Judge, 1917-02-10 · page 10 of 28
Judge — February 10, 1917 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a romantic short story, not political satire. Set in rural New England ("Johnnycake Corners"), it tells of Jed Hopkins, a shy farm boy hopelessly in love with Lily Fair. The joke is that Jed is so tongue-tied around her that he cannot propose directly—he's compared to Goethe's Werther, a literary reference to tragic, speechless romantic longing. The "careless Cupid" (the winged cherub illustration) becomes the plot device: a Valentine's Day card with the message "send me back this token if you will not marry me" offers Jed a solution to his shyness. However, the setup suggests dramatic irony—the "careless" Cupid will likely bungle the plan, as both Jed and Lily separately discover identical valentines in the store window, creating comedic confusion about who is meant to receive whose declaration.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JED HOPKINS was a Rustic Swain, CARELESS CUPID & his longing heart. Big and power- pure and simple. His purity and simplicity were marked, also his rusticity. He was an honest, upstanding chap and nobody’s fool, and he worshiped the rough, unkempt roads of his home vicinity because Lily Fair walked on them. Johnnycake Corners was one of the prettiest of the one-streeted villages in that part of New England, and it straggled along most of the way between the big Hop- kins farm at its North end, and the ancestral tilled fields of Lily Fair’s father, which lay to the South. Lily, herself, was a pink- cheeked, pink-aproned god- dess, who smiled at and co- quetted with anything in overalls, but who loved Jed with all of her sound, whole- some, girl’s heart. Now you know the people and the place. But here’s the point of the story. Jed was—I was going to say shy, but that is too liberal a word for his total tack of aplomb,—for his sheer inability to act other- wise than as a dazed moth with aphasia, when in the radiance of Lily Fair's presence. His love for Lily was singularly like t ascribed to Wer- ther, but in Jed’s case it was even farther beyond the power of words to utter, for he had not the gift of tongues bestowed on Charlotte’s admirer. Away from her disturbing presence he was quite the captain of his own soul, and time after time he would array himself in his other suit, with all the unselfconsciousness of a valeted city man, and repair to the Fair farm with full pur- pose of and endeavor after a plighted troth But, human Mimosa that he was, he shrank and quivered at her first dimpling smile, and later wended his weary homeward way, the world filled only with darkness and with him. Then Cupid took a hand. It was the day be- fore Valentine’s Day, and in the window of the bustling little store at Johnnycake Corners, Jed perceived a certain confection of lacy paper and pinky garlands that Seemed to breathe “Lily” By CAROLYN WELLS Father—What are you crying about, child > ful, he strode into the store and asked to examine it. It was even more lovely at close range, and it bore the strikingly appropriate message: “Somehow I think you love me, but Iam not sure, you see; So send me back this token if you will not marry me.” A great wave of relief spread over Jed’s soul. Here was a solution of his difficulty. He would send this to Lily, and she would understand, and would be ready to meet him half w when next he went to ask for his heart's desire. He bought the valentine, answering with a frigid stare the attempted pleas- antry of the drab-haired young person who sold it to him, and wended his homeward way, far more joyously hopeful than ever before. The young person, with a little sigh at the indifference of the ave male, took a duplicate valentine from the stock and hung it in the window Now, of course the Valentine season is a busy one for Cupid, and being engrossed in divers love affairs, he carelessly let Lily Fair go to the Corners store just about then. Her father was with her and while he dickering, Lily looked about and her beauty-loving eye apprehended the valentine of pinky-garlanded decoration. She asked to see it, and as she my s-skirt on! comicbooks.com