The Colonel's Romance

"The Colonel's Romance" by O. Henry is a charming short story that weaves themes of love, nostalgia, and the complexities of human relationships. Set against the backdrop of post-war America, it follows the story of a retired colonel who is reflecting on his past romantic experiences. Through a series of humorous and poignant encounters, the colonel navigates the intricacies of love, revealing the bittersweet nature of longing and the passage of time. O. Henry's signature wit and keen observations of character bring depth to this exploration of romance's interplay with life's unpredictability.

• Short story

								
They were sitting around a stove and the tobacco was passed around.
They began to grow introspective.

The talk turned upon their old homes and the changes that the cycling
years bring about. They had lived in Houston for many years, but only
one was a native Texan.

The colonel hailed from Alabama, the judge was born in the swamps of
Mississippi, the grocer first saw the light in a frozen town of Maine,
and the major proudly claimed Tennessee as his birthplace.

"Have any of you fellows been back home since you left there?" asked
the colonel.

The judge had been back twice in twenty years, the major once, the
grocer never.

"It's a curious feeling," said the colonel, "to go back to the old
home where you were raised, after an absence of fifteen years. It is
like seeing ghosts to be among people whom you have not seen in so
long a time. Now I went back to Crosstree, Alabama, just fifteen years
after I left there. The impression made upon me was one that never
will be obliterated.

"There was a girl in Crosstree once that I loved better than anything
in the world. One day I slipped away from everybody and went down to
the little grove where I used to walk with her. I walked along the
paths we used to tread. The oaks along the side had scarcely changed;
the little blue flowers on either hand might have been the same ones
she used to twine in her hair when she came to meet me.

"Our favorite walk had been along a line of thick laurels beyond which
ran a little stream. Everything was the same. There was no change
there to oppress my heart. Above were the same great sycamores and
poplars; there ran the same brook; my feet trod the same path they had
so often walked with her. It seemed that if I waited she would surely
come again, tripping so lightly through the gloaming with her starry
eyes, and nut-brown curls, and she loved me, too. It seemed then that
nothing could ever have parted us--no doubt, no misunderstanding, no
falsehood. But who can tell?

"I went to the end of the path. There stood the old hollow tree in
which we used to place notes to each other. What sweet words that old
tree could tell if it had known! I had fancied that during the rubs
and knocks I had received from the world my heart had grown calloused,
but such was not the case.

"I looked down into the hollow of the tree, and saw something white.
It was a folded piece of paper, yellow and stained with age. I opened
it and read it with difficulty.

    "'Dearest Richard: You know I will marry you if you want
    me to. Come round early tonight and I will give you my
    answer in a better way. Your own Nellie.'

"Gentlemen, I stood there holding that little piece of paper in my
hand like one in a dream. I had written her a note asking her to marry
me and telling her to leave her answer in the old tree. She must have
done so, and I never got it, and all those years had rolled away
since."

The crowd was silent. The major wiped his eyes, and the judge sniffed
a little. They were middle-aged men now, but they, too, had known
love.

"And then," said the grocer, "you left right away for Texas and never
saw her again?"

"No," said the colonel. "When I didn't come round that night she sent
her father after me, and we were married two months later. She and the
five kids are up at the house now. Pass the tobacco, please."
								Rate this book:0.0 / 0 votes