outing, "Jeminy" returned to the lake to help take care of one of the
villas there, as a number of girls did at that time, and are doing now,
I have no doubt. "Jeminy's" departure made the village very dull for me,
and the farm absolutely distasteful. So, one day, I asked my cousin to
give me what he thought was my due, out of the promised twenty-five
dollars. I told him that I was going to New York State to see if I could
earn more money. He knew about "Jeminy" being there, and as he thought
that something profitable might develop out of our friendship, I was
given my money and then hied away to the New York resorts, and "Jeminy."
The latter had to work so hard all day and well on into the evening that
I saw very little of her, but I remember dreaming and thinking about
her, when I had to wander about alone. I spent very little time in
looking for a job on account of my moving, and before long I determined
to look elsewhere for work. What was my chagrin, when returning on the
day that the faithless "Jeminy" was about to depart for her home, to see
her coming down the wharf from the boat with a former admirer, clothed
in fine raiment, whom I had ousted in "Jeminy's" affections in the
little farming village in Pennsylvania. I surmised him to be possessed
of a fat bank-roll, judging by his independence and "only board in this
sidewalk" manner of appropriating "Jeminy" for his very own, and of his
giving me a very distant and critical look, which my somewhat worn
clothes no doubt deserved. That was the end of my first and last real
love affair. Jilted, funds very low, and no employment in sight--here
was a situation worthy of any boy's best mettle. Perhaps the jilting
hurt worse for the time being, but the necessity of replenishing my
funds helped me to forget it somewhat. By rights I should have returned
to Pennsylvania and gone to work again on my relative's farm. But there
I should have seen the faithless "Jeminy," perhaps her old admirer as
well, and I was in no mood for such encounters. No! I was not going to
allow the village to make fun of me, even if I starved elsewhere.
Besides, what chance would my old clothes have in a competitive contest
with those of my rival? Obviously a very slim one. Fate was temporarily
against me in that direction, I was sure, and I cast my eyes toward the
north--probably because "Jeminy" and the farm meant south. The west did
not attract me just then, and the east--New York constituted the greater
part of the east to me in those days--seemed too complicated and full of
people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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