Cupid's Understudy  -  1909
Edward Salisbury Field
128 pages
genre  -  Romance
my rating  -  3 out of 5 stars

After spending several years in Paris, Elizabeth Middleton of southern California, finally returns to the United States by steamship, where her father is waiting for her. And like many of us today, Elizabeth struggles to get through Customs.  She is missing 2 of her 7 trunks. 

To their rescue comes "a good-looking young man; tall and broad-shouldered and fair, with light-brown hair, and the nicest eyes you ever saw."  His name is  Mr. Blakely Porter.  Mr. Porter had been on the ship with Elizabeth.  "He noticed me a lot on the boat..., but he didn't try to scrape acquaintance with me. He worshipped from afar."

When Mr. Middleton discovers that Blakely is going to California , he invites Blakely to travel with them in their private boxcar.  That certainly gives the young couple time to get to know each other.  The rest of the story is an amusing tale of Blakeley overcoming his mother's snobbishness. 

About the author  -

Edward "Ned" Salisbury Field was born February 28, 1878 in Indianapolis, Indiana to Edward and Sarah Hubbard Field.  Edward was an employee and friend of William Randolf Hearst where he made drawings for Hearst newspapers, signing his drawings "Childe Harold".

As a young news man in his 20s, Field became the secretary of Fanny Stevenson, the wife of Robert Louis Stevenson. After Fanny's death in 1914, Field married her daughter Isobel Osbourne, who was 20 years his senior. Field became a successful Southern California real estate developer. In the 1920s oil was discovered on some of his property which made them wealthy.

Field died September 20, 1936, at Zaca Lake, California. He was 58 years old.