When You Were a Boy

by Edwin L. Sabin

Evidently here closes the episode of the Fifth Love. It was but natural that thereafter you should be rather disconcerted when in her presence; and although she might act as if nothing had happened, you (plagued unmercifully by your sister) could not forget.

And the Sixth Love? Yes, she followed, with scarce a decent interval, hard upon the exit of the all too high-minded Fifth. Maybe it was in a spirit of pique that you sought her. Whatever the preliminary circumstance, regard yourself eventually head over heels again, immersed in the current of a passion equaled only by your affair with that Third Love—“cruel little Lilian.”

This Sixth Love, too, has black eyes and an engaging plumpness. Black eyes, apparently, are the eyes most fatal to you. For the Sixth Love you would unflinchingly die, if life without her were the alternative; and you picture to yourself the manner in which she would mourn (you hope) when you are lying cold and still, with just your white face showing, in the family parlor.

No matter how circuitous it makes your route, going and coming you always manage to pass her house.

You wonder if she is proud of you because you can throw a curve. You would like to have her see that you are strong, and skilled in all the exercises to which boys are heir. You want to be her ideal, her knight. Some times you suspect that she does not thoroughly appreciate your prowess and good points, for she prates of other boys who do so and so, whereas you can easily do as much and more.

Now, whether or not it was due to the snake-curves (every boy is positive, soon or late, that he can throw a snake-curve), looking back you behold yourself possessed at last of this maiden of your choice. Of course no word of love has been uttered between you. That would be too silly and theatrical, almost morbid; furthermore, it is unnecessary. She has shyly confessed to you that she “likes” you, and this is sufficient. You generously refrain from urging her beyond this maiden admission.

Aye, ’tis distance lends enchantment to the view! You have been so accustomed to the excitement of the chase that with idleness you wax restive. The Sixth Love verges upon being a nuisance. Her black eyes, beaming for you alone, pall upon you. You grow callous toward her. You tire of always having her choose you at parties; you tire of her eternal assumption of proprietorship over you; you wish that she would not come so much to see your sister, and thrust herself upon you in your home.

And you set out to shake her off; you skip by the back door as she enters by the front; you avoid her at parties; you show her, in a dozen ways, that you do not fancy her any more.

Poor anxious, forsaken Sixth Love! It is she who turns the wooer; it is she who passes and repasses your house; it is she who haunts your steps, hoping that she may catch a glimpse of you. Regardless of the fact that you yourself so often have played this game, you remain obdurate. Finally pride rises to her rescue, and she sends notice that she “hates you.”