“Will you be my summer girl?”: 1909

A SUMMER GIRL

“Will you be my summer girl?” he asked, as she sat on the rail in front of him. her sailor hat aslant of her rippling locks and her pretty little feet swinging in front of her.

“Do you want me to be?” she asked.

“Do I want you to be? Yes, assuredly, I want you to be.”

“And what will you do for me if I am your summer girl?”

“Everything. I’ll dance attendance; I’ll be your slave. I will feed you with chocolates, and ice cream, and–”

“I will be your summer girl.” and she held out her little brown hand “Thank you; you’re very kind, and I am delighted.”

“But, tell me. what does being a summer girl consist of?”

“Why, the most delightful, unfettered companionship–nothing serious on either side no promises–no false hopes–just a sort of mutual attention, don’t you know.”

“That suits me perfectly–yes, I’ll be your summer girl.”

That was the way it began. And what a summer girl she was to be sure. How she tripped through green fields with him, picking wild flowers and singing her merry songs. How she pulled away at the oars of the little cedar boat, with her sleeves rolled up to the elbow, calling upon him to watch the rounded muscle as it swelled her pretty arms.

But if these things were attractive how infinitely more attractive was the way she fell into calling him “Harry, ‘ and the pleasant little familiarity with which she treated him. It was not a sisterly familiarity exactly, not friendly one, and not the familiarity of one jolly good fellow for another, yet it smacked of all three, with a little touch of sentiment thrown in and a certain off-handedness to tone it down.

“You are an ideal summer girl,” he said to her one evening in the moonlight–“absolutely ideal.”

“Thank you,” she returned demurely; “I am glad I suit your majesty.”

“You are not glad. You don’t care a bit.”

She laughed merrily.

“What does that make me out?” she asked.

“Oh, only a summer girl,” he responded.

Unfortunately, summer days cannot go on forever, and toward the end of August there comes a chilling breeze across the waves, which shrivels up summer things, and makes one begin to think of heavier flannels and felt hats.

He had passed through the chummy stage, the brotherly stage, even the cousinly stage, and he had now reached a point where all feeling of relationship ceases, and where the desire for relationship begins. The little sprite was going home. The rolling waves would resound no longer to the music of her voice.

“Kitty–don’t let it be good-bye. Don’t say it’s all over. I love you, Kitty. You’re not only a summer girl, are you?”

“But, Harry, you only asked me to be a summer girl.”

“I know, dear, but now I ask you to be something else.”

The sprite laughed and shook her head.

“Too, late, old fellow,” she murmured–“too late! Jack Hilton asked me to be his all-the-year-round girl, and I have consented. You’ve had what you asked for, Harry.”

New Castle [PA] Herald 27 July 1909: p. 7

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  Well!  The heartless minx! How dare she take Harry at his word and be merely the “ideal Summer Girl?” Mrs Daffodil wonders how long Harry nursed a grudge against Kitty. Obviously he assumed that she would, in the time-honoured tradition of newspaper short fiction, fall helplessly in love with him.

This next examination of the Summer Girl species is particularly distasteful about her “convenience” and her “cheapness”–attributes more suited to lauding washing-up powders than young ladies. It also likens her to a sweet, but transient fruit.

Mrs Daffodil will remain frigidly silent about the notion of “cling” kisses required of the Summer Girl.

THE SUMMER GIRL

Charming Creature Who Reigns Supreme During the Heated Term.

The summer girl is a peculiarly American product, says the Trenton Times. No other soil, so far as known, has ever produced her. She seems to have been discovered several years ago by some college students, and has since been cultivated to a large extent all over the country. She is a very popular creature in certain quarters, possesses undoubted charms and has her advantages. It might not be amiss just now to enumerate a few of her uses.

The summer girl is a good convenience. She does not expect to be fondled and fed on dainties that during the winter. The young man who cultivated her acquaintance knows just when and where to find her. He is not expected to become acquainted with her before strawberry time. She does not display her fairy charms, so to speak, until the cream season is thoroughly ripe. The hammock in which she swings and the perforated sleeves that she wears do not appear before June.

The Summer girl is sentimental. Having an active existence only during the warm months, it becomes necessary for her to lay in a stock of sentiment during the three months that will last throughout the year. Therefore she is very sweet, very tender, very caressable. The young mail who claims her for his own for  June to September is believed to have a very “soft” time of it. He is supposed in sentimental slang, to have all the hugging and kissing he wants. The Summer girl always has a supply of kisses on hand. It is true some of her kisses are rather stale, having been lent all Winter, but when they are warmed up they pass very readily for fresh ones. The young man who cultivates Summer girls is not very particular what kind of kisses he gets so long as they are the cling kind.

The Summer girl is pretty. If she wasn’t pretty she wouldn’t be a Summer girl. She wears a pretty girl’s dress, has a pretty girl’s teeth, and puts on a pretty girl’s smiles. She also has a dimple or two to add to the picture. She is usually plump, but not stout; well formed, but not rotund. The young man who pays for her strawberries and cream, and takes her to picnics where they play Copenhagen [a game where the boys chase the girls and claim a kiss] is always proud of her. The Summer girl never gets soiled or looks dirty. She even manages to keep her back hair in good shape after a hugging match.

The Summer girl is not very expensive. Her wishes are few and cheap. A row on the river now and then, an occasional buggy ride, a plate of ice cream on a warm evening and an escort to a picnic about once in two weeks nearly sums up her wants. Being only a summer girl, she does not expect those presents and that devotion that belong to the regular every-day-in-the-week and twice-on-Sunday-all-the-year-round girl. The Summer girl is more like some luscious fruit that comes only for a time and is gone for the year, but it is peculiarly sweet while it lasts.

The Leavenworth [KS] Times 5 August 1883: p. 2

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

The Women Folk are Canning Fruit: 1908

THE OUTCAST

You ask me why I weep and moan

Like some lost spirit in despair,

And why I wander off alone,

And paw the ground and tear my hair?

You ask me why I pack this gun,

All loaded up, prepared to shoot?

Alas, my troubles have begun—

The women folk are canning fruit!

There Is no place for me to eat,

Unless I eat upon the floor;

And peelings get beneath my feet

And make me fall a block or more;

The odors from the boiling jam

All day assail my weary snoot;

You find me, then, the wreck I am—

The women folks are canning fruit!

Oh, they have peaches on the chairs,

And moldy apples on the floor,

And wormy plums upon the stairs,

And piles of pears outside the door;

And they are boiling pulp and juice;

And you may hear them yell and hoot;

A man’s existence is the deuce—

The women folk are canning fruit!

The Emporia [KS] Gazette 20 August 1908: p. 1

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  Even without the citation, Mrs Daffodil would know that this is an American poem because, in England, the correct, and vastly more accurate term, is “bottling fruit.”  It is jarring to hear the Americanism “canning,” when the container is glass.

To judge by the range of articles on “scientific canning,” and the perils of scalding fruit and exploding canning jars found in the vintage papers of the States, the subject was no joking matter.

