“Gibbsville is livelier. They have more parties than Lebanon. Our young people mostly go to Reading or Fort Penn for the big balls there.”
“I’m supposed to go to a ball in Fort Penn on the 28th or 29th.”
“Oh, yes. My uncle’s on the committee. Did you ever hear of him? Roy Reichelderfer? He went to Yale.”
“No.”
“He’s my uncle. A big fellow. Everybody likes him. The Reichelderfers are all big. My cousin Paul is over two hundred pounds and he’s only fourteen.”
“But you’re not more than a hundred and fifty.”
“I’m not a Reichelderfer. I’m a Fenstermacher.”
“Oh.”
“I guess I didn’t tell you my name. David Fenstermacher.”
“Oh. We have a lot of Fenstermachers in Lantenengo County. In fact, there are some in Swedish Haven. But I don’t know any Reichelderfers, at least I don’t think I do … Well, at last. Are you sitting in the Pullman?”
“No, only when I travel with my parents.”
“Well, if I don’t see you during vacation—back at Princeton.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Lockwood. It was a pleasure to meet you.”
This encounter became significant on New Year’s Eve, at the Gibbsville Assembly. George Lockwood’s “drag”—the girl he had invited to the dance—came down with an attack of boils on Christmas Eve, and he attended the function as a stag. He thus was free to keep his card as full or as empty as he wished, to have a cigar when he felt like it, and to visit the punchbowl. He was having a glass of punch when he was accosted by Red Phillips, a Gibbsville acquaintance. “I’ve been looking all over for you,” said Phillips.
“Not in the right places.”
“Listen, George, there’s a girl here from Lebanon says she would like to meet you. You know her brother or somebody in the family. Are you free for the second waltz after intermission?”
“Let me look. Yes. What name?”
“Eulalie Fenstermacher.”
“Oh. Her brother’s a freshman. Is she pretty?”
“She’s very pretty and a good talker.”
At the second waltz after intermission George Lockwood presented himself, was introduced to Miss Eulalie Fenstermacher, and swept her out onto the dance floor. “You were very nice to my brother. Thank you.”
“The pea-green freshman? Oh, he was a nice kid.”
“You sound like Methuselah. You’re going to wish you hadn’t some day.”
“Not I. It’s girls that want to pretend they’re younger, not men. Have you started to lie about your age, Miss Fenstermacher?”
“No, and I never intend to. I just won’t tell anybody.”
“You won’t have to. You’re either nineteen or twenty now, so I’ll always know within one year how old you are.”
“You’re so clever, Mr. Lockwood.”
“What’s clever about that? It isn’t hard to guess a girl’s age. I can guess any woman’s age, under thirty. Then it becomes more difficult, but under thirty it’s pretty easy. Where do you go to school?”
“I graduated last June. From Oak Hill.”
“Oh, that’s not very far from Princeton. To think that you went to school near me—and Lebanon isn’t so very far away either. Do you think it’s a small world, Miss Fenstermacher?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whose world you’re talking about. Your world is small. You lived in the same college with my brother for three months, but you never saw him till last week. That’s because your world is tiny. Therefore you make the world itself seem infinitely larger.”
“I follow you so far, but I didn’t know I was going to get into higher mathematics. Don’t tell me you’re a bluestocking, Miss Fenstermacher.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t try to tell a Princeton man anything.”
“Why not? Just because it’s so hard to educate your Lehigh friends? Don’t give up so easily.”
“At least Lehigh men are willing to learn.”
“They’d better be. They have a lot to catch up on.”
“I thought Red Phillips was a friend of yours.”
“Well, he introduced me to you, I’ll say that for the poor, unsophisticated piece of humanity. Did you go to the ball in Fort Perm the other night?”
“Yes, why?”
“Because now I wish I’d gone.”
“My uncle was on the committee.”
“Are you fending off a compliment? I said I wish I’d gone.”
“I heard you. I didn’t know whether you intended it as a compliment or because you wish you’d been there to tease me.”
“Was Red at the ball?”
“Red Phillips? Heavens, Mr. Lockwood, I have other escorts besides Red Phillips.”
“How many others?”
“How many others?”
“How—many—others? I want to know how many I have to contend with.”
“I didn’t know you planned to contend.”
“Of course you didn’t, but you know it now. You can put them out of their agony right away, and also make it much easier for me.”
“Such self-confidence, I declare.”
“Wouldn’t it be more merciful to put them out of their agony now? When I arrive at your house I sincerely hope you will have got rid of the mandolin players, at least.”
“How did you—”
“Oh, that’s obvious. I’m sure the whole F. & M. glee club serenades you all summer.”
“Did my brother tell you that?”
“Good Lord, no. That would be obvious too. Franklin and Marshall. Lebanon Valley. Muhlenberg. Lee-high. Lehigh, Lehigh, Gott verdammt sei.”
“Mr. Lockwood! I think you’ve been sampling the punch.”
“That’s a good idea. Let’s go over and have a glass of punch and we can stand behind the palms and then you stand your next partner up.”
“You’re a little Dutchy, aren’t you?”
“My mother’s name was Hoffner. Why not?”
“Oh, I know Hoffners. In Richterville.”
“They’re the ones. What do you say to my suggestion?”
“I say no. If you wish to dance with me again, you have to ask Red. I think my card is filled.”
“Well, I gave you the opportunity of a lifetime. You can’t say I didn’t.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t come and see me in Lebanon.”
“No, you didn’t, did you? Well, when?”
“Spring vacation. My brother’d be only too glad to invite you, and we have plenty of room.”
In August of that summer, his last college vacation, they reached an understanding. An understanding was an unofficial, unannounced engagement to be married, and had its own rules and conventions. Eulalie Fenstermacher told her mother that George Lockwood wanted to be engaged to her. “Have an understanding,” said Mrs. Fenstermacher. “You can have an understanding till George graduates. That’s always better.” An understanding did not involve the young man’s obtaining the consent of the girl’s father, and the father remained out of the picture until the propitious moment. The custom of having an understanding, which in the lower classes was known as “going steady,” offered most of the advantages without entailing the risk of a publicly announced and publicly broken engagement. Thus it could be said of a young couple, “They had an understanding, but they changed their minds,” and neither party would be marked as jilted. During an understanding a young couple could be together a great deal, but their friends did not entertain specifically in their honor. Mainly what was implicit in an understanding was that the young man and the young woman were already forsaking all others, and only waiting for circumstances, such as tune, to make the formal announcement feasible or desirable.