 | Saratoga in 1901 |  |
LOVE IN A GRAVEYARD.
Aug. 6.
To-day I left the whirling German
of Congress Hall and walked
dreamily out to the edge of Saratoga
— to the village graveyard,
where rest the bones of a generation
of Saratogians gone.
The graveyard is a beautiful spot,
filled with winding walks and shady
trees overhanging, now and then, an
inviting seat.
A few yards from the gate I met
the cheerful face of Frederick Palmerston, the village Sexton.
As I approached him he sang and whistled like the grave-digger
in Hamlet.
“This is rather a serious place,” I said, as the old Sexton
looked up from his grave.
“Serious! wal not so very serious either,” he repeated, leaning
forward on his spade and knocking his pipe against the handle.
“You are too early in the day for the fashionable fun.”
“What fashionable fun—out here among the graves, my good
man—what do you mean?”
“I mean you are too early in the day to see the fashionable
people who come out here. The fashionable hour is at five in
the afternoon—then you will see the fun.”
“What fun?” I asked, becoming interested.
“Why, the flirting and the love scenes. You know there are
no-double seats in the park, and the hotel balconies are too conspicuous,
so the handsome city girls and fellows come out here
to make love on my benches. I suppose a great many engagements
take place here every year—more than at the big hotels.”
“What do you do about it?”
“Oh, nothing, only I have to look out and see that the young
people don't occupy the seats too long while some old persons
may be standing up. I'm the last man to disturb a loving
couple. It goes against the grain, it does, for I was once young
myself, and I used to like the girls as well as anybody.”
“I did a thing yesterday, which fairly made my heart ache,”
continued the old Sexton, wiping his forehead with his handkerchief.
“What was it?” I asked.
“Well,”
continued the
old Sexton,
as he put one
foot up on his
spade and
leaned his
elbow on the
handle, “there
came up as
handsome a
fellow and as
purty a girl
as you ever
see. She was
dressed beautiful,
and he
was very attentive.
I
'spect they
came from
the Clarendon.”
“What did
they do?” I
asked, becoming
impatient.
“They walked arm-in-arm, both talking in a low tone; then
they went and sat on the bench under that tree, near the tomb
with the clam shell. I saw them, but I let on that I didn't. He
going on. By-and-by some old ladies came along and asked
me if I couldn't give them a seat. I hated to disturb the loving
couple, but I had to; so I walked along up behind them and
sort-a-grunted—
“`Ahem! Ah-hem!'
Lord! you ought to have seen him start and take his arm
from around the pretty girl. Her cheek was close to his, and
their lips were—well, I couldn't see them at all. And then how
they blushed—crimson and scarlet!
“`I beg pardon,' he stammered, but he needn't a-done so, and
she needn't a-blushed so either; 'taint no more than twenty
fashionable couples do here every day. It's all right, too. If
God didn't want us to love, and didn't want an honest, whole-souled
fellow to kiss a girl, what did He make their lips for?
“I hate this darned new-fangled
French nonsense
that people musn't love till
they become engaged or
married. How in the world is a
fellow to fall in love till he has
kissed his sweetheart?” And the
old Sexton went on, at length,
moralizing about the change in
society since the time of our forefathers—when
true love showed itself,
not in $25 bouquets—in heartless
flirtations, and distant handkerchief
wavings, but when the lover put a red
rose in the hair of his loved one, and
placed the crimson seal of honest love
upon her rosy lips, murmuring, “My
chosen, God willing, we will never part!”
“Why,” said the old Sexton, as we strolled off among the
tombstones, “these fashionable people rest squarely in each
other's arms in their new-fangled dances—he holds his arm
around her—her swelling bosom to his, and her hand in his! In
my time we would have been ashamed to do these things before
a-room full: but it makes no difference,” said the old Sexton,
mournfully; “young people with hearts to love will get together
somehow or other, and it don't make any difference whether they
come together in these Congress Hall round dances or here on
my benches in the graveyard!”
| Saratoga in 1901 | |