THEIR FIRST FORMAL CALL by GRACE MACGOWAN COOKE
1001 Classic Short Stories & Tales
Jon Hagadorn
4.5 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2024
⏱️ 34 minutes
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Summary
Many years ago, around 1900, social customes were very different from what they are today. if a young man wanted to make a formal call on a young lady, the custom of the day wasd to approach the young lady's house and present a card of introduction. Generally, a servant or butler would offer a server, or silver plate, upon wich the young man would place the card. Then the young lady would be called upon to greet the young man. In this story two young men dress up in their best with the intention of calling upon two sisters - but things don't go as expected for them, and their shyness doesn't make things any easier. This was first printed in MCall's Magazine in 1906.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Yeah. Welcome back everyone to 1,000 when classic short stories entails. This is your host John |
| 0:34.3 | Hagenorn. Today a short story from Grace McGowan Cook, this one called |
| 0:39.6 | The Call A Boy boy in an unnaturally clean, country-laundered collar walked down a long white road. |
| 0:48.0 | He scuffed the dust up wantonly, for he wished to veil the all-too-billy for he wished to veil the all-too brilliant polish of his cowhide shoes. |
| 0:55.0 | Also the memory of the whiteness and slipperiness of his collar oppressed him. |
| 0:59.0 | He was feigned to look like one accustomed to social diversions. |
| 1:02.0 | A man hurried from hall to hall of pleasure |
| 1:05.3 | without time between to change collar or polished boot. He stooped and rubbed a crumb of earth on his |
| 1:11.2 | over-fresh neck linen. This did not long sustain his drooping spirit. |
| 1:16.2 | He was mentally adrift upon the hints and helps to young men in business and social relations, |
| 1:21.6 | which had suggested to him his present enterprise, when the |
| 1:25.1 | appearance of a second youth, taller and broader than himself, with a shock of light curling |
| 1:30.0 | hair and a crop of freckles that advertised a rich soil threw him a lifeline. |
| 1:35.2 | He put his thumbs to his lips and whistled in a peculiarly ear-splitting way. |
| 1:40.4 | The two boys had sat on the same bench at Sunday school not three hours before |
| 1:44.2 | Yet what a change that come over the world for one of them since then |
| 1:48.8 | Hello, where are you going Abb? |
| 1:51.4 | Ask a newcomer roughly. |
| 1:53.8 | Colin replied the boy in the collar |
| 1:56.7 | laconically but with carefully averted gaze. |
| 2:01.3 | On the girls? |
| 2:05.0 | Inquired the other, awestruck. |
... |
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