the walk "I says to her, 'Mrs.
Brady, I'll break your fare If you steal
another one of me petticoats off me clothes
line.' I says. And Mrs. Brady, she "
"And so that's the baby. Is it?" from a
passerby, who has recognized an acquaint
ance "The dear little thing and you'va
got a new baby carriage for It. too. That's
what I'll have to be getting If I have any
more the old one's been used so much It's
all worn out."
Equally as enlightening as the conver
sation heard around the bandstand or on
the seats that have come to be known as
"lovers' nooks" are the attempts at re
partee to be overheard on the less crowded
portion of the walks leading to the hand
stand. Here groups of youth take their
first lessons In mashing.
"Hello. Mamie!" an overgrown hoy, with
a cigarette sticking to his lips, calls seduc
tively to a passing girl.
"Hey!" breaks In one of his companions,
as the girl looks straight ahead, "leave
Mamie alone. Can't you see she's a lady?"
Then they laugh.
But often Marrie, or whatever name she
Continued on Page Fifteen.)