Chapter 4

Case 3. I knew of a little girl not more than four years of age who became warmly attached to a young gentleman. He laughingly said to the child "I will wait for you." She did not forget the remark, but looked upon him as her ideal. Every act of friendship between him and other lady friends was noticed with a jealous eye by the child. The young man travelled through the West, and while there met a lady who later became his wife. When the child learned this she was very angry and hated the lady. She did not feel differently about it until she was grown.

Case 4. A girl ten years old became very fond of a young man of nineteen while they both were attending school. She would wait for him to walk home with her from school. She took great pride in her personal appearance, and would always wonder if it would please him. This affection lasted through one winter and the next summer. After that the girl seemed to care for the boys of her own age.

Case 5. The last year I taught there were two little boys, Lambert, aged seven, and Frank, aged six, who fell in love with me. Lambert was very demonstrative when alone with me or when only grown folks were around, but did nothing in the presence of his schoolmates. He would put his arms around me, kiss me, and was very happy when he could sit on my lap. He gave me very few presents, but dearly loved to be with me, and often asked me to wait until he grew up so that he could marry me. He very frequently told me how much he loved me, and would ask me if I loved him, and if so whether I loved him more than I did others. Frank was very bashful, and though he would stay near me, would never come very close. He would watch my actions very closely, and tried to please me in every particular. Nearly every day in spring he would bring me a bouquet either of wild or tame flowers. Quite frequently he brought me fruit. If he had only one apple or banana he was never satisfied until I had taken a bite.

Case 6. A boy about ten years old loved a young lady of twenty during two years. Jealousy conspicuous. Expressions of love in the giving of small gifts, such as fruit, flowers, etc. Actions of the boy quite free and gallant in the presence of others. No tendency to withhold demonstrations and be satisfied with love at a distance. On the contrary, he seemed to seize every opportunity to show the lady attention. At about twelve years of age the boy began to hate her as extremely as he had formerly loved her.

Case 7. A little girl three years of age claimed me as her lover. Whenever I called on her parents she rushed to me and wanted me to hug and kiss her, and was never backward in doing her part. If at any time I did not notice her solicitations she would turn away from me and, going to some remote corner of the room, would cry as if her little heart would break. Jealousy was very prominent in her.

Case 8. A little girl three years old and a young man between twenty-five and thirty. It has continued now for about six or eight months and is mutual. The little girl says she is going to marry Mr. ----, and he says he wishes he could find a big girl that he thought as much of or that she was a young lady. She is very careful to always be nice in his presence. Will sit on his lap and love him, and seems happier than with any one else. She will ask her mamma "When will Mr. ---- come to see me?" One day I met him and he told me to tell her that he would be in that afternoon. I did so, and she was very much delighted--ran and told the other members of the household. She seated herself in the parlor and would look at her clothes and brush them and sit in as prim a position as possible. She seemed to want to look her best. Her kindergarten teacher tried to coax her to go to her room; she said, "Oh no, Mr. ---- is coming to see me," and would ask impatiently when I thought he would come. She acted the same when alone or with others. She was very jealous, and never wanted any other lady to sit nearer him than she was. She would often say "He is mine." She did not object to gentlemen sitting by him. No gifts on either side.

Case 9. Last October a boy of four met for the first time a young lady of eighteen. He at once became strongly attached to her, and during the week they spent visiting the same family he was almost constantly at her side. He would sit on her lap with his arms around her neck, and sometimes shyly kiss her. He would leave his mother and go with the young lady in preference. He wanted to be doing everything that she did. The older boys teased him, but he did not care. Said she was his girl, and always would be. He cried for her to go with him when he went home. He has not seen her since that time, but they have her picture, and he takes it and kisses it and calls her his sweetheart.

Case 10. A little cousin named Blanche when about two years of age became greatly attached to a man who worked for her father and lived with the family. He was probably thirty years her senior. The feeling continued growing stronger for about four years, when it was broken off by her finding out that he "had another girl." She told me once that she loved him more than she did her papa or mamma, and that when she grew up would go and live with him. When she got presents for any of her friends he was always remembered. She was very demonstrative, sitting on his lap and in many other ways showing her feeling for him.

