He would never, never be at a loss for a solution of
the problem that worries so many writers for the farm journals - a
way to spend the long winter evenings pleasantly.
Chapter II
My Bonny Lies over the Ocean - Lies and Lies and Lies
Of course, we had a bridal couple and a troupe of professional
deep-sea fishermen aboard. We just naturally had to have them.
Without them, I doubt whether the ship could have sailed. The
bridal couple were from somewhere in the central part of Ohio and
they were taking their honeymoon tour; but, if I were a bridal
couple from the central part of Ohio and had never been to sea
before, as was the case in this particular instance, I should take
my honeymoon ashore and keep it there. I most certainly should!
This couple of ours came aboard billing and cooing to beat the
lovebirds. They made it plain to all that they had just been
married and were proud of it. Their baggage was brand-new, and
the groom's shoes were shiny with that pristine shininess which,
once destroyed, can never be restored; and the bride wore her
going-and-giving-away outfit.
Just prior to sailing and on the morning after they were all over
the ship. Everywhere you went you seemed to meet them and they
were always wrestling. You entered a quiet side passage - there
they were, exchanging a kiss - one of the long-drawn, deep-siphoned,
sirupy kind. You stepped into the writing room thinking to find
it deserted, and at sight of you they broke grips and sprang apart,
eyeing you like a pair of startled fawns surprised by the cruel
huntsman in a forest glade. At all other times, though, they had
eyes but for each other.
A day came, however - and it was the second day out - when they were
among the missing. For two days and two nights, while the good
ship floundered on the tempestuous bosom of the overwrought ocean,
they were gone from human ken. On the afternoon of the third day,
the sea being calmer now, but still sufficiently rough to satisfy
the most exacting, a few hardy and convalescent souls sat in a
shawl-wrapped row on the lee side of the ship.
There came two stewards, bearing with them pillows and blankets
and rugs. These articles were disposed to advantage in two steamer
chairs. Then the stewards hurried away; but presently they
reappeared, dragging the limp and dangling forms of the bridal
couple from the central part of Ohio. But oh, my countrymen, what
a spectacle! And what a change from what had been!
The going-away gown was wrinkled, as though worn for a period of
time by one suddenly and sorely stricken in the midst of health.
The bride's once well-coifed hair hung in lank disarray about a
face that was the color of prime old sage cheese - yellow, with a
fleck of green here and there - and in her wan and rolling eye was
the hunted look of one who hears something unpleasant stirring a
long way off and fears it is coming this way.
