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April 11, 1913, was probably the greatest red-letter day of my entire life. I was a Junior in New Brighton High School and had been selected by the English faculty to be one of the main speakers at the JuniorSenior High Football banquet, where I would give a toast "To the Boys." Coincidental with the near approach of Spring and the big yearly banquet had come all the way from Scotland, a very handsome lad named Ernest McLuckie. Practically every girl in the class had set her cap for him. Not only was he very handsome with soft, brown, wavy hair, and laughing blue eyes, but he sang beautifully and had an A-1 brain. He never could get Latin, but in Science classes he was a Whiz!
I had worked hard preparing and memorizing my speech, going over it repeatedly before my widowed mother with whom I shared all my school secrets - all the other family members were married and away from home. The biggest question facing me was what I would wear and with whom I would go, for as yet no boy had asked for my company.
Then it happened: about three weeks before the big event, in the middle of Science class came a scrap of blue-lined composition paper, apparently torn hastily from The Handsome Scot's notebook. I lost my breath reading the hurriedly written scrawl in which he called me "Mademoiselle" asking if he might have the pleasure of escorting me to the forth-coming banquet.
I blushed confusedly as I lost my breath reading it. Although I was nearly sixteen, not yet had I been permitted to go out with boys at night. Of course, before class dismissal, Ernest had my short affirmative answer. That scrap of blue-lined paper I treasured for months.
My dear understanding mother was aware that I should have a really new dress for the big occasion. I had never owned a store-bought dress for mother had always been a beautiful seamstress from the age of fourteen when she went out among the farm people as a respected and successful tailor.
Soft white lawn sprinkled with sprigs of tiny blue forget-me-nots was our mutual choice and I had a beautiful ruffled, first-long-skirt dress. Mother brushed my long hair, tied a blue bow at the top and down my back was part braid and part curl. No high heels, no make-up whatsoever - my cheeks were always rosy from so much walking and so much fresh air, I suppose. Lipstick was unheard of in those days. I asked God to forgive me for feeling so proud of my beautiful new dress, but inside I was thrilled because I was to be seated near my high school principal and I was going out with the finest looking boy in the class.
In retrospect, I relive every moment of that day when Ernest came to our kitchen door and I introduced him to mother. In no way was I aware of what mother had in mind. Having been a farm woman, she knew all the "signs" in the sky, and she knew, but not 1, that there would be no moon that night and traversing our triangled, steep hill in darkness was not easy. Imagine my consternation when just before we left, mother handed Ernest a small package of matches done up in a piece of newspaper, and produced the old family lantern, well oiled, shined up like new, and commented, "There's no moon tonight and it will be very dark when you come home," she calmly said. I was flabbergasted. Ernest lived "in town." We lived three miles from school. No indoor plumbing. Rural electricity would not be here for years. That lantern we used when we needed to go to the outside toilet at night, or when we rushed to a neighbor in an emergency, or down our big hill to the streetcar line to meet someone coming home from town in the darkness. Neither flash lights nor small paper match books were available, away back then. Mother continued, "You can hide it back of the big main post of the railroad trestle." The railroad was a one-track system used by nearby Ingraham's Brick Works. Mother was well aware that after we got off the street car bringing us back from school, we had to cross three railroad tracks, then up a small hill to the trestle. By the time we had walked down the hill, hidden the lantern, then crossed the tracks and finally arrived at high school, I was too excited to bother with anything so mundane as a lantern.
Never shall I forget that "Toast to the Boys" - Oliver Wendell Holmes' words had been honed by me to a really flourishing finish:
I was smothered with kisses, hugs, and warm congratulations for a job well done. Flushed with victory, I was still more thrilled with the joy of being with a fine boy like Ernest. Somehow, I felt deep within, the assurance that nothing would ever be impossible for me again. With heady victory and laughter, we almost ran down the long hill from the school building to catch the last trolley-car.
Then up over the railroad tracks, and the small climb to the trestle where we found our lantern, Ernest adroitly lighting it and saying, "We've got one almost like this at home. "The night was, indeed, very dark and we were glad mother had sense enough to make us take the lantern. Yet all the while we walked up over the big hill to my home, I had a wonderful feeling deep in my heart which I was later to know was mutual with Ernest. Exactly nine years after that April 11th we were engaged, and two years later became man and wife. Ernest passed away in April, 1978 after fifty-nine years of wonderful togetherness. But always in my memory, the light of that old lantern has been like a symbol of permanence. It was truly a light that did not fail.
Harriet Smith McLuckie, a former New Brighton resident, now lives in Melborne, Florida and is 90 years old!
During the past two years, her works have been included in three other anthologies, and one of her poems was the poem of the month in the November issue of a national health magazine, 1984.