The Blunders of a Bashful Man

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Drat all tea-parties! say I. I was never comfortable at one in my
life. If you'd give me my choice between going to a tea-party and
picking potato-bugs off the vines all alone on a hot summer day, I
shouldn't hesitate a moment between the two. I should choose the bugs;
and I can't say I fancy potato-bugs, either.

On Wednesday I nearly killed an old lady, putting up tartar-emetic for
cream-tartar. If she'd eaten another biscuit made with it she'd have
died and I'd have been responsible--and father was really vexed and
said I might be a light-house keeper as quick as I pleased; but by
that time I felt as if I couldn't keep a light-house without Belle
Marigold to help me, and so I promised to be more careful, and kept
on clerking.

The thermometer stood at eighty degrees in the shade when I left the
store at five o'clock Thursday afternoon to go to that infallible
tea-party. I was glad the day was warm, for I wanted to wear my white
linen suit, with a blue cravat and Panama hat. I felt independent even
of Fred Hencoop, as I walked along the street under the shade of the
elms; but, the minute I was inside Widow Jones' gate and walking up to
the door, the thermometer went up to somewhere near 200 degrees. There
were something like a dozen heads at each of the parlor windows, and
all women's heads at that. Six or eight more were peeping out of the
sitting-room, where they were laying the table for tea. Babbletown
always did seem to me to have more than its fair share of female
population. I think I would like to live in one of those mining towns
out in Colorado, where women are as scarce as hairs on the inside of a
man's hand. Somebody coughed as I was going up the walk. Did you ever
have a girl cough at you?--one of those mean, teasing, expressive
little coughs?

I had practiced--at home in my own room--taking off my Panama with a
graceful, sweeping bow, and saying in calm, well-bred tones:
"Good-evening, Mrs. Jones. Good-evening, ladies. I trust you have had
a pleasant as well as profitable afternoon."

I had _practiced_ that in the privacy of my chamber. What I really did
get off was something like this:

"Good Jones, Mrs. Evening. I should say, good-evening, widows--ladies,
I beg your pardon," by which time I was mopping my forehead with my
handkerchief, and could just ask, as I sank into the first chair I
saw, "Is your mother well, Mrs. Jones?" which was highly opportune,
since said mother had been years dead before I was born. As I sat
down, a pang sharper than some of those endured by the Spartans ran
through my right leg. I was instantly aware that I had plumped down on
a needle, as well as a piece of fancy-work, but I had not the courage
to rise and extract the excruciating thing.

I turned pale with pain, but by keeping absolutely still I found that
I could endure it, and so I sat motionless, like a wooden man, with a
frozen smile on my features.

Belle was out in the other room helping set the table, for which
mitigating circumstances I was sufficiently thankful.

Fred Hencoop was on the other side of the room holding a skein of silk
for Sallie Brown. He looked across at me, smiling with a malice which
made me hate him.

Out of that hate was born a stern resolve--I would conquer my
diffidence; I would prove to Fred Hencoop, and any other fellow like
him, that I was as good as he was, and could at least equal him in
the attractions of my sex.

There was a pretty girl sitting quite near me. I had been introduced
to her at the picnic. It seemed to me that she was eyeing me
curiously, but I was mad enough at Fred to show him that I could be as
cool as anybody, after I got used to it. I hemmed, wiped the
perspiration from my face--caused now more by the needle than by the
heat--and remarked, sitting stiff as a ramrod and smiling like an
angel:

"June is my favorite month, Miss Smith--is it yours? When I think of
June I always think of strawberries and cream and ro-oh-oh-ses!"

It was the needle. I had forgotten in the excitement of the subject
and had moved.

"_Is_ anything the matter?" Miss Smith tenderly inquired.

"Nothing in the world, Miss Smith. I had a stitch in my side, but it
is over now."

"Stitches are very painful," she observed, sympathizingly. "I don't
like to trouble you, Mr. Flutter, but I think, I believe, I guess you
are sitting on my work. If you will rise, I will try and finish it
before tea."

No help for it, and I arose, at the same moment dexterously slipping
my hand behind me and withdrawing the thorn in the flesh.

"Oh, dear, where is my needle?" said the young lady, anxiously
scrutinizing the crushed worsted-work.

I gave it to her with a blush. She burst out laughing.

"I don't wonder you had a stitch in your side," she remarked, shyly.

"Hem!" observed Fred very loud, "do you feel sew-sew, John?"

Just then Belle entered the parlor, looking as sweet as a pink, and
wearing the sash I had given her. She bowed to me very coquettishly
and announced tea.

"Too bad!" continued Fred; "you have broken the thread of Mr.
Flutter's discourse with Miss Smith. But I do not wish to inflict
_needle_-less pain, so I will not betray him."

"I hope Mr. Flutter is not in trouble again," said Belle quickly.

"Oh, no. Fred is only trying to say something _sharp_," said I.

