247

THE OLD FASHIONED WAY

A Pair of Old Style Lovers Found at Spirit Lake.

A Disseriation on Love in General and the Spirit Lake Variety in Particular- The "Help" Ball.

HOTEL ORLEANS, SPIRIT LAKE, Ia. Aug. 16-- It is a very pleasant thing when one has reached calm middle age, and is quite satisfied with the trend of his or her individual life, to sit down and write an essay on love.

It can be done without any personal inconvenience. It does not cause any painful palpitations nor awaken any uncomfortable memories. Or if it does, not a one of us all will admit it.

Love is comonly supposed to be the same in all ages. And its emotions may be always the same. But its demonstrations are not.

Take for example the mild love making that goes on at the Ilotel Orleans. It is conducted under the eye of chaperone. It conceals itself behind perisfage, gaitey and badinage. It does not have an opportunity to be sweet or serious.

All about this hotel stretch beautiful woods. The aspens grow in them, and the darker loaved oaks, and the lake rims the whole with silver. There is a gentle splash of water on the large stones of the beach, and a continual rustling in the woods where the gophers and the squirrels play. It is just the sort of a place where one would expect lovers to stroll.

But do they do it?

Not a bit of it. It would be eminently improper. No girl at the Hotel Orleans would think of doing such a thing. None of those elegant young men who play tennis in summer flannels and a high state of perspiartion would dream of requesting a young lady to take a walk in the woods.

The chances are nowadays that if a young man and woman who have been "correctly" brought up, get married, they will be strangers at the altar.

All the discreet mothers mothers hold nowadays that it would be decidedly contaminating for their daughters to wander away with a masculine escort under the lights and shadows of a beautiful and solitary forest. They would consider their daughters compromised, not only socially, but morally by such an act. And the odd part of it is, that the mothers were gulity of these very acts which they now so deprecate. They found a grassy road with the evening star at the end of it, a perfectly proper place to walk with a lover. And they foudn love a very appropriate theme of conversation.

What is more, there has been a sort of splendor, which came from that evening star that has shone with tender radiance down the long path of the years. It has pierced the darkness of despair; it has glorified the commonplace, it has illumed sacrifice, and it will triumph over death.

Now, listen, cautious chaperones and well and properly brought-up maids. Divorces are more frequent under the new regime than they were under the old! The reason is obvious. The men and women whose courtship is conducted according to the restricions of society, do not have an opportunity to become acquainted. I insist that the dangers of the fashionable system are much greater than those of the natural one.

But as for the dangers of love- the only way to avoid them is not to love! I insist once more that both men and women become very calculating and unconsciously coarse when they are taught to act so artifically and to look upon each other with distrust. It is better to be a fool and a betrayed one, than to have knowledge which cramps the soul. The fool will be surer of heaven. In short, the person who thinks is apt not to be so moral as the person who feels

Society demands her sacrifices quite as if she was a first class goddess instead of a fifth rate one, and one of the beasts burnt on her alter is that of conventionality. It is all very well. There is no use in protesting. But I do not think real love thrives very well in such ground. I incline to the old indiscretions which were indulged in when the west was younger and we westerners were simpler than we are now.

I walked down the beach the other day. There wasn't a mortal in sight. The afternoon was perfect. The sky was grey with a tinge of blue in it which the lake did not echo. Somewhere behind a softening mist the sun made itself felt. The distance was silver. The gray waves were tipped with white, and all along the beach lay a wreath of foam. In the midst of what I supposed to be absolute solitude I raised my eyes.

Near me were two persons much younger than myself. The young man had broad shoulders and a splendid turn of a neck. His bead was simply and grandly molded. He had both arms about his companion. She was a farmer gril apparently. I do not think she was beautiful, but I really cannot tell, because she was some way so sanctified to me Beauty would have been but a trivial accessory. These two young animals were not making use of that rather harassing [word] of man knwon as speech. They were simply looking at one another. I caught the look in their eyes and it made me dizzy with a sort of vicarious rapture.

They didn't see me, and I went on, feeling in an indescribable way like one of those glad, youthful figures who, eternally beautiful, move in the old Greek friezes, in an unalterable exuliation of joyousness and youth. And I quite forgot that in fact there were lines in my face, and that my feet were already weary.

When I got back at the hotel I felt a sort of a shame for the immodesty of the age. For the chaperone is the confession of an immodest suspicion. She represents and protects that spurious virtue known as reputation. And in nine cases out of ten she does more to dim the soul of the maiden she conducts through the perplexing tangle of the social thicket than to brighten it.

Take it for all in all, I would rather be the farmer girl in my unsophistication, conscious of nothing but my lovers arms, than one of those wordly wise young ladies who find out too late that union of soul is necessary for married happiness.

For it is hard to get at the soul of a man or a woman in society, and the people in it are not to blame if they discover what the soul qualities of their betrothed may be.

All the same there are two or three cases of real love here at the Orleans, but they exist in spite of society and not by the grace of it. The hotel is comparatively free from what Mr. Nyo designates as a 'My God where will it all end affairs," and the air is not poisoned to any perceptible extent with intrique. For a sumnier resort the Hotel Orleans is an innocent place and no contamination worse than frivolity is like t to touch anyone here.