Mrs Daffodil is indignant to report that she has found only one joke on the subject that meets her exacting standards of humour:

The Vermont housewife who read that English nobles have lots of hares in their preserves, says she tried it to the extent of putting a whole chignon into some blackberry jam, and the jam didn’t seem a bit better for it.

Kalamazoo [MI] Gazette 2 August 1881: p. 2

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

 

Ballooning the Coming Sport: 1909

Aeronaut cigarette card, 1887 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/400785?rpp=30&pg=3&ft=occupations+for+women&pos=66

Ballooning to Supersede Motoring as Pastime

Wealthy French Women Giving Parties and Wearing Elaborate Costumes.

In its story of how woman has come to the front and in Paris, at least, has made aviation a social pastime, Vogue says:

“As might be expected, woman has brought to ballooning, as to every other human endeavor shared by her, a softening and beautifying touch. At a recent fete given by the ‘Stella’ at the park of the Aero Club of France, flowers were made the keynote of the entertainment. Members of the club in six parties made ascensions in balloons of equal number, and all of these balloons were named for flowers and each was decorated with the living blossoms that corresponded. Thus Mme. Surcouf sailed away in Les Bluets, and her globular vessel was decked with corn flowers. Mme. Defosses-Dalloz, a vice president of the ‘Stella,’ and Mme. Omer-Decugis, also of the club, were borne aloft in Les Roses and the car of their air chariot was smothered under La France roses. Mme. Abulfeda and Mme. Dumas, other members, occupied Les Paquerettes, and accordingly employed Easter lilies for its floral embellishment. The Comte de Castillon de Saint-Victor acted as pilot of the balloon occupied by another ‘Stella’ enthusiast, Mme. Monnot, and on her car Les Pivoines she had lavished a wealth of peonies. And so it went, every car in the fete had its bank of flowers, and as the balloons rose over the beautiful park showers of blossoms descended to the feet of the spectators.

***

“And not only this, but the aeronautes of the ‘Stella’ have set the fashion in their ascensions en spherique of wearing dainty and becoming apparel. It had once been the case that a woman in preparing for a balloon trip discarded all her pretty garments and donned heavy boots, corduroy skirts or knickers, thick woolen or flannel sacques and velveteen or leather jackets. Not so with the ‘Stellas,’ as they have already been dubbed in the French capital. A trip in the clouds means less to them than a trip in a motor car, so far as change of raiment is concerned. A long veil, which may be used to tie on the hat and to keep confined rebellious locks which are disturbed by the upper currents of air, and a heavy coat that will keep one warm when passing through a cloudbank of mist or when in the higher and colder levels–and any afternoon toilette is transformed into your modern sky sailor’s equipment.

***

“There can be little doubt that with the wealthier French women ballooning is the fad of the hour. As a sport it has replaced motoring, which once, held such complete sway over Parisian society and which is now considered slow and passé. A glance at any smart Parisian journal will reveal the prevalence and the popularity of balloon riding, for the papers are filled with accounts of the dally ascensions made by this, that and the other group of  pleasure seekers, while the advertising pages display notices of where balloons may be bought or hired, tell of what parks offer facilities for ascensions, and even print the schedules of rates at which skilled pilots may be hired by the hour.

“Week-end balloon parties are just as common as are week-end  house parties in this country. The hostess need not ask her guests if they fly; it is taken for granted that they do, and that they will take a part in the fete as a matter of course. And as a matter of course, they do. With the large, double-envelope balloons, which are used for these social air trips, danger is reduced to a minimum, ballooning being far safer, for instance, than motoring or boating. Women frequently make these short flights alone, and two or three women will make up a balloon party which scorns the services of a masculine pilot.”

Buffalo [NY] Courier 1 September 1909: p. 5

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  It is, Mrs Daffodil is reliably informed, “Aviation Day” in the States. The United States press was all agog over the fair balloonists of France and, naturally, wished American ladies to come to the fore in this fashionable sport.

A great deal has been said and written about the formation of a woman’s aeronaut club in this country, but as yet no effort has been made to form such a club. Fame awaits the man or woman who shall make the first move in this direction. Necessarily, the founder of such an organization must be a person of wealth and leisure and an enthusiast on the subject of aviation.

And yet what the French women have accomplished in this respect can surely be done by American women and done with éclat. It is plainly evident that ballooning is the coming sport of the well-to-do.

Grand Forks [ND] Daily Herald 9 September 1909: p. 5

 

However, it was clear that the Parisian’s afternoon toilettes with the casual addition of a veil did not suit the practical English or American spirit. A fashion letter from the manager of the firm of Burberry gives some helpful suggestions for the would-be Queens of the Air:

LONDON FASHIONS.

By May Dawson

London, May 4. The exceptionally fine weather experience of late has induced balloonists to venture forth at an earlier date than usual, and the season for this new sport bids fair to be an exceptionally good one.

Only a few years ago a balloon trip was regarded as foolhardy. Now it is looked upon as an amusing hobby. Since Mrs. [Hugh] Iltid Nicholl first ventured up on “The City of York” balloon, many ladies having followed her example.

It is obvious, however, that the picture hat and long skirt of Mayfair are hardly suitable for aerial flight, and the West End tailors are turning their attention to the serious question of meeting the dress demands of the lady balloonist.

“The most practical dress for a lady balloonist,” said the manager of Messrs. Burberry, in an interview, “should be made of gabardine, slimber [Burberry’s proprietary weather-proof cloth] or, for the coldest weather, loden, which is a particularly thick yet light woven cloth worn by the Alpine guides.

“The fashionable color is a green with a slight ruddy brown tinge. The coat is worn short and lined with fleece or silk, with two breast pockets, two cross pockets, and two hand-rests for the purpose of keeping the hands warm.

“The skirt is an adjustable one, which means that it can be drawn up by invisible cords, which by forming a pleat half way down, enables the wearer to get out or in the car with great facility, while it can be let down while traveling to keep the feet warm.

“Over the coat comes a ‘slip-on’ waterproof lined with either fleece, silk, fur or wool. A tailor-made shirt of opal crepe should be worn beneath, with a broad belt of the same material as the coat or skirt.

“We are introducing a special ballooning cap made of a fine opal crepe in the very palest shade of green, which is not damaged by the rain. It is in the jelly-bag shape, the end being fastened down on the right side by a quill. An opal silk veil, which is woven in colored silks should also be worn with the costume, shading from the green of the ballooning cap, to the ruddy shade in the coat and skirt. Canadian mittens are made of the same material as the coat and skirt.

“To make the costume complete the lady balloonist should wear dark brown boots, or if she wishes, should have the leather dyed in exactly the same color as the coat and skirt.”

The Salt Lake [UT] Herald 5 May 1907: p. 20

The earliest American lady balloonist  was Mary Myers, known professionally as “Carlotta, the Lady Aeronaut.” One may be reasonably confident that she did not dress like the young lady on the cigarette card at the head of this post.

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

 

 

A Fashionable Bathhouse for Sea-Bathing: 1893

Bathing Machines, Ostend, c. 1910-1915 Library of Congress.

