Show the old settler my dear san Jua ners according to E eugene ugene field the years are many the years are long tout but they are not long enough to erase the love wounds inflicted in the tender heart of youth to contemplate this in a general way is never impressive I 1 like considering it in the cases of cherished individual friends who entrust you with the secrets of their inner life I 1 can not speak of thel these individuals here by their real names though to me they are living realities and the years have served but to confirm and intensify the sting of what happened in their susceptible teens the years have no doubt proved to mauds parents how foolish and unjust they were in their interference ter ference but there is little they can do about it now little more than to contemplate in sorrow what might have been and vituld have been but for their unwise meddling from the time of maudes birth they cherished the fantastic notion that no one less than a prince should be favored in claiming their daughter 0 their ambition would have been quite commendable if they had known what to look for in a prince and to relieve him as such when he lapp I 1 appeared eared their expected prince would have to have education talent illustrious parentage and above all money when maude was in the bloom of her teens the prince came moved by the great love and intuition that a real prince has for a real princes and she when he appeared loved him at once as the answer to her souls longing tonging but behold the prince was just jim a son of old man thompson with the big family on the poor farm down the road As soon as maudes parents became aware that she was thinking and singing about that poor thompson boy they went into an excited huddle to devise ways against him the two young people looked with surprise and then with despair at the dark cloud appearing in their happy sky and settling down with increasing fury upon them they made their mandates too impressive to be brushed aside and they sent maude away to some distant and indefinite place jim told me he ran through a corn field to be near to the road where maudes buggy was to pass on its way out of the country but his heart failed when he saw who was riding with her he knew it would but make matters worse for him to come out in sight so he stood there among the tall corn and watched with aching heart while the team trotted by and the old time white topped buggy disappeared over the hill jim has not ceased to be a prince and in the years since that time he has climbed from the honorable hono roble foundation on his fathers farm to positions of honor and trust among men but his heart still aches as he recalls the day that he stood concealed among the tall corn and watched his princess ride away she may not know even now that jim was standing there among the tall corn as she went by but she knows that her heart ached and that her life has been blighted with the tragedy of what might have been and should have been it would do no good for me to tell her what I 1 know about it although she seemed to get some comfort in telling me how it seemed to her ALBERT R lya LYMAN |