“LITTLE DID THEY KNOW“
by John Brewer Gibson (1907-1983)
She was a plump, dark-complexioned eight-year-old. The hemline of her underskirt hung about an inch below her dress tail. So she took from her mother’s pincushion a half-dozen stick pins and painstakingly spaced them at approximate four-inch intervals in the upturned hem. Then, proud of her girlish accomplishment and pleased with her appearance, she sallied forth to see and be seen by the big, friendly engine man whose threshing outfit was at her father’s farm that day! But little did she know –
The engineer, home over Sunday, told his folks of threshing for a heavy-set, swarthy farmer whose help called him “Nig” right to his face; yet he didn’t seem to mind it! He also spoke of the plump little, prissy little girl, the farmer’s daughter. Yet little did he know –
A tall, slim young man met a “mature, demure” fifteen-year-old maiden at a Valentine party. As it turned out, they became smitten simultaneously. And yet, at the moment, little did they know –
The plump little girl became the daughter-in-law of the big friendly engineer.
The tall slim youth, son of the engineer, married the pretty young maiden, daughter 0f “Nig.”
And their fifty-third Valentine Day is coming up. He is seventy-four; she is sixty-eight. They have reared seven sons and one daughter. Three of the sons in their early twenties, have departed this life.
(from Remember Me, John Brewer Gibson 1907-1983, Book #823, Richland County Genealogy Society, Olney, Illinois)