Thirty-five years ago a whaling ship dropped anchor in the Bay of Panama
and the captain and crew came ashore to see the sights. The mate of the
ship, one Cyrus Pratt, a native of New Bedford, Mass., fell in love with
a beautiful senorita named Marie Bennares. They were married, and soon
after this Cyrus was obliged to sail away. With many tears and much
love, the couple parted, with vows to become reunited in the near
future. Cyrus intended to leave the ship at San Francisco and come back
in haste to his darling Marie. But circumstances played strange freaks
with the pair. In less than a year Cyrus returned, with a light of
expectation in his eyes and love of a burning sort in his heart.
Marie had gone to live with relatives in Bogota. He set out for that
distant city, but fell ill with fever and spent many months among
Indians, who were kind to him and nursed him through the period of
weakness incidental to such an illness. When he reached Bogota it was to
find that Marie had gone to Jamaica. He followed, to find that she had
returned to Panama. Then he followed her to Panama, to find that his
sweet Marie had gone to Darien to live with an aunt. By about this time
he was “broke,” so he shipped on a barque that was bound for San
Francisco. On arriving in that city he was obliged to take a ship bound
for China, where he fell in with Chinese pirates. In one way and another
he was tossed about the world, but by no possible chance did he get
anywhere near Panama until a few weeks ago, when a ship on which he had
taken passage from Rio de Janeiro cast anchor in the harbor of Colon. He
crossed the Isthmus on the wings of love, to again pursue the bride of
his youth. She had taken so strong a hold upon his imagination that he
still pictured her as the winsome girl whom he married thirty-five years
ago.
On arriving at Panama he wended his way to the old dwelling in the
Chiriqui district, where the lovely Marie used to live. He found the
house exactly as it looked in the old days. A large, good-natured,
smiling, unkempt matron lounged in the doorway. She was surrounded by
many children who played about her knees, and upon whom she smiled
indulgently. Cyrus Pratt looked at the house from a safe retreat, in the
hope of seeing his beautiful Marie emerge, at some time or other, when
he expected to clasp her to his bosom, etc. He was sure that the stout
woman in the doorway was Marie’s aunt, who had grown larger and fatter
in the days that had gone. Day after day he paced at a distance from the
dwelling and anxiously watched for his old-time love. Toward evening he
observed that a rather dark-skinned man would take a seat near the stout
woman, who sat eternally in that doorway. The man would smoke and smoke
in silence. At last Cyrus decided to address the smoker and make
inquiries about his Marie. He was greeted coolly by the smoker, and on
throwing out some hints he discovered that his Marie and the ample
unkempt female who sat with folded arms amid the ninas were one and the
same.
“Everything happens for the best,” said Cyrus, as he hastened away from
the spot. “Who would ever think that my beautiful Marie would look like
that at fifty years? How in thunder will she look at sixty?”
“She thinks I died,” said Cyrus to a friend; “or did she think at all?”
“I guess she didn’t think much about you,” consoled his confidante.
Cyrus, unlike Enoch Arden, is having a good time in Panama, and is
happily forgetful of that awful tragedy that would have engulfed most
men. Marie believes that the husband of her girlhood is dead, and she
is happy in the thought that she has another man, that she is the mother
of five children and the grandmother of ten. So, after all, every one is
in the right. Cyrus at fifty-seven years is apparently in the prime of
life; he has $10,000 in his pocket or near at hand, and he is seeing the
sights, and incidentally inspecting the balconies, in the hope of seeing
another senorita who resembles the lost love of his youth. He says he
will take another venture, and his friends are anxiously watching for
the event, for Cyrus says that in all his rambles about the world he has
never seen any girls as beautiful as the senoritas of Panama.