A Hard Lesson

[Written exclusively for The Plain Dealer]

Sadie Arnold was in an unenviable frame of mind on the evening of the 4th of September. She leaned her head against the back of the chair on which she was sitting and cried. It was not often that Sadie gave way to tears—she was by no means a pessimist; but on this particular occasion she considered her grievance worthy of tears. No less a thing had happened than a quarrel between her and her lover, Carl Reed. Lover’s quarrels are not, as a general rule, of absorbing interest to outsiders; but this was a trifle out of the usual line.

Young Carl Reed was by nature a jealous man, and when the green-eyed monster laid its hand on Carl’s shoulder, he often said and did things for which he was sincerely sorry when he recovered his mental equilibrium. The worst part of it all was that Sadie was very pretty. Now a pretty girl will naturally receive more or less attention until she gets married or betakes herself to a nunnery. This is one of the things we all concede; we all love beauty, and quite right we are in doing so.

“But the devil of it is,” said Carl to himself, “that cousin of hers is getting too familiar. When I called last night Sadie had gone to the theater with him. Things are coming to a pretty pass!”

The cousin referred to was James Arnold; he was visiting his uncle, and Sadie could hardly refuse to make his visit pleasant. But a man in love, say those who ought to know, [is] not accountable for vagaries, and surely Carl Reed deserved considerable latitude. Nevertheless, on the evening of the 4th of September, Carl had behaved badly. He had insisted that Sadie was a heartless flirt and had intimated a desire to expunge the identity of Mr. James Arnold with any weapon the latter might select. This ferocious sentiment was the climax which brought the tears to… Read More