The Courtship That Lasted Until The Moon Went Down

by Robert Hanaford Smith, Sr.
Weirs Times Contributing Writer

A legend can relate a story that is true or one that is not, and my source for the tale in this article as told in The Granite Monthly many years ago would not vouch for its veracity, but insisted that it was told to him by one of the individuals involved in the story, the one who was doing the courting.
A dictionary defines romance as “a relationship between two people who are in love with each other but are not married to each other.” Other definitions of romance are “a love affair” and “a love story” and romance is sometimes used in referring to the display of affection and caring before and in the marriage relationship. Moreover, another definition speaks of mystery and anticipation being part of a romance.
It used to be the rule, though not always followed,to exercise restraint before marriage and allow the marriage ceremony to represent more than a formal and legal commitment to what had already been consummated. I recall in my college days overhearing a conversation when a young man who was dating a young woman was asked if they had engaged in sexual relations. When he said “no”, he was asked “ why not? ” His answer was because he might want to marry her someday. He could as well have said, “Because someone else might want to marry her someday.”

With that commentary , let’s read about the legend of a curious courtship.
Big Bige, as he was called, was a peddler of various things, having lived back in the days when such men would travel on foot, carrying their wares on their back, going from house to house. This “knight of the road” as some called the peddlers, was asked my he hadn’t married and settled down instead of tramping over the country selling his knick-knacks. Though passing on his story basically as I found it, but trying to make it a little easier to follow, this is what the man, identified only as Big Bige, said:
“Maybe you think the old man was too slow to have a girl, or the girl to have him. I guess you didn’t know me before I took on this unaccountable counter-poise. But the gals did: leastways Sal Rogers, and she was as all-fired proud as a yearling heifer. And I waited on her for almost two years, and it really was waiting, because if Sal was willing, the old man, her father, had a contrary opinion. By all that was black in the night and white in the day, he swore I should never marry Sal. Being a tenacious person, and having Sal to sort of brace me up, I swore by all that was white in the day and black in the night I’d marry her.
“So I kept on calling on her, sometimes staying until late at night, till the squire kept after Sal, and complaining until she said I must not stay another night after the moon went down. Seeing that the moon had got into the habit of going down earlier each night, it looked like my chances for sparking Sal were getting close to quitting. To make it more aggravating, Sal felt nearly as bad about it as I did; maybe worse, but you can never tell a woman’s feelings any more than you can her age.
“Then I hit upon a plan that naturally made me feel pretty good, and I could see how my wits had made it possible for me to outwit the old squire. There’s nothing to a boy half as good as outwitting the old man, if you ever stop to think on it.
“The next night I went to see Sal I took along with me a sort of hand made moon. I made it taking an old cheese box and pasting greased paper over the open end. Then all I had to do was slip a lighted candle inside, and there was moon good enough for any crusty old landlord of a pretty girl. So Sal and me courted until the tired old moon slinked off to bed, and then I shinned the old tree back of the house and hung up my moon.
“Well, you see, the old gent couldn’t see the length of three broom handles from his nose with any certainty, so my notion worked like a new whistle, and Sal and I laughed and courted till mighty close on to morning when I took down my moon, and carrying it under my arm, trotted off home feeling as good as a woodchuck in new clover. And that was only the beginning of the fun, for I kept going and kept hanging out my moon, and taking her in, and carrying her home. I mean the moon, not Sal, though the Lord knows I’d gladly have carried her home, and gived the moon a rest.
“Of course, Sal and me overdid the business, and we oughter have seen that it weren’t going to work always, but love, you know, is blind. Well, one morning, late in the night, we heard a terrible crash and a hurrah in the back yard. ‘For land’s sakes!’ cried Sal, half scared to death as she looked out of the window, ‘the moon has dropped and dad will catch you here with me. Scooter for your life. Climb out off the window.’
“I suppose you would think it an awful funny sight to see me climbing out of a window, but I did it that night and found myself before the old gent dancing around with a fifty foot pole in one hand , and his head sticking through that moon of mine, which had got lodged on his shoulder! I didn’t stop to get that moon, or complain about the damage he’d done it. I ain’t mean nor stingy, especially where I’m courting the old man’s daughter, and she’s as pretty as Sal was. So I scampered away, leaving the squire wrestling with that pesky moon, and hollering so that they heard him over to the next town and got out the sheriff and his posse thinking bedlam had gotten loose.”
Answering the obvious question if he continued calling on Sal the old peddler shook his head, explaining: “That eclipse of the moon sort of broke up my courting. Sal got a new feller, one that the squire did not require to carry a moon with him, and I, well, I ain’t never found the girl to try again.”
I don’t know as that story sounds very romantic, particularly with such an abrupt ending, but I suppose a father’s disapproval has ended more than one relationship. I remember in my youth calling on a young lady who was staying at her relative’s home in what might be classified as my first date.
In this never before told tale her father showed up at the house while I was in the living room with the young lady and her younger sisters. My friend tried to persuade me to move to an area where her father wouldn’t see me as he didn’t know I was there. He, she said, would stay in the kitchen and leave in short order if he didn’t see me. I, however, “stayed put” in the chair I was in, and her father saw me and in turn “stayed put”, standing in the kitchen until my ride home arrived and I left.
It wasn’t long after that, if I remember correctly, that the family moved far away. I do not know if I had anything to do with that decision on the part of the girl’s father

Robert Hanaford Smith, Sr., welcomes your comments at danahillsmiths@yahoo.com.