"I'll bet she's a daisy and I guess I'll get her, but I'll dream it over first."
Everyone in 19th-century Huntington, Long Island, was a complete ninny, so courtship wasn’t easy, as evidenced by an article in the September 3, 1893 Brooklyn Daily Eagle. An excerpt:
“Huntington has lots of pretty girls, and Joseph Schumaker is susceptible. Togged out to the limit of his salary as a compositor in a local printing office–kid gloves and cane not wanting–he fairly cut a swath on Saturday nights as he meandered through town. He gained access to the better society and was presented by friends to several young women who, according to his notions, would be pleased to become Mrs. Schumaker in the near future. His ardor outstripped his judgement, however, and in short order he was dismissed as being altogether too precipitate. Huntington girls favor long courtships, unless the catch is particularly handsome and flighty.
Joseph’s assiduity attracted the attention of his male associates, who had likewise noted the poor success with which his advances were meeting. Upon the advice of one of them he decided to try his luck out of town. He accordingly corresponded with a matrimonial agency in New York, giving his name as Joe Prescott and his address, Box 255, Huntington. His note to the agency met with prompt attention and the return mail brought him a letter assuring him of every success. A number of photographs of young women were also inclosed, with the guarantee that each was charming and anxious to marry. One photograph, named Evelyn No. 285, appealed more particularly to Joseph, who remarked: ‘I’ll bet she’s a daisy and I guess I’ll get her, but I’ll dream it over first.’
All this was last week. Schumaker’s dreams were propitious and he wrote Evelyn a letter in care of the agency. The agency reminded him that he had failed to make the remittance necessary to justify the disclosure of the young woman’s address, and that while she had read his letter, and was just dying to see him, she could not have his address or be allowed to see him unless the fees were sent at once.
"Togged out to the limit of his salary...kid gloves and cane not wanting...he fairly cut a swath on Saturday nights."
In the meantime several of Schumaker’s intimates fixed up an endearing letter, which purported to have been written by Evelyn, and sent it to him. The letter gave as her address a number on Third Avenue, New York, and urged him to call at once. The young man hastened to New York only to find himself the victim of a joke.
On his return he was informed that a man describing himself as the representative of Wellman’s matrimonial agency was in town searching for Joseph Prescott. Schumaker kept out of sight. The man applied to Postmaster Pearsall for the name of the owner of Box 255, and was told that no one by the name of Prescott lived in Huntington. Mr. Pearsall refused to divulge the name of the boxholder. The man has left town. Before he went he promised trouble for Prescott and also for the postmaster. He declared that the young woman listed as Evelyn was greatly smitten with Prescott’s style of writing and already loved him. Of the many hundreds of letters she had received, none had so impressed her as had Schumaker’s epistle. The agent also hinted that other Huntington people were in correspondence with marriageable women through the medium of their agency.”
