So, in her whimsical, dramatic fashion, she read the tragic tale of Mr.
Todgers and Miss Tee.
"In the town of Slocum Pocum, eighteen-seventy A.D.,
Lived Mr. Thomas Todgers and Miss Thomasina Tee;
The lady blithely owned to forty-something in the shade,
While Todgers, chuckling, called himself a rusty-eating blade,
And on the village green they lived in two adjacent cots.
Adorned with green Venetians and vermilion flower pots.
"No doubt you've heard it stated—'tis an aphorism trite—
That people who live neighborly in daily sound and sight
Of each other's personality, habitually grow
To look alike, and think alike, and act alike, and so
Did Mr. Thomas Todgers and Miss Thomasina Tee,
In the town of Slocum Pocum, eighteen-seventy A.D.
"Now Todgers always breakfasted at twenty-five to eight,
At seven-thirty-five Miss Tee poured out her chocolate;
And Todgers at nine-thirty yawned 'Lights out! I'll go to bed.'
At half-past nine Miss Tee 'retired'—a word she used instead.
Their hours were identical at meals and church and chores,
At weeding in the garden, or at solitaire indoors."
"'Twas the twelfth of February, so the chronicler avers;
Mr. Todgers in his garden, and Miss Tee, of course, in hers;
Both assiduously working, both no doubt upon their knees,
Chanced to raise their eyes together; glances met—and, if you please,
Ere one could say Jack Robinson! tut-tut! or fol-de-re!
Thomasina loved Mr. Todgers; Mr. Todgers loved Miss Tee!
"Two heads with but a single thought went bobbing to the dust,
And Todgers smiled sub rosa, and Miss Thomasina blushed;
Then they seized their garden tackle and incontinently fled
Down the box-edged pathways past the flower pots of red;
Past the vivid green Venetians, past the window curtains white,
Into their respective dwellings, and were seen no more that night.
"All that night poor love-sick Todgers tried his new-born hopes to quell,
And Miss Tee made resolutions, but she did not make them well,
For they went to smash at daybreak, and she softly murmured ''Tis
Kismet! Fate! Predestination! If he'll have me I am his.'
While Todgers sang 'There's Only One Girl in This World for Me,'
Or its music hall equivalent in eighteen-seventy.
"It was February thirteenth (On, my Pegasus! Nor balk
At that fear-inspiring figure!) Thomasina took a walk.
And Fate drew her—drew her—drew her by a thousand spidery lines
To a Slocum Pocum window filled chockful of valentines,
All gaudy—save two, just alike in color, shape and size,
Which pressed against the window pane and caught the lady's eyes.
"'How chaste! How charming! How complete!' she cried. 'It must be mine!
I'll tell my love to Thomas in this lovely valentine,
Whereon is suitably inscribed, in letters fine and free,
'SEND BACK THIS TENDER TOKEN IF YOU CANNOT MARRY ME.'
So with her cheeks all rosy, and her pulses all astir,
She went in and brought the valentine and took it home with her.
"Ten minutes later Thomas paused outside the self-same store.
You guess the rest. Fate grappled him and pushed him through the door,
And made him buy the fellow to the very valentine
Which Thomasina had purchased there at twenty-five to nine.
He chuckled (and Fate chuckled) the appropriate words to see—
'SEND BACK THIS TENDER TOKEN IF YOU CANNOT MARRY ME.'