SEA-BATHING A LA MODE

The Interior of a Lady’s Bathhouse at Long Island.

As we all know, decorous Britishers of both sexes refuse to frolic in the big sea informally and in jovial fellowship as do the unconventional American “brethren and sisteren.” Mr. and Mrs. John Bull or the Misses Bull have little movable rooms, inside of which are the conveniences we enjoy in our seaside bathhouses, says Demorest for September. The rooms are on wheels. Enter Mrs. John Bull with a bathing-suit and a number of towels on her arm; a little pony is hitched, by primitive harness to the room, and when Mrs. J. B. gives a sign at the window of her queer little house the pony is driven down to the beach, even out into the water as far as he can go, is unhitched and trotted back to the shore. Out then, by the back door of her little room, comes Mrs. John Bull, arrayed for the sea, into which she hops and, so long as she wishes, enjoys a dip. The bath over she enters her wheeled room, the pony is sent down and hitched on, and the protean mermaid inside is brought back to terra firma. When the public seen her again she is clothed in the common garb of civilization.

Now this whole idea so pleased a friend of the Van Kortlandts, who went abroad for the first time last summer, that on settling down in her Long Island home she quite made up her mind to have a bathing-machine like those at Brighton. She had a little gable-roofed box built about 5 by 5 feet and at least 8 feet from floor to roof. Outside it is painted a clear sea green and it is swung on two big black wheels. There is a window in the roof and a door and pair of steps at the back.

Inside, madam’s imagination has worked wonders that would make Mrs. John Bull turn green with envy. The interior is all done in snow-white enamel paint, and one-half of the floor is pierced with many holes, to allow of free drainage form wet flannels. The other half of the little room is covered with a pretty green Japanese rug. In one corner is a big-mouthed green silk bag lined with rubber. Into this the wet bathing-togs are tossed out of the way. There are large bevel-edged mirrors let into either side of the room, and below one juts out a toilet shelf, on which is every appliance. There are pegs for towels and the bathrobe, and fixed in one corner is a little square seat that when turned up reveals a locker where clean towels, soap, perfumery, etc. are stowed. Ruffles of white muslin trimmed with lace and narrow green ribbons decorate every available space. When the mistress steps out of this bathing machine her maid dries and airs it, then ‘tis securely locked and wheeled high and dry behind the humble bathhouse of ye vulgar American.

The Morning Call [San Francisco, CA] 3 September 1893: p. 11

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  Ah yes, “the maid dries and airs” the bathing machine.  Mrs Daffodil shudders at those “ruffles of white muslin” decorating every available space. The lace and ribbonry required hand-washing and goffering and a heavy starch to keep them from going limp in the sea-breezes. A delightful effect, but scarcely a sea-side holiday.

Charming as is the description of the white-and-green bathing machine, Mrs Daffodil suggests that it exists primarily in fantasy. The reality is below:

MARINE EXCURSIONS.

We consider the essentials of a watering-place may be alliteratively summed up thus:— Sea, salt, sun, sand, shrimps, shells, sailors, and shingle…

A bathing-machine is an aquatic caravan, containing respectively two towels, two ricketty hat-pegs, a damp flooring, a strong smell of sea-weed, and a broken looking-glass, exhibiting the phenomena of oblique refraction. Though this last cannot be exactly considered the “glass of fashion,” it frequently exhibits the “mould of form” about to have a dip.

The Traveller’s Miscellany and Magazine of Entertainment, 1847

This post was originally published in 2013.

A story of a bathhouse scandal is found in The Bathing Machine Mystery part 1 and  part 2.  And the inside story of The Great Grampus Bath-House Tragedy is found here.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

 

Snap-shots at the Beach: 1894

https://www.ebay.com/itm/AA-Nash-Little-Girl-w-Her-Camera-c1910-Postcard/333567972913?hash=item4daa335631:g:gk4AAOSwMqVefUbk

LITTLE GIRL’S CAMERA.

What She Did With It, and What Some Other Girls Might Do.

She was the loveliest little figure, wandering about the big hotel galleries or sitting by herself on the sand, very neatly but plainly dressed, and just 14 years old, she told me. When we became more or less friendly, for I used to ask her to come sit under my big beach umbrella, she explained she had come to the seaside for her health. which any one could plainly see, and that she came alone, because to pay her board and traveling expenses was all a hard-working, self-sacrificing mother and elder sister could manage.

It weighed on her tender conscience that she could do nothing to help them bear the burden of her summer’s outing, that the doctor had said was so necessary, and we talked it over often under my beach umbrella, until she made a great discovery. She had been given by her kind-hearted doctor a little eight-dollar snap shot camera, and one day, having taken a dozen photographs of my favorite sand seat, our party under the umbrella, clever glimpses of the bathing beach and our two dogs, my brother guaranteed to buy every one of the dozen at 80 cents each in order that she could have the photographs developed, printed, and mounted.

Now it cost her $1.45 to have them made ready for the sale, but as she sold the whole dozen to us for $3.60, her profits amounted to $2.15. But her camera only held twelve films, and a fresh roll cost 65 cents, so in the end she had cleared just $1.60. It didn’t seem very much, yet it was only the beginning, for our pictures proved so satisfactory we told others on the beach about it, and before the week was over she had more orders than she could fill. Everybody wanted to be taken over and over again, and our little photographer found that she could clear a profit of 13 cents on every picture she made. Since she could not afford to buy the necessary outfit for printing and mounting the photographs herself, they had to be sent to a factory, where all that was done for 12 cents per picture; as her camera held only enough films for one dozen photographs, costing 65 cents for the dozen, these items took a great deal off of her earnings. Yet she managed to clear $7 for her first week and $9 the next, nearly enough to meet the expenses of her board at the hotel, she told me delightedly.

It was very seldom she was not able to average $7 a week for the eight weeks she stayed at the beach, for every day new people came who wanted their pictures taken, and at length the kindly hotel proprietor paid her $25 to make a series of pictures in and about his hotel to be used as illustrations for his season’s prospectus and guide book.

She could hardly believe the money was her own, so great a sum did it appear, half enough to pay the big doctor’s bill her illness had cost, with $5 over to supply some materials she wanted for a new project This last was her own idea–to make pretty souvenirs and sell them to visitors. They were hand made albums of half a dozen bristol board sheets fastened together with stout silk cords, and then buying a printing frame and sheets of prepared paper she would make blue prints and mount them herself on the bristol board.

These albums gave the most picturesque and interesting views about our summer resort, and some of them had pasted to the sheets carefully pressed samples of the prettiest wild flower and seaweed found on shore or in the fields. Her albums cost her a great deal of patience and some outlay, but she sold nearly a dozen of them for $4 apiece, and the result was another $25 profit When at last she bade us farewell and packed up her little camera it was a rosy, happy face that turned homeward again. By her own exertions she had paid her board nearly the whole of her eight weeks’ stay and had helped with the big bills at home. The picture-taking had kept her out of doors every fair day; in search of pretty nooks and subjects, wild flowers and novel scenes she had taken many long walks, and ever busy and interested with her camera she grew as well and strong as she had ever been.

