The Porch Light Intervention
A romantic evening on Snohomish's Piety Hill is brought to a splashy, unceremonious end.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
“By Jupiter! these are lovely nights. Nothing like the serenity of the scene,” exclaimed a Commercial street clerk one night last week, as he reclined on the porch beneath the silvery rays of the crescent moon, with his arm around the waist of his Piety Hill Venus. But when the mother came to the conclusion that matters had better come to a crisis, she opened the window above them and turned a pitcher of water on their devoted heads, and they thought they had encountered old Neptune. She simply remarked to them as they started for the gate: “Here, come back! you can’t Comet over my daughter in that Milky Way.” The gay and festive clerk retorted: “Uranus off, and I’ll be hanged if I come back till I get ready,” and his girl took his arm and they started off with a speed like messenger Mercury, who is said to have had wings on his heels. The old lady says she will Planet differently out next time.
“The old lady says she will Planet differently out next time.”
While the celestial puns are firmly rooted in 19th-century humor, the core tension remains timeless: the struggle between young couples seeking private space and homeowners guarding their porches. Piety Hill remains a historic, recognizable neighborhood in Snohomish today, maintaining its reputation for both elegance and its steep elevation above the river basin.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.