his home in M—boro, and with whom I suspicioned the object of my heart to be unduly friendly. I say, this is what I suspicioned. There was no particular proof, and I have been inclined to think, in after years, that it was more a case of an over-energetic imagination run amuck. I contended in my mind and in my letters to her as well, that I should not have thought anything of it, if the "man in the case" had a little more promising future, but since his proficiency only earned him the munificent sum of three dollars per week, I continued to fret and fume, until I at last resolved to suspend all communication with her.
Now what I should have done when I reached this stage of imaginary insanity, was to have sent Miss Rooks a ticket, some money, and she would have come to Dakota and married me, and together we would have "lived happy ever after." As I see it now, I was affected with an "idealism." Of course I was not aware of it at the time—no young soul is—until they have learned by bitter experience the folly of "they should not do thus and so", and, of course, there is the old excuse, "good intentions." Somewhere I read that the road to—not St. Peter—is paved with good intentions. The result of my prolific imagination was that I carried out my resolutions, quit writing, and emotionally lived rather unhappily thereafter, for some time at least.