“I shall be a professional photographer when I grow up,” she solemnly assured me, patting her well-worn little camera with loving hands, “and I wish I could tell some other girls who want to make a little money how I made mine, for I think photography is just the sort of work that would suit girls, don’t you?”

The Inter Ocean [Chicago IL] 5 August 1894: p. 31

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  It is a rosy picture of a city child sent to the sea-side to recover her health. One hopes that the enterprising young woman did not have a relapse when she returned to the privations and worries of home and grew up to become a celebrated professional photographer, well-able to keep her mother and elder sister in comfort.

Mrs Daffodil has previously written of a young woman who made a career photographing pets.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

Portieres Try the Patience: 1901

 

Wooden bead portiere. https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-antique-wood-beaded-portiere-1892455976

TRIES THE PATIENCE OF MEN.

Feminine Fad That Causes the Masculine Gender Misery and Annoyance.

Men have many traits that the better half of humanity wot not of. One of the greatest of these in the estimation of a majority of the sex is the reed portiere that is found in so many private houses and public places in summer. Beside it melted collars and crumpled shirts and all the other aggravations incidental to the heat fade into insignificance. One man actually forgets them while he is trying to master the intricacies of those long beaded strings which swirl so maddeningly around his head, says the Chicago Chronicle.

In one of the hotels a wide door way is hung with such a portiere, and the methods pursued by the lords of creation greatly amused one woman spectator the other evening. Most of them came through shoulder first, only to be caught halfway by a sinuous length that wound itself around their necks and refused to be dislodged without coaxing. Others came head first and escaped with minor buffetings. One ingenious youth placed his hands wedge fashion and dove into the room with quite inelegant haste.

The men who were accompanied by women were in great stress of mind as to how to proceed, but they usually succeeded in corralling a sufficient number of the strands to allow the companions to pass and then they slipped through themselves, shaking off the ends that smote them as a water dog shakes off the liquid drops.

In private houses where the master is of an impatient temperament these portieres will be found parted m the middle and tied firmly back with ribbons, for, in the language of one such masculine, “life’s too short and the weather’s too hot to be eternally combating with a lot of elusive sticks that are always where you don t expect them to be.”

As a test of character the reed portiere is valuable, and a young woman might obtain some significant side lights on the disposition of her masculine callers by intrenching herself behind such a barrier and watching the emotions writ on their mobile faces as they endeavored to reach her side.

Emporia [KS] Daily Republican 13 August 1901: p. 2

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: The disconcerting summer portieres that so rattled the gentlemen were to be found in reeds, bamboo, rolled bark, papier-mache, glass beads, and shells. They seem to have been a “happy hands at home” craft for ladies who found time hanging heavily on their hands.

If women staying at seashore resorts will spend part of their idle time in collecting a variety of shells, they may utilize them in the fall for a unique door drapery. Fasten the shells thickly on fish netting, then drape of the netting over a door casing and let it hang down at the sides. The shell trimmed netting also makes an attractive portiere by lining it with a light shade of sea green silk finished material. The Ypsilanti [MI] Commercial 12 August 1897: p. 5

Do you remember the thin, yellow, almost flat shells which are so abundant on all beaches? Of course you do, but when you saw them by hundreds in the white sand I am sure you never imagined what a beautiful portiere could be made from them. Yet to this use have they been put by my young friend. She pierced each shell with a hot wire, and then with a delicate wire fastened the narrow end of one to the wide end of the next until a string sufficiently long to reach form the curtain pole to the floor was made. Enough of these were fashioned for the entire portiere. At the top they are held in place by a narrow strip of cloth of the same color as the shells. The effect is something like the Japanese portieres, but the coloring being Nature’s own is prettier, and then the cost—twenty cents, the price of the wire, and twelve cents for the strip of cloth.

New York [NY] Herald 18 May 1890: p. 14

Home-Made Bead Portieres.

A very pretty work a great many energetic women are trying now is that of making their own bead portieres. The Japanese shops sell bamboo and strings of beads, so that one can make curtains to harmonize perfectly with each room. For instance, I saw a charming effect produced by a portiere of green beads used between a dining room and a small conservatory adjoining. You have no idea how exquisite the plants and flowers looked through this transparent screen of green. Gold beads give a sunshiny effect, and portieres of solid pink or blue beads are dainty in the extreme. A friend who has recently returned from Japan tells me that the curtains strung in patterns are made by having the designs drawn on large pieces of paper and laid on the floor, and then the beads are strung on just as we would trace out the lines in making lace.

The Times [Philadelphia PA] 22 October 1894: p. 7

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

A Necklace With a History: 1890

1890 necklace of sapphire, zircon, tourmaline, amethyst, garnet https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2020/fine-jewels/gem-set-necklace-circa-1890

A NECKLACE WITH A STORY.

Gems From the Engagement Rings of Thirteen Rejected Suitors.

[New York World.]

Engagement bracelets and bangles, hoops tied with knots of ribbon (one color for each adorer), are now surpassed according to a late story by a diamond necklace with a strange history. This necklace, set with thirteen stones, was confidentially declared by the wearer to be composed of the stones from thirteen engagement rings which she had worn at different times. Through a fine regard for the feelings of the thirteen “rejected addressers” this delicate-minded young woman had had them reset, and wore them suspended about her beautiful neck…. It is to be hoped for the sake of fair young womanhood that these “engagements” were like those in vogue at one time in Washington—simply a mutual arrangement by which a young man became for a certain time the acknowledged escort of a young belle, to whose service he felt himself bound, and to whom he furnished bouquets and bon-bons in return for the pleasure of taking her to receptions. In this frivolous but harmless kind of an engagements a young beauty of my acquaintance figured sixteen times, marrying at the end of her second season an army officer of culture and high rank. But she did not accept diamond rings or other valuable gifts from her soi-disant lovers.

The Enquirer [Cincinnati OH] 20 September 1890: p. 13

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Such ladies who trifled with the honest affections of gentlemen were shockingly common:

Emily: What are you crying over, dear?

Julia: Longfellow’s Evangeline! It makes me sad that women don’t appreciate love and constancy as they should.

(Servant enters with cards.)

Julia (after reading them): Chollie Jones and Freddie de Browne. Oh, how lovely! Come down with me and help in the fun. I am engaged to both of them.

Pittsburgh [PA] Dispatch 4 February 1889: p. 4

The old man laid down his newspaper. “My child,” he said to the fair girl in sables who had just come in, her cheeks pink and her eyes shining from the frosty air: “My child, I am unspeakably shocked and grieved. Your mother informs me you are engaged to five young men at once.” But. his daughter laughed and patted his shoulder in reassuring fashion.

“Dear old stupid dad, it’s all right,” she said. “They are football players, and at the end of the season I shall wed the survivor.”

“Oh,” said the father, and, his brow clearing, he resumed his reading.

