The Kiss: Love Stories from North America

There are many different kinds of love story. There are simple love stories, where a boy meets a girl, they fall in love, get married, and everything ends happily. There are stories where everything does not end happily, and stories where the path of true love is full of problems and arguments, mistakes and misunderstandings.

In The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky, Jack and his new wife are returning to Jack’s home in Yellow Sky, Texas, and they find a most surprising – and dangerous – welcome waiting for them. In ASeashore Wooing a girl meets a boy, but they have a great problem – and the name of the problem is Aunt Martha. AWhite Heron is a very different kind of love story. A little girl discovers in herself a love for the natural world – a love that is stronger than the need for money or the wish to please a new friend. And in By Courier a young lady refuses to speak to her young man. But why? What has he done wrong?

But the volume begins with the story called The Kiss. Be careful who you kiss, and when you do it!

In these stories some of the characters use non-standard forms, for example: ain’t instead of am not / is not / are not; and double negatives, as in You never gave him no chance. This is how the authors of the original stories represent the spoken language that their characters would use in real life. These non-standard forms are listed in the glossary on page 61.

It was still light out of doors, but inside with the curtains closed and with only a little light from the fire, the room was full of shadows.

Brantain sat in one of those shadows; the shadow had moved over him and he did not mind. The darkness made him feel brave enough to stare for as long as he liked at the girl who sat in the firelight.

She was very good-looking, with that fine, rich coloring often found in women with dark brown hair and brown eyes. She sat calmly, with her hands resting on the cat that lay sleeping on her knees. From time to time she sent a slow look into the shadow where the man sat. They were talking of unimportant things, which were clearly not the things they were thinking about. She knew that he loved her – a simple, honest man, not clever enough to hide his feelings, and with no wish to do so.

For the past two weeks, at every tea party and every dinner party, he had been always at her side. She was sure he would soon ask her to marry him, and she meant to accept him. Brantain was dull and not at all good-looking, but he was extraordinarily rich; and she liked and wanted the kind of life that a rich husband could give her.

During one of the pauses in their conversation about the last tea party and the next dinner party, the door opened and a young man entered. Brantain knew him well. The girl turned her face toward him, but did not realize that he had not seen Brantain. In three steps he was next to her chair, and bending over her – before she had any idea what he planned to do – he gave her a long, slow, burning kiss upon her lips.

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