"Come with me; I will take care of you, Mr. Flutter," said Belle,
taking my arm and marching me out into the sitting-room, where a long
table was heaped full of inviting eatables. She sat me down by her
side, and I felt comparatively safe. But Fred and Miss Smith were just
opposite and they disconcerted me.

"Mr. Flutter," said the hostess when it came my turn, "will you have
tea or coffee?"

"Yes'm," said I.

"Tea or coffee?"

"If you please," said I.

"_Which_?" whispered Belle.

"Oh, excuse me; coffee, ma'am."

"Cream and sugar, Mr. Flutter?"

"I'm not particular which, Mrs. Jones."

"Do you take _both_?" she persisted, with everybody at the table
looking my way.

"No, ma'am, only coffee," said I, my face the color of the
beet-pickles.

She finally passed me a cup, and, in my embarrassment, I immediately
took a swallow and burnt my mouth.

"Have you lost any friends lately?" asked that wretched Fred, seeing
the tears in my eyes.

I enjoyed that tea-party as geese enjoy _pate de fois gras_. It was a
prolonged torment under the guise of pleasure. I refused everything I
wanted, and took everything I didn't want. I got a back of the cold
chicken; there was nothing of it but bone. I thought I must appear to
be eating it, and it slipped out from under my fork and flew into the
dish of preserved cherries.

We had strawberries. I am very partial to strawberries and cream. I
got a saucer of the berries, and was looking about for the cream when
Miss Smith's mother, at my right hand, said:

"Mr. Flutter, will you have some _whip_ with your strawberries?"

Whip with my berries! I thought she was making fun of me, and
stammered:

"No, I thank you," and so I lost the delicious frothed cream that I
coveted.

The agony of the thing was drawing to a close. I was longing for the
time when I could go home and get some cold potatoes out of mother's
cupboard. I hadn't eaten worth a cent.

Pretty soon we all moved back our chairs and rose. I offered my arm to
Belle, as I supposed. Between the sitting-room and parlor there was a
little dark hall, and when we got in there I summoned up courage,
passed my arm around my fair partner, and gave her a hug.

"You ain't so bashful as you look," said she, and then we stepped into
the parlor, and I found I'd been squeezing Widow Jones' waist.

She gave me a look full of languishing sweetness that scared me nearly
to death. I thought of Mr. Pickwick and Mrs. Bardell. Visions of suits
for breaches of promise arose before my horrified vision. I glanced
wildly around in search of Belle; she was hanging on a young lawyer's
arm, and not looking at me.

"La, now, you needn't color up so," said the widow, coquettishly, "I
know what young men are."

She said it aloud, on purpose for Belle to hear. I felt like killing
her. I might have done it, but one thought restrained me--I should be
hung for murder, and I was too bashful to submit to so public an
ordeal.

I hurried across the room to get rid of her. There was a young fellow
standing there who looked about as out-of-place as I felt. I thought
I would speak to him.

"Come," said I, "let us take a little promenade outside--the women are
too much for me."

He made no answer. I heard giggling and tittering breaking out all
around the room, like rash on a baby with the measles.

"Come on," said I; "like as not they're laughing at us."

"Look-a-here, you shouldn't speak to a fellow till you've been
introduced," said that wicked Fred behind me. "Mr. Flutter, allow me
to make you acquainted with Mr. Flutter. He's anxious to take a little
walk with you."

It was so; I had been talking to myself in a four-foot looking-glass.

I did not feel like staying for the ice-cream and kissing-plays, but
had a sly hunt for my hat, and took leave of the tea-party about the
eighth of a second afterward.

CHAPTER IV.

HE DOES HIS DUTY AS A CITIZEN.

Babbletown began to be very lively as soon as the weather got cool,
the fall after I came home. We had a singing-school once a week, a
debating society that met every Wednesday evening, and then we had
sociables, and just before Christmas a fair. All the other young men
had a good time. Every day, when some of them dropped in the store for
a chat and a handful of raisins, they would aggravate me by asking:

"_Aren't_ we having a jolly winter of it, John?"

_I_ never had a good time. _I_ never enjoyed myself like other folks.
I spent enough money and made enough good resolutions, but something
always occurred to destroy my anticipated pleasure. I can't hear a
lyceum or debating society mentioned to this day, without feeling
"cold-chills" run down my spine.

I took part in the exercises the evening ours was opened. I had been
requested by the committee to furnish the poem for the occasion. As I
was just from a first-class academy, where I had read the valedictory,
it was taken for granted that I was the most likely one to "fill the
bill."

I accepted the proposition. To be bashful is a far different thing
from being modest. I wrote the poem. I sat up nights to do it. The way
candles were consumed caused father to wonder where his best box of
spermacetis had gone to. I knew I could do the poetry, and I firmly
resolved that I would read it through, from beginning to end, in a
clear, well-modulated voice, that could be heard by all, including the
minister and Belle Marigold. I would not blush, or stammer, or get a
frog in my throat. I swore solemnly to myself that I would not. _Some
folks_ should see that my bashfulness was wearing off faster than the
gold from an oroide watch. Oh, I would show 'em! Some things could be
done as well as others. I would no longer be the laughing-stock of
Babbletown. My past record should be wiped out! I would write my poem,
and I would _read it_--read it calmly and impressively, so as to do
full justice to it.