Nelson [NZ] Evening Mail, 15 February 1908: p. 2

A young woman of Indiana keeps twenty seven engagement rings hung up in her boudoir, the spoils of five years.

Pittsburgh [PA] Weekly Gazette 25 January 1870: p. 1

First Ingenuous Maiden: “How do you like my engagement ring?”

Second Ingenuous Maiden. “Oh, it is the prettiest one you have had!” Tit-Bits.

Logansport [PA] Pharos-Tribune 21 January 1922: p. 4

The Summer girl was a particular offender:

“I have been engaged several times,” boasted the first summer girl, “to men whose names I did not know.”

“That’s nothing,” retorted the second summer girl. “I engaged myself last season to a stager [person of experience/ man of the world]who sig-wagged his proposal from a passing yacht.”

The Alamogordo [MN] News 28 July 1910: p. 7

This morning I was pouring out my lamentation to a young girl, the younger sister of a dear friend. She is at least seventeen, and rather beyond the kitten love period, but I thought it would do no harm to let her know the truth about this imitation of the noble passion by little chits. She quite agreed with me, she said, and then she went on:

“But I have a confession to make, Clara,” said she; “I am in a frightfully awful situation. You see I am engaged to be married in New York, and when I came up here I got engaged to a young fellow up here, you know, just for fun. He is rich, you know, and quite distinguished in appearance, but it wasn’t that which made me let him engage himself to me, so much as that all the other girls, that is, the nice girls, were head over heels after him. It was so pleasant to cut them out. Now, you see, I had done the same thing last summer. I was engaged to the same young gentleman in New York then (really engaged, you know) and I got engaged up here”

“For mercy’s sake!” I exclaimed; “what sort of a story are you telling me?”

“Why, it’s quite customary, Clara; that is, among girls of any life at all. You get engaged up here because it’s better all around. You select a

REALLY NICE, PROPER YOUNG MAN,

And you are both devoted to one another, and it takes up all your spare time; and then a parting you manage to quarrel (It’s quite easy to do it) and off he goes to Chicago or New Orleans, and you go home to your real beau. Well, as I was going to say, I managed it beautifully last season—quarreled all right, and never heard any more about it. But this year things are going to be different. I am in an awful scrape. This young man is a Southerner and he talks of shooting anybody that looks at me and of killing himself if I reject him, and oh, my! Oh, my! I can see that I’ll never, never be able to get rid of him.”

I did not sympathize with her. I might have suggested that she write to her New York young man to attend a shooting gallery and take lessons preparatory to an encounter with the Southerner, but I did not think it just exactly a fit subject for joking. But I am only telling you what success attended my effort to get away from the scourge of the summer resorts. To make it very short, it is just simply no success at all. Why, I strolled into the pretty and ancient grave-yard just at the edge of the village, and if there were not at least six couples tucked away on the grave-stones in the by-paths, and all courting at one hundred pounds pressure, I am no correspondent of yours.

Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 5 September 1886:p. 9

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

 

 

The Lantern Party: 1902

Art Nouveau Chinese Lanterns fan, c. 1900 https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/asset/art-nouveau-sirens-for-maison-bail/mAGiOKoM61QQGg

A Unique Affair.

“It would seem now and then as if society devices in delightful entertainment were about exhausted.” remarked a little lady just home from a summer up north, “but we were invited to a rarely charming garden party while away. It was called ‘a lantern party.’ and was given by a lady who owns a summer cottage set far back from a country road almost In the deep woods. The cards of Invitation were decorated with her own delicate drawings and water color sketches of Chinese lanterns and antique lanterns, and the guests were expected to carry lanterns with them; it was quietly noised around that a prize would be given to the bearer of the most unique or artistic lantern.

“As you can imagine, there was much energetic scurrying about in the small town to find something pretty in lanterns. Richard drove several miles out into the country to borrow a quaint old tin lantern he had seen at a farmhouse; but Louise and I contented ourselves with some pretty Japanese lanterns we had in the house. Little Richard was invited, too. and he got together quite a surprising and dazzling achievement in the way of a lantern out of an old cigar box and some red and yellow tissue paper.

“It was a great lot of fun, going after dark down the village street carrying our lighted lanterns. The sidewalks here and there were dotted with other guests, also carrying bright lanterns. People on the sidewalks and on the summer piazzas exclaimed at this unusual sight. When we reached the country road leading to the cottage of our hostess the spectacle was even more beautiful. Such a number of bright, yet subdued, lights flitting noiselessly along in the dark. As we neared the cottage we were all spellbound; a beautiful picture was presented house, porches and the long lane to the great gate hung with colored lanterns of all kinds and sizes. After we arrived in the garden and were seated, it was charming to watch all the new arrivals coming up the lane bearing lanterns a long vista of gigantic fireflies done in bright color. Those who wearied of carrying their lanterns could hang them, ticketed, on one of the verandas; and, before the evening was over, three judges quietly inspected them and made the awards. The chief prize was a lovely little Moorish lantern, and was won by a gentleman who carried a curious little Venetian lantern, which was said to have belonged to Robert Browning. He sent to his Chicago home for it. I learned, and as he was a much-traveled man, no doubt the little literary lantern was authentic.

“To our great surprise, little Richard’s cigar-box lantern won the consolation prize–a pretty copy of Stevenson’s beautiful essay, ‘The Lantern Bearers.’ “Music, conversation and the usual summer refreshments were other features of the evening, but the charm of the lanterns really made all else seem superfluous. Our lantern hostess told me she had once given such a party at her city home, where she knew many artists and curio lovers; and the rallying of beautiful, rare old foreign lanterns on that occasion, she said, really made her heart ache with the envious greed of nonpossesslon.”

The Indianapolis [IN] Journal 14 September 1902: p.13

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Parties and cosy-corners were not the only venues for these pretty lanterns:

Some riders, in view of the fact that lamps are easily extinguished, have adopted the gaudy Chinese lantern, which, if it goes out, is readily noticed. In the evening these gay lanterns are very attractive.

Godey’s Lady’s Book [Philadelphia, PA] October 1896

Mrs Daffodil is sorry to dash her readers’ cherished beliefs, but Chinese lanterns were rarely made in that country:

The Chinese Lantern Trade.

During the last two or three years a large and regular demand for Chinese-lanterns has been created in this country, and the sale of these articles now constitutes one of the most important, if not the most important branch of the business of dealer in pyrotechnics. This has been especially true this season, when the demand for ordinary “fireworks” has been insignificant, but for Chinese-lanterns it has been larger than ever before. Garden parties, which are becoming very popular, are a profitable source of income to the manufacturers of Chinese-lanterns, as is also the custom now in vogue at some of the watering places of having a grand illumination once or twice each season. On two different occasions this summer Martha’s Vineyard has called upon Boston dealers for 15,000 lanterns for a single evening’s illumination.

