Part
I.
It was a lovely afternoon in
June. Here and there long fleecy clouds dotted the otherwise clear blue sky,
and the hazy landscape seemed just about ready to slop over with perfect bliss
and contentment. Nature was in her most girlish mood, and a perfect halo of
romance and poetry seemed to hang somewhere just above the earth, on golden
cords of love. All this was invisible to the exposed eye but it could easily be
felt. And it was felt. Poor, pretty, pale Patience Partington felt it as she
was waiting waist deep in clover and anxiety for her lover, Algernon Sagamore
Kensington, at the sharp edge of the wood. But alas and alack! Algernon was
late. Why is it ever thus with weary waiting women? The buzzard buzzed, the
chewink chirped. the crow cawed, the dove drooled, the hawk haw-hawed, the jay
bird jawed, the linnet laughed, the rooster rooted, the sparrow sang, the
thrush trilled, the wren warbled and so on, down through the alphabet, but
Patience, poor, pretty, pale and pallid Patience Partington, picked posies to
pieces, puckered, pouted and probably profaned.
Part
II.
Algernon and Patience had
been in love a long time, but not with each other. Both of them had Pasts, tho’
neither one suspected the other. At least they told each other over and over again,
and everything went along as smoothly as a laundry flatiron. That is, up to a
particular period, then little restless ripples rose to roughen the realm of
their remarkable romantic relationship.
Well, she waited, weary with
watching, wondering what withheld her wayward would-be wedder. Wise and worthy
woman, would we were walking life’s weary way with won another!
Part
III.
Over in the adjoining lot
Algernon Sagamore Kensington was making all possible haste for the sharp edge
of the wood. He was about to scale the fence when he was held up – by one of
the rough, ragged rails.
“Holey smokes!” he
ejaculated, s he removed first himself and then a long strip of soiled duck
from the fence: “what will Patince say now, I wonder? Outing pants in very
truth, I wot.”
But he was destined not to
see Patience just yet. While he was busy looking over his shoulder striving to
tuck in no matter what, he was confronted by a curiously clothed countryman.
“Be yew the young feller what’s
payin’ ‘tention tew Pashy?” he asked at once of Algernon.
“Sertainly, sir,” said Algy;
“have you seen her today?”
“Not more’n a minute ergo;
she’s over in the nex’ lot with Jack, an’ ef yew heven’t made his ecquaintance
yewed better go slow.”
“With Jack? Jack? The my
God! she’s false after all! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,!”
The young man tore his
tangled tow-tinged tresses tragically, and before pale Peter Partington could
prevent, Algernon, aching, anguished and agitated Algernon, was ost in the
aimless amber afternoon.
Part
IV.
A great many years afterward
a horrible looking tramp hobbled up to the door of the Partington homestead.
Patience, no longer poor, pale and pretty, but pink, plump and portly, plodded
to the porch in answer to the prowling tramp’s pounding.
“Ah, me fine lady,” said he
with a knight of old sweep, “could I not induce you to perform an immortalized
act of philanthropy by bestowing upon the humble father of twelve children a
crumb or two of life’s sternest necessity; in other word, mum, gin me a bite to
eat?”
“Indeed I will, my poor man;
you shall have all you want,” said Patience.
The tramp glanced nervously
round a few times, then asked in a hollow, husky whisper, “Is Jack to home?”
“Jack?” she echoed,
curiously, “why, I guess so; have you ever met him? Poor fellow, he’s old and
useless now. I will call him.”
In a moment she returned,
dragging an old dog, toothless, sightless and scarcely able to waddle.
“I – I meant your husband,”
stammered the tramp, stepping backward, as Jack showed signs of sniffing a
prize of the old days.
“Husband? husband? Alas! I
have no husband,” said Patience, striving to wipe way the mist of a score of
bygone years.
“No husband, ner children,
ner no –”
“Children!” she screamed, “what
do you mean, villain? I ain’t married, nor never was nor never ‘spect to be
now,” and she looked far across the fields into the pensive, painful and
pall-like past.
“Never married, Patience!”
cried Algernon Sagamore Kensington, throwing aside his dingy disguise and
standing before her in plain every-day outing flannel, “can it be possible that
this old wreck here is the ‘Jack’ who has been the cause of our sad separation
this many long year? O come to my arms, Patience! They are weak and you are
strong; but come to your Algey boy!”
“Not so swift, sir,” she
said severely, “an explanation is due me.”
And straightway beneath the
spotless skies of sweet scented summer, Algernon started to sing the strange
story of their sad separation so softly and so sweetly that she sank suddenly
into his strong embrace.
The
End.
Joe
Cone.
DUCK : a durable closely woven usually cotton
fabric http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/duck
(as in canvas?)
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