She bluffed, I thought, so I'd not doubt she loved him

yet despite

His meanness; bickering at all that softened living:

oysters Sunday night;

Or Katie's cap and bib; clean things when old would

do. I never quite

Made out his sneaking-up upon my childhood days;

appearing, gnomelike,
 

In dark summer streets to find my tryst with village

beau.

His uncanny market mind (land he bought would turn

out coal

Or well spout oil) would not prevent his salting down

the cash. He'd go

To greater length that night to scan household

expense. "What! Roll
 

In luxury, when without Christ each minute heathen

died?"

His strange explosive gifts of furs, a car, could not

make me forget

He'd read my letters once. My charm for men evoked

a father's pride

Which quickly turned to anger when a bird came

down. He ever met
 

My sword with sword .  .  .  And if my mother cared

I could not tell.

She'd only laugh, "What do you care?" .  .  .  I

thought she bluffed right well.
 

But came that day in church we thought her dead. My

father jumped

Across a pew and held her close. Such wild sweet

quivering passionate things

I've never heard from lover. His eyes burned blue.

His gray-tinged hair all humped

Askew, waxed mustache-ends twitched frightfully. As

if wings
 

Were lent, his small slim figure bore her lighter weight

out to the air.

Those words! My God! (What if he knew he said

them!) Had such stuff

Been offered me by John I'd married him long since.

Does life quite dare

Hold such romance? And all my days I thought her

smile a bluff!

^__Margaret E. Haughawout.