The greater part of the “Chinese-lanterns” are made in this country, in the vicinity of New York, or in Germany, and as they have been in such active request of late years much ingenuity has been expended in producing them in the most attractive and convenient, and at the same time the cheapest, forms. The result of these ingenious efforts has been the manufacture of paper lanterns, some of which are surprisingly well adapted to the purposes for which they are designed, others being marvelously cheap, and many combining both of these desirable qualities to some extent. Pretty Chinese-lanterns of a cylindrical shape, and perhaps twelve inches long and four or five inches in diameter when in use, but capable of being compressed into about one-twelfth of their ordinary length for transportation, are sold as low as $6 per hundred; and large, gorgeously decorated globes, selling at $20 to $30 per hundred, are constructed with wire frames so as to be capable of being folded into the merest fraction of their usual space.

The Pittsfield [MA] Sun 7 November 1877: p. 7

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

My Lady’s Hammock: 1895

MY LADY’S HAMMOCK

It Is a Gorgeous Affair This Season And There are Fetching Gowns Which Go With It and Hosiery Like a Beautiful Italian Sunset

The girl who is spending the season at a fashionable hotel is forced to miss one of the most fascinating pleasures of summertime, namely, the hammock. At the really swell hotels now-a-days one rarely sees a hammock, for the reason, perhaps, that the hammock is a sure destroyer of lace, chiffon or the fashionable costumes that custom demands must be worn all day at the popular watering places.

It is only that fortunate young woman who is summering at some country farm house or big, roomy mountain hotel where there are plenty of trees about the shady piazza nooks that can enjoy the true comfort of the hammock. The watering place girl can only dream of the luxury and the piazza rocking chair is the nearest approach to the graceful swinging couch, canopied by green waving branches which her sister in the mountains spends the long morning hours in.

The tactful maiden studies her “type” before she makes up her mind to adopt the hammock as a permanent summer back ground. There are certain styles of girl that look as though made for a hammock. In it they are marvels of grace and prettiness, but the stout, comfortable, well fed young woman who may make a fetching picture on a bicycle is as much out of place in a hammock as it is possible to imagine. The slim waisted, “fluffy” girl is the kind that looks well in a hammock. She becomes a soft, limp mass of lace and ribbon, the moment she adjusts herself to its meshes, and if an inch or two of her stocking shows beneath the white lace of her skirt it doesn’t look at all shocking, but on the contrary, chic and appropriate. The Burne-Jones type of girl is therefore the special kind who makes her hammock the piece de resistance in the artillery with which she will wage successful warfare on the heart of the  Summer Man.

First, she selects her hammock. If she is a blond she gets one of cool looking white cording, or in blue and white stripes, with bamboo rods stretched across the head and foot. Then she selects the place where it is to hang, always a corner somewhere out of the general.

If she is of a romantic disposition she finds out some rippling resting place, where the tree branches bend across, and she will have her pretty resting place suspended right across the water, climbing into it each time at the risk of a wetting. Here she makes a veritable illustration of the verse: “Summer day; babbling brook/Girl in hammock reading book!”

The girl with dark eyes and brown hair selects a hammock of brilliant red Mexican grass, or some other Oriental looking weave. She piles it with silken cushions of the same rich hues; deep crimson and olive greens and here and there a Persian covering that stands out among the others, making an effect that delights the soul of any artist which may be in the vicinity until he begs for the privilege of sketching the hammock’s occupant.

The fair haired blue eyed girl has blue and white cushions and little pillows for her ears, covered with white dotted Swiss and trimmed with Val. Lace. I picked up one of these ridiculous little things the other day and learned for the first time that they existed. Just imagine a cushion about five inches square stuffed with cotton and a suspicion of violet sachet, made specially for to tuck under your ear among the larger pillows.

The heart shaped cushion is one of the novelties for my lady’s hammock this year. It is shaped exactly like the real article which is supposed to exist even in the bosom of summer’s merriest maiden and it is embroidered over with its owner’s favorite flower, and sometimes a motto or sentiment.

One of the prettiest that I have seen is covered with marguerites embroidered in their natural colors and through the blossoms runs the line in gold thread: “He loves me; he loves me not?”

Another with a border of the ox-eyed daisies says:

“I don’t care what the daisies say;

I know I’ll be married some fine day!”

This summer girl not only has the regulation tag upon her hammock with her name thereon, but she attaches it with a huge bow of ribbon matching her cushions in color. The ends of this hang so low that they sweep the grass beneath the float in every passing breeze.

Of course there are frocks specially for hammock wear, and stockings and shoes of attractive design to be worn when reposing in this luxurious swing.

At no time in the career of a summer girl are her feet more in evidence than when she is poised in her hammock or getting in or out of it.

This last operation is one which it takes considerable dexterity and grace to accomplish successfully, but after a while most of these clever young women manage to do it without turning an eyelash and with a not-too-reckless display of ankle. It looks wonderfully difficult to a mere man, but it all depends on a little quickness and a certain curves of the limbs in getting out, which keeps the skirts in place.

A man is apt to get all tangled up in a hammock, and he emerges from one as a rule looking as though he had been in a collision. But the hammock maiden has it all down to a science.

She fixes up her last summer’s dresses to wear in the hammock. Of course there must not be too many buttons upon any frock for this purpose, as they catch in the meshes and come off, as a usual thing. But plenty of lace and soft ribbons can be worn and a gown which could never be worn anywhere else, owing to its last season’s cut, makes a most effective costume for hammock wear.

A pretty little girl who affects the hammock pose to a considerable extent, confided to me the other day that she discarded stays in her hours of open air repose. She wore some mysterious sort of waist made with whale bone, but without steels.

“When I’ve been out tramping, or fishing, or driving, and get home tired out,” she told me, “I just run up to my room and have a sponge bath. Then I slip into one of these waists, which is ever so much cooler you know, put on my loosest and fluffiest hammock frock and get down here under the trees, and in a minute I’m enjoying as pleasant a nap as it is possible to imagine.”

This girl has a collection of pretty hosiery and shoes for her afternoon siesta. She has one pair of the daintiest French morocco “mules” or slippers without any upper part in the back, which she wears with red silk stockings. Then she has Japanese slippers in all colors and hose to match, some of them quite vivid in design. One of the oddest conceits are her “rainbow” stockings.

Her pleasure in wearing them must be that of the small boy with his first cigar; “purely intellectual,” for they are strictly invisible, but I suppose there must be sort of conscious delight in the possession of such frivols as these. They are worn with a small, innocent-looking brown suede slipper which buttons over the instep with three large brown buttons. The stocking which shows over the ankle is brown, the same as the shoe, but as it reaches the calf of the leg it lightens by degrees to a golden yellow, turning with a sort of beautiful Italian sunset effect into palest violet, and then deepening into purple at the top. The garters worn with this are of black elastic, through which runs a violet ribbon. The side knot is of the same ribbon and the buckles are of engraved and oxidized silver, an owl on one symbolizing night, and a lark on the other for morning. These are the most fetching of all her hammock properties, and it seems a pity that they are so unobtrusively worn undiscovered, unless a hammock costume of bloomers be adopted.