Case 11. A young lady of twenty years and a boy of six. We all boarded in the same house. He was so attached to her that he would never go to sleep without kissing her good-night. The very coldest day in winter if his mamma didn't have his coat and mittens on him when the bell rang for twelve o'clock or for six o'clock he would go without them to meet her, for he knew that she came at that time. He was always asking if she loved him, and if she would wait until he was a man and marry him. This continued for nearly three years when, one day, a lady whose hair was gray called on his mamma. He didn't like her, and after she left said to the young lady "I won't marry you when I am a man for your hair will be gray." After that he never cared particularly for her.

Case 12. I know of one case where a little boy about six years old fell in love with a lady about twenty years old, and always used to call her his girl. He used to go and put his arms around her and kiss her at any time; it did not embarrass him if some one was looking at him. He is about eighteen now, and seems to think a great deal of her yet.

Cases showing the continuity of the emotion through the first three stages of its development.

W., 18. I cannot remember a time before I was fourteen years old when there was not some little boy whom I loved. The first case that I can recall occurred when I was five years old. I know that I was five for I have heard my parents say how old I was when they moved away from that place. After we moved away I never saw him any more. We came to another town and I started to school. I was rather afraid of all the little boys, but some of them I liked very much. I can remember one big boy whom I didn't like. He was always trying to play with me, but I thought that I just hated him. One day he caught me and kissed me. It didn't frighten me, it simply made me very angry. I was so provoked that I cried and slapped him in the face as hard as I could. The little boy that I did like at that time was a red cheeked boy with dark hair and blue eyes. I do not remember any particular incident, but I know that we played together all of the time and thought a great deal of each other. I was then about seven years old. By the next year of school this boy had moved away, but another little boy came to school whom I liked better. His name was Ray. I can remember him better than I can the others. For a long time I thought that he didn't care for me, and while I thought that I was afraid of him;--that is, when I met him I was so bashful and trembled so, because I was afraid that he would find out how I loved him and would make fun of me. Our teacher believed in having little boys and girls sit together in school so that they would not be bashful. I had always sat alone, but now for some reason or another she put Ray in the seat with me. I could not study or do anything with Ray so close to me. I was almost afraid to look up till one day he told me that he loved me. Then I found out that he had been afraid all of the time that I didn't like him. I was over most of my shyness then. I suppose that my teacher concluded that she had cured me of my bashfulness. I wore short dresses then that just came to my knees. I was good at wearing out my stockings at the knees, but my mother was such an excellent darner that it took the closest scrutiny to find the darned places. One day Ray noticed this darning and asked me if my grandmother did it. I told him that my mamma did it. "I wish that I had some one to darn for me like that," he said. I told him that mamma was teaching me to darn that way. "Well," he said, "when we are married you will know how and can darn mine that nice." That was the first that I had thought of our getting married, and I can remember how proud I was to think that he cared so much for me. He was always very good to me, and we never quarrelled. Our love continued about two years. He moved to the city when I was ten years old. He was about a year and a half older. I have seen him only twice since then. The summer that I was eleven years old I met a little boy who was visiting his aunt, our neighbor. He was a year older than I. I cannot remember his name, but can remember how he looked. I loved him the same as I did Ray, except at the time I thought I loved him much better. I didn't know whether he loved me or not, but I thought that he did, because I noticed that he was just as nervous when we were together as I was, and turned his eyes away when I looked at him just as I couldn't help doing when he looked at me. One day I told Grace, his cousin, that I liked him better than I did any one else I knew. I said that I believed that I liked him better than I did my mamma. He had been at his aunt's two months, and I told Grace this just the day before he was going away. On the next day he came over in the forenoon and found me standing alone by the rain-barrel, thinking about him and almost crying because he was going away so soon. We stood and talked awhile, and then he said "Say, did you really mean what you said to Grace yesterday?" I can remember just how he looked at me when he said it. I wanted to tell him that I did. Then I thought that I would tease him. So I pretended that I did not know what he meant and tried to get him to tell me what it was. He kept telling me that I knew what it was and to please answer him. But I kept pretending that I did not know. I remember that I thought that I had better not say that I did because he hadn't yet said that he loved me. At last he said, "Please do tell me, I would be _so_ happy if I knew that you meant it." I was just going to tell him that I did mean it when mamma called me to come in and help her, so I had to go without telling him. He went away that afternoon, and I have never heard of him since. I cried that night because I had not told him what he wanted me to instead of teasing him. The last boy that I fell in love with had twinkling blue eyes, dark hair and dozens and dozens of freckles. He was what the people call a "holy terror," but every one liked him because he was so free-hearted and ready to help everybody. I do not know how I happened to fall in love with him nor when, but I did, anyway. He was a favorite with the girls, and that is what spoiled him. He got into the company of bad girls and boys, and before he was fifteen years old he was the worst boy in town. He is now about twenty-one or twenty-two, and no respectable girl will have anything to do with him. I prayed and prayed that he might be changed, but it seemed that it was not to be. I was only a child then, but I loved as earnestly as any woman ever did. After awhile my feelings changed. For a time I hated and loved him by turns. Then I began to feel sorry that he could not be good, and so finally I only felt pity for him.

