PAGE 9
The Boom In The "Calaveras Clarion"
by
The young editor was in despair. At first he thought of writing to Mrs. Dimmidge at the Elktown Post-Office, asking her to relieve him of his vow of secrecy; but his pride forbade. There was a humorous concern, not without a touch of pity, in the faces of his contributors as he passed; a few affected to believe in the new advertisement, and asked him vague, perfunctory questions about it. His position was trying, and he was not sorry when the term of his engagement expired the next week, and he left Calaveras to take his new position on the San Francisco paper.
He was standing in the saloon of the Sacramento boat when he felt a sudden heavy pressure on his shoulder, and looking round sharply, beheld not only the black-bearded face of Mr. Dimmidge, lit up by a smile, but beside it the beaming, buxom face of Mrs. Dimmidge, overflowing with good-humor. Still a little sore from his past experience, he was about to address them abruptly, when he was utterly vanquished by the hearty pressure of their hands and the unmistakable look of gratitude in their eyes.
“I was just saying to ‘Lizy Jane,” began Mr. Dimmidge breathlessly, “if I could only meet that young man o’ the ‘Clarion’ what brought us together again”–
“You’d be willin’ to pay four times the amount we both paid him,” interpolated the laughing Mrs. Dimmidge.
“But I didn’t bring you together,” burst out the dazed young man, “and I’d like to know, in the name of Heaven, what brought you together now?”
“Don’t you see, lad,” said the imperturbable Mr. Dimmidge, “‘Lizy Jane and myself had qua’lled, and we just unpacked our fool nonsense in your paper and let the hull world know it! And we both felt kinder skeert and shamed like, and it looked such small hogwash, and of so little account, for all the talk it made, that we kinder felt lonely as two separated fools that really ought to share their foolishness together.”
“And that ain’t all,” said Mrs. Dimmidge, with a sly glance at her spouse, “for I found out from that ‘Personal’ you showed me that this particular old fool was actooally jealous!–JEALOUS!”
“And then?” said the editor impatiently.
“And then I KNEW he loved me all the time.”