A Shy Suitor
Screen 1 of 1NeIl Harris was beautiful. How could any girl be that pretty, I used to wonder as I gazed at her almost constantly in our sixth-grade classroom at Western's Training School. I tried to conceal my fascination for her, but she must have known, even though we never spoke to each other about it.
She was a smart, vivacious and very attractive twelve-year-old, and her bright smile was simply devastating to a young boy like me.
I never dared to look directly at her, if I could avoid it. Neither could I ever bring myself to tell her what was on my mind--that she was cute, pretty, and "just the girl for me." Even on the playground at recess time, I was too shy to seek her out and talk to her, feeling sure she would much rather talk to her girl friends or to some other boy. And even if she had stopped and listened to me, I probably would not have known what to say to her.
But I did spend many hours trying to figure out how I could see and be with Nell--even for a short time--somewhere, sometime outside school. And one day I came up with a plan, an ingenious one it seemed to me that certainly would work.
A good silent movie (we called it "picture show" in the early 1920's) , "When Knighthood Was In Flower," starring Marian Davies, was scheduled to be shown soon at Bowling Green's Capitol Theatre. Admission was only ten cents, and I felt sure my mother would approve of my seeing this particular movie. I was right. "A respectable, upright story," she later said of it.
So, back to NeIl. If I could just get her to go to this picture show with me, we could sit next to each other quietly and comfortably, without my having to talk very much to her. That would be fine, I thought.
But somehow I could not directly ask her to go. So I asked another classmate, Pauline Hendrick, to go with me and to ask NeIl if she would go with us to the matinee performance. If all this would work out as I had planned, there would be three of us going--not two. But even that would be better than not getting to be with NeIl at all.
Pauline agreed to everything, and I became very excited about the developments. But the next day she told me NeIl could not go--for some reason I have forgotten now and really did not believe then.
Well, there I was, upset and dejected. Of course there was nothing I could do then except take Pauline to the movie. After all, I had asked her and she had accepted, not knowing I was just using her to get to Nell.
So we did go--just the two of us, good friends but certainly not "lovers." And we both enjoyed the show. But all the time I was watching Marian Davies and reading the lines at the bottom of the screen, I could think of nothing but spending my hard-earned twenty cents to take a girl who was only a messenger to Nell, the real girl of my dreams.
The story is not ended. Unexpected irony was yet to appear.
About two days later, Nell stopped me on the playground. Said she wanted to talk. I was of course surprised and somewhat embarrassed, since she had never done this before. Did she really want to talk to me? apparently so; that's what she said.
When we were away from the others, she began somewhat sarcastically. "Well, I hope you and Pauline had a good time together at the picture show."
"Yes, we did," I stammered, as I looked down at the sand I was awkwardly kicking up. "But it would have been lots more fun if you had been with us. Didn't Pauline ask you to go?"
"Of course she did," Nell replied, "but I said no, because you asked her first and didn't even care enough to ask me directly. If you had, I would have gladly accepted:"
********** Chester C. Travelstead
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