The Herald [Los Angeles CA] 25 August 1895: p. 16

The Red Hammock, John Lavery https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-red-hammock-122367/view_as/grid/search/keyword:hammock/page/1

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Pleasant as are the solitary delights of the hammock, dual occupancy is where the sparks really fly:

THE FATEFUL HAMMOCK

A Potent Factor in Midsummer Joys and Midwinter Repentance.

The hammock has much to answer for.

It has developed from nothing into a potent factor in midsummer social joys and sorrows.

A decade ago the hammock was sporadic. It is now universal. Certain tourists from this heretofore unhammocked land of the free, journeying into Mexico and in Cuba noted the meshed crescent with interest first and with admiration afterwards, insomuch that they brought one of the swaying couches with them.

The result has been remarkable. Americans have taken the hammock to their very hearts, and American ingenuity has devised machinery capable of turning out hammocks almost as fast as the finished article will turn out its occupant. A summer bereft of a hammock would be to the American lad and lass a dreary and unromantic period.

Given a good article of moonlight and a hammock big enough for two, and there is no combination which will more rapidly and thoroughly advance the cause of Cupid and bring about the lighting of Hymen’s torch.

Between the moon and the hammock there is a certain analogy. A young moon is very like a hammock, and when Luna appears in the west, her crescent apparently swung between two invisible trees and fastened with a pair of bright stars, the analogy is complete. One can readily fancy an angel swaying in the celestial hammock, which is said also to contain a man. And the idea is so apt to fix itself in the mind of the ardent mortal who gazes westward that his first impulse is to get a hammock, and an earthly angel of his own, and then to sway joyously to the rhythm of two hearts that beat as one.

As an aid to flirtation it is twin sister to a fan.

If a young couple ever trust themselves to the support of the same hammock at the same time, Cupid has his own way thereafter. The pair must of necessity be brought into such sweet proximity that every particle of formality and reserve is melted away. One may withdraw from his fair one on a bench, may hold aloof while seated on the same grassy bank, and may hitch his chair away, or closer, as his feelings dictate. But in the same hammock one can do none of these things. He can only submit to fate and propinquity and  be led delightfully to the momentous question.

The hammock…is fashioned much like a spider’s web. But who would not willingly be a fly when the web holds a charming maiden? And what man is there with soul so dead who is not glad that the hammock has come to stay.

The Macon [MS] Beacon 16 August 1890: p. 4

[This post originally appeared in August of 2017]

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

 

A Chat With A Summer Girl: 1904

A CHAT WITH A SUMMER GIRL,

Edited by John Kendrick Bangs

Her name was not Miss Flora MacFlimsey, and she does not live in Madison Square. What her name is and where she dwells is, however, none of the public’s business. In fact, I should not have been able to get from her lips the plan of her campaign had I not promised under oath, duly attested, that her identity would be kept inviolably a secret. Hence let us call her Miss Flora MacFlimsey, after the heroine of one of most truly immortal satirical poems that have ever been written in the English language.

Neither did I choose the assignment which led me into her sacred presence. It was “handed out” to me by one whose word is law, whose “must” it were oblivion to disobey, whose instincts–well, of that more anon. Anyway, he is an editor, what he tells me to do I do as best I can….

Hence, when he said, “Call upon Miss Flora MacFlimsey of Madison Square and get her forecast of her coming engagements,” I went home, put on my pongee Prince Albert, got out my straw pot hat and my card and called.

Received Graciously.

That she was tall, goes without saying; that she was beautiful, it is unnecessary to state; that she received me graciously, is the main point. It was an unconventional reception, but it was all I could hope for at the moment, since Miss MacFlimsey was engaged in packing her trunks prior to her departure for the Sea View House at Oakhearst-on-the-Ocean.

“You will excuse me if I receive you thus,” she said pleasingly as I climbed over four Saratoga trunks, three “steamers” and a dozen suit cases in the hallway of her charming apartment. “Word has come from headquarters that we are to move on Oakhearst-on-the-Ocean early tomorrow morning, where the enemy is concentrated in large numbers. We shall take them by surprise, and by Tuesday night we expect to have them routed.”

“The enemy?” said I.

“Yes, the enemy,” said she. “Man. Ma and I expect to meet him in several lively engagements this summer. The campaign promises to be a warm one.

“You are well provided with the sinews of war,” said I, with a glance at the lady’s eyes, which, as I know the enemy, Man, were well calculated to carry all before them. “If I were the foe I think I should capitulate at once.”

“No, thank you,” she replied with a laugh, construing my remark as an invitation to a flirtation. “I never level my guns on wholly serious persons or fathers of families. The consequences are apt to be too costly.”

“Madame,” said I, solemnly, “you mistake me. I only said if. I have been chosen for this dangerous assignment for the sole reason that I am know to be immune. Eyes of the deepest blue, the snappiest black, the most scintillating brown or the liveliest green affect me not. No feminine smile of sweetest texture can move my soul. The cherriest lips in all creation move me not, and liquid sighs fall frozen ‘neath my gaze. I am here to interview, not to win. Shall I sit upon this hat box or recline upon yonder suitcase?”

“Make yourself comfortable any way you can,” she said. “I’m busy.” With that she picked up an armful of pink foulard and threw it into an adjacent trunk.

“What are your plans for 1904?” I asked, making for a cozy corner which I now beheld half hidden behind a very Gibraltar of bonnets.

“I’m out for the record,” she sighed, trying on a hat that was trimmed with lace enough to make a comfortable hammock. “Last year Miss Dottie de Limelight came home with thirty-seven engagement rings on her fingers. I am out for thirty-eight.”

“The season is short,” said I.

“Art is long,” laughed she. “And I shall win out. That is why we are going to a transient hotel. The Sea View has the West End people, and it is so badly conducted that no one ever comes back, so that I have a constant supply of fresh raw material to work on.”

“You must suffer terribly,” said I.

“Not at all,” said Miss Flora MacFlimsey. “I am an expert with the chafing dish. It is one of my weapons. I can cook lobsters in sixty different says, clams in ninety-eight and eggs—well, I can’t tell you how many ways I can cook eggs. Mother and I live very well with our chafing dish alone, and when my eyes fail to work havoc with the enemy’s heart I wheel the chafing dish into action and victory perches on my banners.” Here she tied a strip of point lace about her neck in a most fetching fashion and called upon me to admire it—which, of course, out of courtesy I did.

“May I ask your object in winning so many hearts?” I queried, settling down to business. “Is it mere love of conquest?”

Question of Hearts.

“Not entirely,” she replied. “Of course, you like to win in whatever game you go into, whether it is bridge, ping-pong, poker or pit. Some people like to play chess, using inanimate chessmen for the purpose. That does not interest me when I can have real men for my pawns. What is the use of devoting yourself to abstractions when the world is full of live, concrete propositions that it is sheer delight to overcome? No reasonable child would prefer a hobby horse to a real pony. No more have I any patience with playing hearts with cards when I am surrounded with those that actually pulsate, swell with emotions, grow faint with vague fears and respond always to my advances.”

