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THE COURIER.
10
LINCOLN-LETTER.
Lincoln, Ncbr.,
June 26, 1901.
Dear Penelope:
Wednesday and no letter from you.
A young lady of elegant leisure, like
yourself, is not. going to crowd herself
to compose letters to a friecd who is
not in her class anyway and can not get
up an answer fit to be printed on the
same page with hers. Especially, in this
warm weather a literary dilettante
shrinks from getting too near the fires
of genius which sometimes scorches me,
Penelope, when I open your hot stuff.
If you were a young lady, Penelope, who
had to earn jour own living, you would
compose for it; not music, but stories.
It's you that has the quick wrist and
that knows how to turn the sentence
into 8 great joke. But, dearest, it you
depended on your pen it would be a long
time before you could afford strawber
ries with your porridge. I suppose you
do nothing more laborious these days
than sip sorbets and soda ice-cream
drinks. If you only had a house and a
husband to look after you would learn
what care and anxiety are.
Jack has been playing golf lately. I
Mo not play because I am so thin and he
aays the work will make me thinner.
Jt has just occurred to me that Jack is
unusually positive that golf will hurt
me. I wonder who there is, out there,
that Jack is so interested in.
The last- June wedding between a
sterling young business man and one of
Lincoln's fairest daughters has been
celebrated and there are so many ster
ling young men and so many triple
plated, so many fairest daughters wear
ing veils and standing under floral bells,
so many "officiating clergymen", and all
that, the last fortnight; that the human
miud tires of the monotony of repetition.
It will be a year or two, probably, before
the eastern style, or absence of it,
reaches Lincoln; but most of the mil
lionaire heiresses who have married this
June have ordered the ceremony with
absolute simplicity. There have seldom
been more than thirty present . Those
were intimate friends and close relatives
of the groom and bride. The thousand
and one intimate friends of a rich girl
were not invited. And the bride with
drew before the wedding to the country
home of the family and when the hour
struck, walked (Think of it, Lincoln
brides!), walked through the village
streets to the plain little church, where
the pastor in the same coat or gown he
preaches in, married them. The bridal
parties were not smothered with flow
ers, and the little churches were only
fragrant with garden and field flowers.
The oppressive ceremony which still
characterizes the weddings of the west
is doomed.
After a while in Lincoln the bride will
pace into the church followed by a little
procession of relatives and friends. She
will not collect a trousseau of such vari
ety and number that long before her
things are worn out they will be out of
date. It is no compliment to the groom's
ability to take care of his wife for the
father of the bride to buy her dresses
and lingerie enough to last her a dec
ade. Besides, it is very bad for a young
husband to lead him to think that you
do not need even a dress a year. More
over the ordinary father can not afford
to bpend a year's income on his daugh
ter's trousseau, especially if he have
other daughters.
Do you not think yourself that there
is too much fuss and feathers, too many
little girls holding a calla lily upon
which is impaled the Ring, too many
bridesmaids and too much trepitant ex
pectation and suspense? Anyway it's,
this way where I live at, down in Lincoln.
Then the howling mob that follows the
unhappy and scared bride and groom to
the station. If it is at night the strang
ersjwho occupy the bertha are scarcely
amused by someone else's joke. They
ask the name of the place and ever
afterwards bold a grudge against Lin
coln, and believe that the place is full
of fools who accompany their friends,
that are only going as far as Chicago,
to the station and bawl silly bleats into
theairandtheearsof total Btrangera.
If there were anything new about the
performance it would be funnier, but
each new wedding party is liks a flock
of sheep bleating in exstacy over their
out-worn methods of appraising strangers
that a newly-wedded pair is getting on
board.
