After three months of adoring Dolores McAuley from afar, Howard Snyder had decided it was time to take action.
He couldn’t ask her to dance. She was always mobbed the instant the band struck up, and her dance card filled within minutes. Not having the strength of a football tackle, he couldn’t hope to get through the mob in time to get his name down.
He couldn’t ask her to drive, because he didn’t have a buggy. Not having lofty salaries or rich uncles like some people, he couldn’t afford to hire one.
He couldn’t ask her to go for a walk, because within a block three or four of her other admirers would join the procession. Not having the maneuvering skills of a professional jockey, Howard was sure to wind up at the tail of it.
He couldn’t call in the evening, because three or four of her admirers would be sitting on the porch steps. Not having the effrontery of an Alsatian puppy, Howard couldn’t muscle one of them into the hydrangea bushes and take his place.
No, it had to be a time when he could find Dolores alone—which ruled out sixteen hours out of the twenty-four—and do something which distinctly announced that his feelings were deeper and truer and tenderer than any that empty-headed crowd of admirers claimed to feel. Howard scorned their heads and feelings so deeply that he was sure he had only to reveal his own to Dolores and she would see the difference at once. The only obstacle was finding an opportunity.
After some careful thought he decided on a serenade. It was not at all a bad plan. Howard was a very good singer: he belonged to the church choir and the glee club, but there, as always, he was part of a crowd, and Dolores had never heard his voice solo. Under her window on a balmy June night he would have her as a captive audience, with no rivals to distract or interrupt. He would lay his heart before her in the most melting tones at his command, and if Dolores did not at least save him a dance at the next social then Howard would be profoundly disillusioned with womankind.
At ten o’clock he stole across the lawn, mandolin in hand, and took his place by the border of flowers and shrubs that separated the McAuleys’ yard from the Easthams’ next door. Three second-story windows above him stood open to the night breeze that was stirring their muslin curtains. He was not sure which was Dolores’ window, but he knew her room was on this side of the house, and that was close enough.
Howard tried to clear his throat inaudibly. He was not particularly skilled on the mandolin, but he could play a chord or two to give himself the keynote and let you know a song was about to begin, and this he did now.
He began to sing:
“Oh, I wish I was a red rosy bush
By the banks of the sea,
And every time my true love passed
She would pluck a rose from me.”The neighborhood was asleep and quiet, and Howard’s voice filled the still air beautifully. At the end of the first verse there was no sign of life at the dark windows above him, but no one had thrown anything or shouted at him to stop that racket either. Howard was emboldened to step a little further out on the lawn and to sing mezzo-forte. He swept the strings of his mandolin, and his voice floated fervently up toward the middle window:
“Oh, I wish I lived in a lonesome valley—”“I wish you did too,” muttered a person who was listening from much nearer than the dark window.
“…where the sun does never shine,
If your heart belongs to another—”A light flared in the middle window. Howard’s heart leapt up too. But before he could finish the last line of the verse, the curtains flew apart to reveal the alarming spectacle of Dolores’ Aunt Henrietta with her hair in rag curlers.
“Who’s that? What’s going on down there?”
Howard recoiled, then hastily sprang forward again. He had had a narrow escape of becoming at least part of a red rosy bush. His mandolin caught on the thorns and one of its strings snapped with a ping. The voice overhead was still rapping out demands: “Who’s down there? Who is it?”
“Auntie, hush, please do!” hissed the next muslin-curtained window.
Auntie either did not hear or disregarded her niece’s plea. “Who’s there? Who’s there, I say?”
Howard lost his nerve. Better men have fled before strident-voiced Aunt Henriettas. He turned and plunged through the hollyhocks and daisies, to make his escape through the shadows of the Easthams’ tree-shaded yard. But barely two steps into his flight, the teeth of the dog which Mr. Eastham kept to discourage burglars sank into his trouser leg. He gave a muffled yell. Aunt Henrietta shrieked, and lights went on in both houses. Howard, after a brief one-footed dance (without musical accompaniment), managed to shake off the dog, who, barking furiously, proceeded to chase him straight into an unexpected juniper tree.
It all got rather heated before it was sorted out. Mr. McAuley and Mr. Eastham both seemed to think the entire affair was each other’s fault. The McAuleys’ cook bandaged Howard’s leg. Dolores called down some indignant remarks from her window about vicious dogs, and Mr. Eastham had some things to say about young fools of prowlers, and Aunt Henrietta (in her window) had something to say about everything. The Easthams’ chauffeur found the smashed mandolin.
In the wisteria-covered pergola at the back of the McAuley house, the burglar who had been deciding which house looked like it had the better collection of silver when Howard began his serenade sat and cursed him for half an hour. By the time everyone had said their say and put out the lights and gone back to bed, and the neighborhood was quiet again, it was of course impossible to try either; so the burglar slipped away through a gap in the back fence, and Howard’s heroism was never known.
Bonus: Listen to Jo Stafford’s lovely rendition of “Red Rosey Bush.”
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Aww, poor Howard!!😂 This story reminds me a bit of the antics of a Wodehouse! Love it!!! ❤️
Delightful and amusing!