Cottage life is every year becoming more of a feature of Spirit Lake life but as the cottage folk spend a good part of their lives in the hotel, one cannot help suspecting that the Orleans is a pretty good place to be. The Clapp cottage stands nearest the hotel and is very popular. It is an oranmental little affairs and not the least of its ornamental features is the oldest daughter of the house- who is only called old in comparison with her brothers and sisters, who are yet in the nursery, so to speak. The Clapps are from Des Moines. Beyond them lies the Ives cottage. Mrs. Ives is the wife of the president of the Burlington Cedar Rapids & Northern railroad, and a lady very much liked at this resort. She is not here this year, and her cottage is occupied by her son and his wife. The Ells worths of Iowa Falls, Dr. Ristine of Cedar Rapids, the horlems of Cedar Rapids, and Colonel Henderson of the same place have cottages along the wooded shore, all in sociable proximity to each other. A new cottage is being added to the number, built by the Pratts of Des Moines. Upon Lake Okojobi, near by, are the cottages of Colonel Clark of Cedar Rapids and the Stevens of St. Louis. The interiors of these little summer homes are gay and cheerful but not elaborate as they too frequently are at some resorts. A tire place is the chief feature, and a very welcome one, ofr in the early mornings here the weather is very chilly. More than one person has suffered illness from coming here without proper prepartion in the way of clothing. A few rugs, some light curtains, some gay little pictures and plently of hammocks and easy chairs make the requisite furniture of the summer cottage here. The kitchens are the only rooms that have a full equipment of "things" And then there are the boats which are more necessary than beds in this region.

At the hotel there has been a ball given. It was a notable one for two reasons. There weren't any half naked girls at it nor any champagne suppers afterward. It was the bail, in fact, of the "help". There are 125 "help" at the Orleans and very nice people they are. There never was a better set of waiters. Your correspondent has been at most of the fashionable resorts in the United States, and she was never at a place where she was waited on with such quickness and good nature. It was quite a comfort to know that all these nice fellows one meets in the dinning room had the privilege of dancing with fresh faced, modest and jolly girls. These girls looked just as well, they danced just as well-or almost as well-and God, who looks at hearts and not at wardrobes, knowthey were just as the ladies who thought there was a deal of difference between them- the girls and them.

There is one thing sure, there were among the "guests" of the hotel some plegeian hoses and hands and feet, some of those harsh skins which tell the story of plebeian birth, that would have been better in the servants' hall, if the eternal fitness of things was considered, than out where they were. And yet, after all- perhaps not. It is better that the world should be mixed. It is better that among thsoe who serve there should be many with kind and courteous eyes, and grace of form and movement, and the ability to do their tasks very well and very proudly. This keeps the balance better, doesn't it?

Anyhow the ball of the "help" was a great success. Harry Sycamore's band, which palys nightly for the guests, discoursed its very best music for those feet which were of tener tired with work than with play. There was lemonade served in nice little glasses. There was Mr.McCarthy, who swung Indian clubs with grace and energy to a tune from "Ermime" There was a gentlemen in the kitchen department who blacked up and gave an excellent break down. There was Mr. O'Brien who sang "My Mamma Told Me So," and got encored. And there was a reception committe which all the young women in the dishwashing departments, and the chamber departments, and the vegetable departments wanted to be on. And there wer dances to "Our Employer," and "To Our Head Walter,": and "To the Ladies," and to "The Chicago World's Fair."

And there was some of the "help" whcih didn't care to dance with the rest of the help because the first help was in the office department; and then there were the guests who wouldn't have danced even with some of those in the office department, and then there was Fate laughing at the whole of them, and thinking how some day he would dump them all down commonly in a square of ground, reeking with teh richness made of rotting humans and leave them for worms, which are the great levelers, and would just as lieve eat the little pink girl who pares the potatoes in the kitchen and sings "Annie Rooney," as that lady in point lace who sings Schubert in the drawing room.

Fate must have a lot of fun looking on at things and people and chuckling by himself! ELIA W. PEATTIE.

THE SKEPTIC'S REVERIN,

I sat with my child one evening
At the close of a summer a day,
And she looked at me and questioned,
"How far is heaven away?"

"I cannot tell, my darling,"
Was all that my lips could say,
While I sat and thought and wondered
"How far is heaven away?"

"Why you out to know, dear father,
You were never puzzled before."
But I could not respond, for her question
Made my doubting heart feel sore.

Night a dreamy light was shining
And casting on the floor
The spectral shade of the poplar
And the spreading sycamore

The harmony of the evening
And the little [word] creed
Filled my thirsting soul with longing
For my nature a greatest need.

And I kissed my sweet [word] visage,
Full of innocence and mirth
And thought if all were like her,
Then heaven would be on oarth
Chilo Stevens in the Pittsburg Dispatch.

OMAHA
LOAN AND TRUST CO.

Subscribed and guarenteed capital $500,000 paid in capital 500,00.

Buys and sells stocks and bonds negotiates commercial papers recieves and executes trusts, [word] as transfer agent and trustee of corporations, takes charge of property; collects rents.

OMAHA LOAN AND TRUST CO.

SAVINGS BANK

S. E. Cor. 16th and Dougals

Paid in Capital $50,000
Subscribed and guaranteed capital 100,000
Liability of stock holders 200,000

5 Per Cent Interst Paid on Deposits

FRANK J LANCE. [Word}

OFFICERS- A. U. Wyman resident; J. Brown, vice president W. P. Wyman, treasurer

DIRECTORS- A. U. Wyman, J. U. Millers, J. J. Brown, Guy C. Barton, W. Nash, Thos. L. Kimball, Geo, B. Lake.

Loans in any amount made on City and farm property and on Collateral [word] at lowest rates of interest.