June is nearly over and so many wed
dings at once will not occur again for a
year. Jack says I ought to keep still
about other people's affairs, and that's
so. A much greater nuisance than
June weddings, their fuss and feathers,
and the crowd of silly friends that make
wedding days hideous are the officious
people like myself, who criticise things
that make the weather warmer but do
not mitigate the nusiance. Speaking
of officious people, have you any friends
who pick at your dress and tie every
time they see you? Would you not go
around a block in the Bun to avoid an
interview with these well-meaning but
officious people? Women who never
get their shire waistB and dress skirtB
justified irritate the eye and the sense
of propriety, but the very absence of
mind which causes them to overlook the
proper precautions in regard to their
own waist and skirt operates to make
them oblivious of their neighbor's short
comings. This is a rather ill-natured
letter, Penelope, but I have suffered
from these officious friends rather more
than the ordinary woman because my
Lincoln friends seem to think 1 have no
sense at all. These friends stop to reg
ulate my attire (more in summer than
in winter because the former is the
open 'season for shirt waists, but I
could endure it with more equanimity
in winter on account of the temper be
ing Bhorter in summer,) not for any
consuming desire to improve my ap
pearance, but because my skirt or
waist or neck is not arranged just to
suit them. And seems to me all my
friends, especially, are set upon having
their own way, and of course my toilette
is never satisfactory to them. The only
thing that makes me more and more
sardonic and skeptical of their true
philanthropy is that after one glass of
fashion has laid hands on my person,
the next G. O. F. I meet, is likely to re
arrange my costume into the graceful
lines of my own original draping. You
are so assured, you have the manner of
la grande dame, you are occasionaly
even supercilious, so 1 suppose you are
not subjected to assault and battery
several times a day.
It is queer to Americans, isn't it, the
spectacle of the King of England auc
tioning off the wines laid down in 1869
and 1979 in Buckingham palace and in
St. James palace? The bottles are
blown with the royal arms and it is sug
gested that after the wine that was
made for royal throats has been poured
down democratic gullets whose owners
profess to despise emperors and every
thing pertaining to them, the bottles
with thejroyal arms of England blown
into their rotund bodies will still be
worth a small fortune to the owners, so
wild are even the most vociferous demo
crats to possess something made for a
real king. It'does not seem quite dig
nified for King Edward to auction off
his wine cellar that was the good Queen
Victoria's. Fancy President McKinley
selling wine to raise money to pay off
his debts. King Edward is getting an
extra price because he is king. To
exploit or trade on bo high a position as
king is unworthy the position. Think
of the W. O. T. U. and their throat and
lung capacity, if the President should
turn saloon-keeper. Not even McKin
ley could have been ejected the second
time if in his first term he had employ
ed an auctioneer to sell off some wine in
bottles wherein the arms of the United
States were blown. Americans as in
dividuals are doubtless no better than
Englishmen but the arms of the United
States were never blown into a wine
bottle. The impossibility of such a
sale in America shows how far we have
come. In Washington's day no one
would have been shocked to discover
that wine bottles were manufactured
and stamped with the arms of the Unit
ed States.
At the sale in New York the other
day Croker, who is an Irishman and
claims to be a democrat, bought forty
one dozen bottles of pale, golden sherry
from Edward, King of England.
Speaker Henderson, the speak9r of
what is supposed to be the most demo
cratic body in the world, was granted
an interview with King Edward re
cently. The man who stands for the
proletariat said:
"I have never enjoyed a more agree
able halt hour interview than the one
1 had with King Edward yesterday.
He was perfectly frank and agreeable
and in accord with American progress.
He looks forward to even more cor
dial relations than now exist between
the English-speaking nations. Ameri
ca may depend upon the fact that she
has no more cordial friend in the world
than King Edward. While the details
of our conversation may not be repeat
ed, I can assure my American friends
that England may be depended on in
any ordinary controversy which may
arise between the United States and the
rest of the world."
I am writing this in rather a scorn
ful mood because it iB easy to see from
Speaker Henderson's account that he is
exultant because King Edward has no
ticed him and has assured him of bis
good feeling towards America. As yet
the King has betrayed no pleasure at
meeting the speaker. But his Majesty
is used to meeting very important peo
ple and bore himBelf, during" the inter
view, with admirable composure. It is
easy enough to scoff at Henderson, way
off here in Nebraska, because he lost
his head when the King of England
said: "How do you do," and "I am
glad to see a prominent American," it
that is the way kings, complaisant kings,
greet American citizens. But suppos
ing we had been thus addressed. We
too would have cabled it to America
and told the story o'er and o'er to our
friends and repeated it again so that
the glory of it would last our posterity
down to the most remote generation.