M., 34. I remember that when I was three years old I was very much in love with a young lady of eighteen, the grocer's daughter, who was one of our neighbors. She was especially fond of me, and came for me nearly every day to spend a part and sometimes the whole of the day with her. My sister was married in the month before I was three, and I remember many of the incidents of the wedding. That event marked the first that I can remember about my love for Miss Carter. This love lasted during three years,--until I started to school. Then I soon fell in love with another young lady,--a very beautiful and popular French girl of eighteen. I asked my teacher if I might sit by her. He told me that I might if she were willing. I at once asked her, and she made me very happy by giving her consent. I was her seatmate during all of the remainder of that school year. I was very jealous about the attentions which she received from her many admirers, and was thoroughly miserable during the days that she was absent from school. There was another young lady in the same school whom I loved at the same time, but not with the intensity of my love for my seatmate. In my seventh year I fell in love with a little girl about my own age. I loved her very much, and she loved me in return. We were free and natural in our demonstrations of kissing, embracing and exchanging gifts and attentions. In the case of the two young ladies who were free and even excessive in fondling me, I was relatively passive, but enjoyed all their expressions of love very much. During the years from eight to twelve I was very desperately in love with a girl three years older than I, but about the same size. She was a very beautiful girl with expressive brown eyes and dark but clear complexion. She liked me very much, and it was understood among our playmates that we were lovers, although we were more reserved toward each other than we were toward any of the other school children. I do not know how my secret was discovered, because I had not told any one. I wouldn't have told her for anything. I couldn't have. It was very embarrassing for me to speak to her, although in Blackman I always tried to catch her, and usually succeeded for she didn't try very hard to get away. In playing "I Spy," if I was "it," I always allowed her to get to the home goal without spying her. In other games, such as "Dropping the Handkerchief" or choosing games she was the one whom I favored. Any little courtesy that I could show her filled me with keen delight, although I never wanted her to take any notice of it. I wanted her to understand it but not to mention it. The secret understanding between us was not the embarrassing thing,--it was any expression of our love toward each other that we could not stand; any reference to it by others was also very embarrassing. I do not think either of us was teased much. I could not easily keep my eyes off of her during school sessions, and in the recitations, if I chanced to sit or stand by her, I was very nervous and could feel my heart beating with great violence. I never corrected her in class, and have purposely missed many a word in spelling to keep from turning her down. I never wrote her a note nor in any way confessed my love for her except in such acts as those which I have enumerated. She moved away from our town when I was twelve. I grieved over it for a year or more,--until I fell in love with another girl. This was my first adolescent love, and came over me with great power. The girl was about my own age and loved me as much as I did her. During the first year of this love we were both somewhat shy. We wrote notes and made the most extravagant confessions on paper, but would carefully avoid such in our conversations. In the choosing games we nearly always chose each other. In the kissing games I was the only boy whom she would kiss. There was one other boy whom she would allow to kiss her. I was very jealous of him although he was my chum. At fourteen we had passed our shy stage, and then became very demonstrative and sought each other's company outside of school. We exchanged love-letters very frequently. Some of these were twenty to thirty pages long, and were more poetic and beautiful than anything that I have been able to write since. I have some of them yet, and read them with much pleasure. My love for this girl lasted through more than three years, during which I was never absent from her home on Sunday. Our relations were encouraged by her parents. We had the usual love quarrels and temporary estrangements on account of jealousy, but they were soon over. At seventeen I left that town to teach school in another town fifteen miles away. She was attending school in the academy. While I was away two of my rivals perfected a plot that effected our estrangement. For a year we did not speak to each other. Then there was a sort of reconciliation, but nothing could undo the harm that had been done. I have not seen her for thirteen years, but I still think of her very kindly and recall our youthful romance as a pleasant and sacred memory.