“That is all very well,” said I, “but you might destroy a whole pack of cards and do no harm, whereas if you broke a single real heart I should think Ii would rest heavily on your conscience.”

“It would,” said Miss MacFlimsey. “But you see I don’t break any hearts. If I married any of those many fiancés of mine there would be danger. But I don’t marry them. There was that nice tow-headed little Harvard man I got engaged to at Saratoga last summer, for instance. We had about as delightful an engagement as any two people that ever lived. We had long and beautiful drives together. The ring was the cutest little arrangement of sapphires and diamonds you ever saw. His tastes in the selection of gifts was exquisite–I really hated to sell the things afterward, they were so pretty–and he was perfectly fine to mamma. It was ideal, and best of all, we never spoiled it by even thinking of getting married.”

“You–er–you sold his gifts?” I asked, in some surprise.

Summer Loot.

“Oh, my, yes,” she returned, with a merry laugh. “We always do that. The ring, too. How do you suppose we summer girls live through the winter if we don’t hypothecate our summer loot? We are none of us rich in our own right. If we were we’d become British Duchesses. As it is, we have to eke out a living as best we can, and I must admit I have been very successful. Last summer I cleared $800 on my engagement rings alone, and I should say that out of the books and trinkets I received I got as much more. That, with my commissions from the livery stables and confectionery people, enabled mamma and me to live very comfortably all winter long and provided us with twenty stunning new gowns for this season that we think will pay 200 per cent dividends.

“The commissions on what?” I demanded, for I could scarcely believe that I had understood the lady correctly.

“Confectionery people and livery stables,” she replied. “Don’t you know that we summer girls get commissions on all the candy we eat and buggy rides we take with our fiancés?”

“It is sad and solemn news to me,” said I, shaking my head. “I knew you summer girls were fond of a good time and always ready to make some man temporarily happy by uttering a soft ‘yes’ in response to his passionate request that you be his, but that commercialism, had entered even into that I never dreamed.”

“You funny old man!” she cried, with a silvery laugh, whose potency to stir the heart was undeniable, since it got upon even my weary old nerves. “Of course, commercialism, enters into it, but in an awfully nice way. It is delicately done. Instead of saying to our fiancés that we will be engaged to them at so much an hour, with a special commutation race for the season, we merely take our share of the profits from those who make money out of the fact that we are engaged.

She Gets a Percentage.

“For instance, if, because he is engaged to me, a young millionaire from Altoona keeps returning to the mountain resort where I am spending the summer, the landlord of the hostelry that thus profits pays me 10 per cent of his bill. Two summers ago, up in the Ratskills, ten of my beaux spent altogether 140 days there. If it hadn’t been for me they wouldn’t have stayed ten altogether. What could be more proper, then, than that the landlord should recognize the value of my services to him by giving my mother and myself free board and 10 percent of the money paid him by Teddy and and Harry and Jim and George and John and William and Roderick and Gaston and Leon and Alphonse. I believe my share came to $200. The livery stable people reason the same way.  If Miss MacFlimsey was not engaged to Mr. Robertson Van Tile, Mr. Van Tile would not have used our buck boards so frequently, they say. Hence we should give Miss MacFlimsey some suitable testimonial of our regard and appreciation of the value of her services. Reasoning thus, at the end of the season they send me a check for 15 per cent of Mr. Van Tile’s bill.”

“But how do they know it is to you not to some other summer girl that they owe this–er–rake off?” I asked.

“Because Mr. Van Tile is registered on their books as my fiancé the moment become engaged,” explained the lady. “It is a very simple system. Same way with the confectionery people. Oh, I tell you this summer girl business isn’t so bad, and it’s a great sight pleasanter than becoming a trained nurse or a stenographer.”

Playing the Fiancés.

“Don’t you have some trouble in keeping your fiancés apart?” I queried. “Don’t they ever get jealous?”

“Why, of course they do.” smiled Miss MacFlimsey. “I don’t know what I’d do if they didn’t. I strain every nerve to make them jealous, for that makes us quarrel. Our quarrels increase my dividends, because when we make it up later the young man to show his repentance has to be unusually lavish in his attentions, takes me on longer drives, sends me bigger boxes of candy, buys more trinkets, flowers and all that, so that there is a corresponding increase in my returns. I was engaged to young Reggie Aquidneck five times in one summer and got a new engagement ring every time just because we quarreled so over my becoming engaged to Harry Stockbridge and three or four other chaps whose names I have forgotten. That jealousy complication is one of my richest assets.”

“And you never see these fellows afterward?” I asked.

“Oh, indeed yes,” replied Miss MacFlimsey; “often. In fact, I always give a reception to my ex-fiancés every winter and we have stunning good times at them, but of course entirely without flirtation. No successful summer girl ever flirts during the winter season–unless she gets a special engagement for Palm Beach or some place. It is too great a strain and we need the whole of the winter time to get rested up for the summer campaign.”

“Well,” said I, rising to leave, “I am very much obliged to you for this illuminating chat. I have learned much and I wish you the best of luck for the coming season.”

Will Beat the Record.

“Thank you,” said she. “I think I shall get the record away from Miss de Limelight without any trouble. In fact, I am sure to, for I am already booked for thirty-five engagements in August and six for the first two weeks in September. That’s forty-one sure. Better come down and see me at work,” she added, with that fetching smile of hers.

“No. thanks,” said I, moving toward the door. “I wouldn’t dare. I am afraid I might be jealous of those fortunate others.”

“I’ll let you pretend you are my fiancé for an evening,” she put in demurely.

“What! And involve myself in a row with Reggie Van Toodles or some other lover of your!!” I cried.

“No, that wouldn’t be necessary,” she said, referring to a memorandum book. “I find here that I have one free Sunday, the 28th of August, when I shall not be engaged to anybody. Shall I book you for the 28th?”

But I made no reply, fleeing madly for the door. My engagements have a way of being permanent, and I wanted to escape before it was too late.

The Galveston [TX] Daily News 26 July 1904: p. 9

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  The “Summer Girl” was a figure of fascination and of fun in the newspapers. It was axiomatic that she would become engaged multiple times during the summer, although typically nothing ever came of those engagements. Such entanglements seem to have been a convenient fiction which allowed the young to spend time together with less scrutiny than otherwise. As Miss MacF. notes, Mama is on the scene, but she seems a mere cipher.

Such engagements were the source of many a rude joke. This is one of the more trenchant:

“It is just a malicious fib,” said the returned summer girl. “Of course I didn’t get engaged to three men at once while I was at the seashore. There was more than 30 minutes’ lapse of time between them.”

The Topeka [KS] State Journal 16 August 1895: p. 4

No doubt those young men who had been ensnared by the Summer Girl had their eyes opened, reading this candid description of her heartless transactions. One wonders what happens to the Summer Girls who “age out” of being the toasts of the summer resort? Do they eventually settle down with a millionaire or a little Harvard man with exquisite taste? Or are they seen on the promenade in their formerly stunning gowns, growing ever shabbier, season by season, haunting the watering places like public Miss Havishams?

 

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.