Here in Henderson's family iB the be
ginning of a tradition that will feed hiB
great grandchildren with distinction
enough to satisfy them, although none
of his posterity come again within the
radius of the intoxicating light that
bathes a king in so much dazzle that
no man can come near him without
losing his balance. My reflections are
jaundiced because when I was in Eng
land I could not get one of the royal
family to look at me though I am just
as much of an American as Henderson.
This iB a long letter which I doubt
you will read with much patience in
this hot weather.
Faithfully,
Eleanor.
let me tell you before I go away. 1 hen
you can think about it. Just let me )
state my case. You have no right to re
fuse an old friend a hearing. That's all
I ask.
Ever eince I can remember anything
I can remember you. Have you forgot
ten when we helped our fathers put in
the little slim cottonwood cuttings that
grew into a row of trees between our
two farms? I've sat under those jounu
cotton woods herding the cattle on our
corn stalks, and watching the tops of
the old maple grove where you were
swinging, more times than J can tell
you. The day before we Bold out to go
to Kansas I sat there and watched Brin
die and Speck and the five ShorthornB
and Baron Mason with his buucb, and
wondered if your father would buy any
of them.
When we came back from Kansas with
nothing but the covered wagon and the ,
horses, it was some comfort to think I
was going to be in my old seat in the
school house, across the aisle from you .
Well, you weren't there, you know.
When 1 found that you were in Lincoln
high school I first thought of going
through college. Of course you didn't
know it, nor of what it's been to do it.
But you ought to know that I couldn't
have done it without you.
Nobody knows the struggle it's been
sometimes, If we could have had the
old farm again it would have been dif
ferent. But a square mile of Furnas
county isn't worth as much, some years,
as our iow of cottonwoods along the
old creek. I know how men go crazy
out there when they watch the clouds
come up, day after day, and blow away
again, and bo little rain would save the ,
whole crop. You put in your work just
the same, you know. And some times it
doesn't count, though everything in a
man's life depends ou it.
That worst year it was my junior
year I went into a doctor's office, and
after a while I earned something. So 1 Jv
kept little Dick alive. Children can't "
live the way grown folks have to some
times. And when you're out there,
it's not so easy to get away. I've thought
of walking back here to find work,
but a fellow couldn't tell what might
happen at home before he would strike
anything.
Next year there was about a third of
the alfalfa crop. I went back with just
two dollars and a suit of store clothes.
Many a time when I've pushed a broom
in a big department store, between
twelve and two at night, so that the fine
skirts of fine ladies would be safe from
dust for next day's special sales, I've
gone to sleep as I walked. And when I
thought of the next day, with a five
cent loaf for breakfast and logarithms
for dinner well, it wasn't for the loga
rithmic roots I Ehoved that broom.
You never knew, and I wanted it eo.
It's little enough I have to tell vou now.
but I can't go away again without telK
inCT if P..)innn ..n..MI nnf Via onrrl'l
when you think it over, that you've been
a force stronger than drouth and hail
and Kansas grasshoppers, and most that
hunger and cold and heat can do to a
man. Anyway, think it over. I'll see
you tomorrow before 1 go.
Cora Do you believe in palmistry?
Merritt No, my dear. The only
time I was glad to find a life line in my
hand was when I was shipwrecked.
A UNIVERSITY GRADUATE.
KATHARINE MEL1CK.
For The Courier.
No, I'm not going to frame it. That
diploma iB not what I've been working
seven years to get. That and the an
nouncement of the Lake Forest fellow
ship I've been working for are both of
them means to an end. The end is
you.
I know you are amazed but you must
2 Cycle Photographs
Athletic Photographs
V Photographs of Babies
0 Photographs of Groups
Exterior Views
yxpi&im&nid
THE PHOTOGRAPHER
129 South Eleventh Street.
