Announcing my engagement

When you do not have a telephone, how can you call up your friends, parents, etc.,  most of whom do not even know you have a boyfriend, that you have decided to get married?  Alright, my old room mates whose couch I had warmed all weekend knew I had a new "friend" and that we had been been together for the time he had been in town that weekend.  It was a week before I was back in town for my church meetings. They were still shocked that it had happened so fast.  My parents did not have a phone yet, but I wrote my mother a letter as soon as I got home on Monday night.  There was a phone in the hall, but it was long distance, although I was only ten miles out of town.  I decided not to tell my classes yet. So who was the first to know?  My PRINCIPAL, Mr Spears, whom I disliked and who would have been the last person I would have told.  This is how it happened.

Before school was out the next day, I got a note from Spears asking me to come to his office as soon as school was out.  He had often asked for favors, usually to have me sub on my free period for some teacher who was out sick.  I thought it was something of that nature or to make refreshments for some meeting he was having. His first question was," Where were you this weekend?"  I wanted to ask, " Who wants to know?, but I proceeded to tell him about my activities. Then he shocked me with," The townspeople wondered who was bringing you to school  early in the morning.  It did not look good, and they wondered where you had spent the night".

I explained that Ted, the fellow who had helped me at the Halloween party, had stayed at the YMCA.  Then he dropped the bomb.  "Are you going to marry him?" as if to imply, "From what we have seen, you should."
I threw back my head and said,"As a matter of fact I am." I told him  it would probably be after school would be out in June and that we would live near Fort Bragg. It was legally my notice.