The Daily Alaskan

A Middle Aged Courtship
By ANDREW C. EWING
Copyright by American Press Association, 1911.

I was thirty-five years old and becoming tired of myself. The summer was coming on, and I went to the seashore, thinking that I might shake off ennui.

There were boys and girls at the hotel who excited my envy by the friendly way or the loverlike way or any kind of a way they mingled. There was a young woman apparently a year or two past thirty who, on my arrival at the hotel, seemed to regard me with something more than an ordinary interest. She was sitting on the porch as I entered the house and fixed her eyes upon me with a peculiar expression. I would have liked to believe-I would have believed ten or fifteen years before-that I had made an instantaneous conquest, but that day was past. I simply inferred that there was something about me that reminded her of some one she knew or had known. I had no remembrance of ever having met her before.

The next morning I joined a group of ladies commonly called the knitting brigade sitting on the porch, and Miss Brown, the lady I have mentioned, being among the number I was introduced to her. Drawing a chair beside hers, I entered into conversation with her. She had the faculty of placing a man on unconventional terms with her at once, a valuable gift in a woman-that is, whenever she cares to exercise it-and I felt at once as free with her as if I had known her for years. The other ladies one by one withdrew and left Miss Brown and me by ourselves.

We chatted till luncheon was announced and wondered what had become of the morning.

That was the beginning of it. There was nothing between us that could be called a flirtation. We had passed that age. We simply found companionship in each other and spent much of our time together, or, rather, all our time that we were not in our rooms.

Miss Brown treated me not as a stranger, but as one she had known a long while. Every now and again she would indicate that there was or had been at some previous time something between us, but gave out nothing that I could get hold of-nothing that I could even question her about. So we drifted from day to day, I every now and again running up against this vague something she seemed to have on her mind.

And here I will remark that there are circumstances, episodes, happenings-call them what you like-that a man will forget, but a woman will remember so long as she lives. It is the large things that interest a man-his career, the interests of his country or those questions which pertain to the ongoing of the world. A woman will treasure a note, a button, anything connected with some scene or person near to her heart.

Finding Miss Brown companionable, it occurred to me that here might be a chance for me to get away from my lonely bachelorhood, to exchange club life for home life, to settle myself for the rest of my days. Whether I could do so was very easy to discover. All that was needed was for me to propose to Miss Brown.

But here was a difficulty. When I was a young man I could make love for fun, as I regarded it, by the hour. I knew a flirt by instinct, or thought I did, and there were no boundaries with such to my lovemaking. But now in middle age to do the same thing, and do it seriously, seemed impossible. In vain I attempted to say something "soft" to her. The words wouldn't come out. And how could I propose "in cold blood?" There must be some approach to a declaration of love coupled with an invitation to the woman to be my wife.

By dint perseverance I managed to bring forth several hints as to what was coming. Then, having prepared the lady, the next thing was to make the proposition. I took her out for a long walk on the beach, hoping to gain inspiration from what the waves were saying. The waves seemed to say, "You old baldheaded coot, what sort of a fellow are you to tell a middle aged woman you love her?" I kept her on her feet for two hours vainly trying to screw up my courage to the required point. The worst of it was that I knew she was aware of what I was endeavoring to bring out and was getting tired of waiting for it-not only tired mentally, but bodily, especially in her legs. But I couldn't do it. I marched her back to the hotel.

I made several more unsuccessful attempts, but finally while we were sitting in a corner of the piazza by ourselves, with no one about, I made a final attempt and won. Then I listened breathless for a reply.

"You are not as glib at this sort of thing," she said, "as you were fourteen years ago."

I started.

"What do you mean," I asked.

"Don't you remember sitting in the moonlight at another hotel just before returning to college for your last year there proposing to a girl?"

"What name?"

"Madge Brown."

"The flirt of the White mountains, so called?"

"Yes."

She unclasped a locket she wore on her neck and showed me some plaited strands of hair.

"Whose is it?" I asked.

"Yours."