In a little country village fifty miles from Boston, on the Newburyport branch of the B. & M. R. R., lived Hazel Hemmingway. When Jack Sheppard was a pupil of Miss Freeman's in the old red school house back in the hills of western Massachusetts, he divided his apple with Hazel, dragged her white sled up hill in winter, and in summer made for her peachstone baskets, which he whittled out with his "Barlow" knife. There was no girl in all the world to Jack that compared with the brown-eyed, brown-faced Hazel, and no boy in the school got so many cookies, bon-bons and dainty notes slipped into arithmetic or grammar as did Jack.
The parting when Jack's father moved to the west was full of tender good-byes and promises to "write real often" on the part of both—promises which each faithfully kept. As the years passed Mr. Hemmingway became interested in a shoe factory in the eastern part of the state and moved his family to the thriving little manufacturing town. The correspondence continued between the twain, and when Jack returned to Boston a girl to womanhood grown knew that a supplementary reason caused the young man to select Boston, and that she was the supplement. Of course no one else ever dreamed the truth.
It was not long after Jack was established in the "Hub" that he made the first visit to Hazel in her new home, spending the Sabbath in the quaint old place which was within the pale of influence spread by the historic witchcraft of the ancients. The renewal of that childhood acquaintance needed no flint and steel to ignite the tiny spark of smouldering fire into a flame of enduring love. Jack sat dignified and martyr-like while the minister preached upon the evils which beset the young and dangers to the worldly-minded. "The vain glories of dress and fashion are an abomination of the Lord," said the man of God. Jack moved uncomfortably in his new suit of clothes, while Hazel from her choir seat telegraphed her convictions that the dominie was right, just to plague Jack. And when the admonition came, "He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man," Jack said to himself, "A whip for a horse, a bridle for an ass and a rod for a fool's back."
At last the "fourthly" came to an end and so did the church service for the morning. Jack and Hazel wended their way to her home, where dinner awaited them, after which followed a walk under the far spreading elms that arched the roadway, and as they walked they talked of childhood pastimes, joking each other of forgotten jealousies, or dwelling upon indelibly impressed, attaching episodes, the remembrance of which were souvenirs, non-negotiable and indestructible. They had left the little village behind and reached a large pine grove where the Sunday-school picnic was annually held. Seating themselves upon a rustic bench, Jack told of his life in the far distant west, as the states bordering upon the Mississippi River were then called, finishing with his return to the east and plans for the future. Hazel was an attentive listener, interrupting occasionally to inquire what Gertie Whitcomb looked like, or if Eva Duncan was freckled, or Nellie Courtney a good skater, as Jack included them in his biography of events.
"Not that it makes any difference, Jack, but I—er—er—just wanted to know," said Hazel, with the least bit of suspicion in her manner.
As he told of fastening Nellie's skates for her and of the lovely ice, the big crowds on the lake, and what a pretty girl Nellie was, Hazel kept time with her dainty foot kicking her broad-brimmed leghorn, which dangled by the string from her hand, finishing by poising the hat on her toe while she disinterestedly remarked, "Those western girls have such large feet; I suppose they have no trouble standing up on the ice," a remark which pleased the young man immensely, although he essayed no response.
When Jack reached his plans for the future Hazel became even more inclined to worry the historian by a rapid fire of insinuations.
"I suppose you will have to go on the road and take long trips out west to—sell goods? Shall you have the choice of territory when you get to be a salesman?" "Do those western stores carry as fine a line of goods as our folks do in the east?" "The styles out there are about two years behind ours; don't the girls look old fashioned?" To all of which Jack had one answer, "Yes."
"You can stop saying 'yes' all the time."
"I will, Hazel dear, on one condition—that you say 'yes.'"