The piano and the phonograph, in those houses which possessed such wonders, were under lock and key and covered over with draperies to hide them, for it was God’s day and God wanted no foolishness. The girl’s father sat in various strategic places about the house, moving from one to another as his suspicions of the boy’s intentions arose and subsided, and her mother moved solemnly to and fro in her best crinkly silk dress. There was nothing of joy in the hearts of a boy and girl who underwent the torture of the Sunday-afternoon call; to paraphrase the immortal song of Casey, God had struck them out.
The first, and almost the last, young lady upon whom I called on a Sunday afternoon lived near the waterworks, and her father and mother, rocking solemnly upon the front porch and doubtless reflecting gloomily upon the wickedness of the race, presented such a forbidding spectacle that I walked four times around the block before venturing in. But at length I did, and the then idol of my heart greeted me at the front door. Ordinarily she would have seen me coming, and she would have poked her head out of the window and yelled: “Hey! I’ll be out in a minute.” Then we would have piled side by side into the lawn swing and begun swapping trade-lasts, and the air would have been thick with appreciative squeals and “he saids” and “she saids.” But this was Sunday, a day given over to the glory that is religion, and so she met me at the door with a prim and pretty curtsy. Her father gave me a gentle but suspicious greeting, because to the religious parent every boy thinks of a girl only in terms of seduction, and her mother stopped her rocking chair long enough to inquire:
“Did you go to Sunday school to-day, Herbie?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What was the Golden Text?” she demanded, suspiciously.
I told her and she asked:
“Did you stay to church?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Brother Jenkins preached such a beautiful sermon.”
“Yes, ma’am.”