W., 31. When I was about three years old a little boy of two lived near us. Our parents were warm friends and encouraged the love affair that soon sprang up between us. Our love was open and quite as a matter of course, we were very demonstrative and not in the least embarrassed by observers until I was about six, when we became more shy. We played house, and were always man and wife. Scarcely a day passed which we did not spend playing together from morning until night. Neither of us cared anything about playing with others. Once I remember as I was going home from the store carrying a little basket, Walter's cousin, a boy of about the same age, offered to carry it for me. He had no sooner taken it than Walter overtook us and commanded him to give him the basket saying that he _always_ took care of me. When the young gallant refused to give up the basket Walter took it from him and, putting it at a safe distance, proceeded to give him a pounding. Then he took up the basket and walked home with me. I remember that I enjoyed this scene very thoroughly. We were almost inseparable for five years, when my family moved out West. We exchanged gifts and promises of eternal love, but the parting was very sad. We promised to wait for each other and marry some day. Within the next two years he sent me gifts and I sent him gifts and letters. His mother said he enjoyed getting the letters but was too shy to answer them, and was very easily teased about me. I was very proud of my lover, and told my new little friends about him. I was very happy when he sent me a photograph of himself neatly framed when he was about nine years old. Although we still considered ourselves sweethearts we were each enjoying love affairs at home. During my ninth year I had a lover about my own age. He was very popular among all the girls because of the gifts he distributed liberally. I was decidedly his favorite, and was proud of the distinction. We were shy before grown people, but at school were acknowledged lovers. While not openly demonstrative, we took advantage of our games to show our love by choosing each other and giving the kiss or other mark of affection required by the game. We especially enjoyed walking home from school together or playing together when no one else was by. My heart was almost broken when it was discovered that he had been stealing small sums of money for some time in order to give me the gifts which had made me so happy. I was not allowed to have anything more to do with him, and he soon moved away. About this time I fell in love with a young man twice as old as I. He worked in my father's office and boarded with us. I loved to be with him, and was especially happy when he took me with him to church or some entertainment. When he would take me by the arm and help me through the deep snow I felt very grown up and proud of his attention. He cared for me as a little girl and I worshipped him as my knight. I was very jealous when he showed any young lady attention. Soon after this my father died and we moved to a lonely station on the prairie. Again I fell in love with a man more than twice my age whom I saw very seldom. I was very happy when he took me on his lap or caressed me. I was very shy both with him and about him, but magnified every look and word and act until I convinced myself that he loved me as much as I did him. I was intensely jealous, and when I did waken to the fact that he loved a young lady I was nearly heart broken. No one dreamed of this except a girl confidant. His marriage several years after hurt me. I think he never suspected my feelings. When about thirteen a boy a little older than I moved into our town from the East, and we proceeded to fall in love with each other at once. We wrote long letters to each other daily,--although we sat across the aisle from each other--and handed them to each other slyly when we thought no one was looking. When I was obliged to remain at home one week he brought me a long letter each evening after school. These letters were full of love and jealousy, and were read over and over, and were often carried next the heart. We took long walks and rides together, but I cannot recall a single caress given or received during the two years we were acknowledged lovers. I had received very strict teaching in regard to such things. Both of us were easily teased and very bashful when observed by others. When he was sent to a town fifteen miles away he felt sure I would forget him and that this meant the end of our beautiful love. I grieved over his leaving and because we were not allowed to correspond, but was really beginning to love a young man somewhat older so much that I was not inconsolable. We were very jealous of each other; and the news which came to each did not contribute to our peace of mind until we gradually grew apart. This affair was renewed later, and was of quite a different character.

NOTES