Annie Laurie

San Francisco Examiner/October 27, 1909

I waited for a train at the station the other day, and a woman I know came and talked to me.

“Where’s yur rabbit foot?” said the woman I know. “You must be wearing it this morning, somehow. You just missed Joe Johnson. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since he was married—and, dear me, what a bore he’s developed into.

“He sat here for ten minutes telling me about his wife and their new house and their new baby. Why, he’s a perfect affliction. How a man can be so entirely changed-there’s my train, good-by.”

Just as the woman I know whisked out of the door another woman I wish I knew better than I do slipped into her vacant seat.

“You’re waiting, too, are you?” said the woman I wish I. knew better. “I’m glad I came early. I Just met Joe Johnson. You used to know him, didn’t you? Well, It was a delight to see him.

“He used to be rather a listless, self-conceited fellow, or so he seemed to me, but he is so happy now that he’s absolutely transfigured.

“You ought to hear him tell about the baby. Why, it would make a hermit want to get married just to see his face at the very mention of that child. And his wife, he tries to be sensible about her; but, dear me, he’s so dead in love that he’s got to lug her name in somehow every sentence or two. I never liked him very well before, but now I see just what it was that made his wife fall in love with him.

There’s my train,” and the woman I wish I knew better left me, too.

In the distance I caught a vanishing view of the far-famed Joe Johnson.

Sure enough, he had changed—why, he was carrying a package. I’ll warrant there was a rattle in it or a rubber doll, and he couldn’t wait to have it sent home—bless his heart, and bless the heart of the woman I wish I knew better.

As for the woman I know—I wonder if she realizes how much real pleasure she’s missing in this world, just because she can’t sympathize with other people’s little follies and joys.

I’d rather have a blase brain than a blase heart for a life companion any day in the week—wouldn’t you?