courting-stick

Updated: June 2, 2025

As a contrast to all this laxity of behaviour, let me state that in the very locality where it obtained the Connecticut Valley other sweethearts are said to have been forced to a most ceremonious courtship, to whisper their tender nothings through a "courting-stick," a hollow stick about an inch in diameter and six or eight feet long, fitted with mouth- and ear-pieces.

Alice Morse Earle - Customs and Fashions in Old New England