Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

(the dance we did was the one-step of the 1914 period)—When eventually, out of breath, we stopped, “Queenie” said to come up to the bar, and she wanted to announce our engagement. Horrified, I still was afraid to deny her, in fear of her friends. However, her father, who had got wind of it, was as much against it as I and had demanded a court hearing. We were all lined up at a long bar or barrier, the negress at one end, near the judges, while I was near the other end, with a vague lot of people between. The girls [sic] father had cabled to the Pope (they were Catholics) hoping he would refuse his sanctions; He now held up the Pope’s reply—“Marriage O.K. Burchfield’s status has been altered by the new job he has taken Thursday afternoon”—But the father had still a plan. He now persuaded a youth to put on my hat and overcoat, and then go to Queenie pretending he was me. His idea was that if Queenie did not know him from me, she did not really love me, but simply wanted to marry a white man, any white man. As the youth left, a man next to me, said scornfully “That kid?—Why he couldn’t even make a wild-swan pregnant”—I awoke then, infinitely relieved, and chuckling over that remark.
A raw day with a boisterous east wind, bringing snow and sleet and rain. Coming home from the post-office I rejoiced in the wind in my face, the roaring tree-tops, and the rattle of sleet and rain on the frozen earth.