Life — July 17, 1884 — page 7: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

- LIFE: The young man looked up, wiped his paint-stained fingers on his trousers and said : “ Prithee, sweet damsel, shake.” And so, standing in the last soft rays of the mid-day sun, | these two young things held one another’s hands, and looking | into each other’s eyes read—but, ah! my dear reader, why goon? It is only the old, old story, so old and yet so fear- fully fresh ; the same old story that you and I know so—(My! how near I came to giving myself away then !) And as the golden summer days glided away, John and Millicent were seldom separated, for business was very dull at this time of year, and even when John did have a job Mil- licent would sit by him on his scaffolding, and with a piece of brown tissue paper stretched over a comb she would make such sweet music that time seemed as nothing, and John always worked by the hour. And so the sweet summer passed away and chill autumn drew on apace. e One evening as Millicent and John were sitting in the moon- | light on the Thirty-fourth Street ferry slip, John shivered so with the cold that he at last shivered himself off into the water. Millicent, however, was equal to the ‘occasion, and with a true artist’s instinct she seized a stout fishing pole that lay on the dock, and dropped the hook dexterously, so that it caught in the back part of John’s trousers, and then, partly lifting him out of the water, she said : “Now, then, which will you do—marry me without any more fooling, or drown ?” (« Drown!” spluttered John. So she soused him in again. The next time she fished him up he was pretty weak and answered her inquiry with a faint “ yes,” so she hauled him up on the dock and trundled him home. In the law suit which followed this, the court sustained John on the ground that his consent had been gained by un- fair means, so Millicent retired to Boston in high dudgeon, and endeavored to drown her disappointment in brown bread and beans. 35 Soon after John learned to his great chagrin that Millicent had all along been quite an heiress, as she owned a number of shares in the N, Y. & N. E.R. R. He therefore prepared to go to Boston and make up with her, but at the same time asked himself the question: Can any amount of future hap- piness compensate for a visit to Boston? ~After due delibera- tion he came to the conclusion that it could not. So he joined a base-ball club and never saw Millicent again. And Millicent? Ah me! she is still in Boston; there is a wealth of sadness in the thought; and as the twilight deep- ens she sits in the seclusion which only Beacon Street can grant, and as the summer breezes from the East beat upon the double windows of her room she sings softly to herself: And so I am sad and single, Quite pretty, just twenty-two ; Willing to marry any one, Even—well—yes, even you / THE DEMOCRATIC TRIAL HEAT. HE Democratic trial heat for the Presidential Race next November was run at Chicago last week. It differed | materially from the Republican heat of last month, in that, | contrary to Democratic usage, there were few worn-out hacks on the track to impede the progress of the more finely trained horses. We may truthfully say that the entries of last week were exceptional. True, Randall has been known to balk, and Bayard came dangerously near kicking over the traces when the Union Stables seemed on the verge of dissolution. Many were disposed to shake their heads at the mention of Cleveland, on account of his youth; but he has shown that he is eminently qualified to compete with the piebald steed of the Republicans, who, in spite of his past record, full of shying and general disinclination to keep to the straight course, preferring to “ git thar” by devious and dubious ways, has undertaken the competition for the prize. The Trick Horse Butler, together with a prize jackass from the Tammany Stables, by a vigorous policy of kicking en- deavored to ruin the chances of the favorite colt, Cleveland, fortunately to no avail, as Butler, having an infliction of the eyes, could not direct both his heels to advantage at the same time, and in consequence became so tangled up in himself that up to the hour of going to press he had not been ex- tricated. Cleveland got by all odds the best of the start and came in an easy winner on the second lap, with Bayard a good second. The result is as we anticipated, but whether the public in general are pleased, in these days of bolts, Butlers and other Political Idiocracies, it is difficult to say. He will push his opponent hard next Fall, beyond doubt. comicbooks.com