New Year's Eve - December 31, 1899 - The Old Caldwell Place

THE JOHN O'HARA SOCIETY

From A Rage to Live.

"Will and Emily Caldwell slipped away from the Ball and arrived home at eleven-thirty. Grace was there, with Connie, one of the Martindale girls, Winfield Scott Bordener, Frederick William Klein, and Samuel Brock, a cousin of Grace's from Williamsport . . . . The more or less homogenous young people had sat down to a big and late dinner at half-past eight. From a little before ten until a little before eleven they had sung all the songs they knew that Grace and Scotty Bordener could play on the piano, and when the repertoires were exhausted they played kissing games. . . . Fritz, who was able to report on the way home that Grace Caldwell opened her mouth as soon as you kissed her, was having the time of his life when Connie knocked on the door of the hall closet and announced that Mr. and Mrs. Caldwell's carriage had just drawn up out front. . . . "Have you been having a nice time, everybody?" said Emily Caldwell. . . "Yes, Mrs. Caldwell. Oh, yes. Fine time." . . .

"Well, I make it - oh, yes, there go the whistles. Five minutes left of good old nineteenth century. . . Just a few minutes before Nineteen Hundred . . . Boys and girls, I drink to you, the hope of the 1900's, and to our friends, your fathers and mothers."