I got the poem ready. I committed it to memory, so that if the lights
were dim, or I lost my place, I should not be at the mercy of the
manuscript. The night came. I entered the hall with Belle on my arm,
early, so as to secure her a front seat.

"Keep cool, John," were her whispered words, as I left her to take my
place on the platform.

"Oh, I shall be cool enough. I know every line by heart; have said it
to myself one hundred and nineteen times without missing a word."

I'm not going to bore you with the poem here; but will give the first
four lines as they were _written_ and as I _spoke_ them:

"Hail! Babbletown, fair village of the plain!
Hail! friends and fellow-citizens. In vain
I strive to sing the glories of this place,
Whose history back to early times I trace."

The room was crowded, the president of the society made a few opening
remarks, which closed by presenting Mr. Flutter, the poet of the
occasion. I was quite easy and at home until I arose and bowed as he
spoke my name. Then something happened to my senses, I don't know
what; I only knew I lost every one of them for about two minutes. I
was blind, deaf, dumb, tasteless, senseless, and feelingless. Then I
came to a little, rallied, and perceived that some of the boy were
beginning to pound the floor with their heels. I made a feint of
holding my roll of verses nearer the lamp at my right hand, summoned
traitor memory to return, and began:

"Hail!"

Was that my voice? I did not recognize it. It was more as if a mouse
in the gallery had squeaked. It would never do. I cleared any
throat--which was to have been free from frogs--and a strange, hoarse
voice, no more like mine than a crow is like a nightingale, came out
with a jerk, about six feet away, and remarked, as if surprised:

"Hail!"

With a desperate effort, I resolved that this night or never I was to
achieve greatness. I cleared the way again and recommenced:

"Hail!"

A boy's voice at the back of the room was heard to insinuate that
perhaps it would be easier for me to let it snow or rain. That made me
angry. I was as cool as ice all in a moment; I felt that I had the
mastery of the situation, and, making a sweeping gesture with my left
hand, I looked over my hearers' heads, and continued:

"Hail! Fabbletown, bare village of the plain--Babbletown, fair pillage
of the vain--. Hail! friends and fellow-citizens--!"

It was evident that I had borrowed somebody else's voice--my own
mother wouldn't have recognized it--and a mighty poor show of a voice,
too. It was like a race-horse that suddenly balks, and loses the race.
I had put up heavy stakes on that voice, but I couldn't budge it. Not
an inch faster would it go. In vain I whipped and spurred in silent
desperation--it balked at "fellow-citizens," and there it stuck. The
audience, good-naturedly, waited five minutes. At the end of that
time, I sat down, amid general applause, conscious that I had made
the sensation of the evening.

Belle gave me the mitten that evening, and went home in Fred Hencoop's
sleigh.

We didn't speak, after that, until about a week before the fair. She,
with some other girls, then came in the store to beg for "scraps" of
silk, muslin, and so-forth, to dress dolls for the fair. They were
very sweet, for they knew they could make a fool of me. Father was not
in, and I guess they timed their visit so that he wouldn't be. They
got half a yard of pink silk, as much of blue, ditto of lilac and
black, a yard of every kind of narrow ribbon in the store, a remnant
of book-muslin, three yards--in all, about six dollars' worth of
"scraps," and then asked me if I wasn't going to give a box of raisins
and the coffee for the table. I said I would.

"And you'll come, Mr. Flutter, won't you? It'll be a failure unless
_you_ are there. You must _promise_ to come. We won't go out of this
store till you do. And, oh, don't forget to bring _your purse_ along.
We expect all the young gentlemen to _come prepared_, you know."

There is no doubt that I went to the fair. It made my heart ache to do
it--for I'd already been pretty extravagant, one way and another--but
I put a ten-dollar bill in my wallet, resolved to spend every cent of
it rather than appear mean.

I don't know whether I appeared mean or not; I do know that I spent
every penny of that ten dollars, and considerable more besides. If
there was anything at that fair that no one else wanted, and that was
not calculated to supply any known want of the human race, it was
palmed off on me. I became the unhappy possessor of five dressed
dolls, a lady's "nubia," a baby-jumper, fourteen "tidies," a set of
parlor croquet with wickets that wouldn't stand on their legs, a
patent churn warranted to make a pound of fresh butter in three
minutes out of a quart of chalk-and-water, a set of ladies' nightcaps,
two child's aprons, a castle-in-the-air, a fairy-palace, a doll's
play-house, a toy-balloon, a box of marbles, a pair of spectacles, a
pair of pillow-shams, a young lady's work-basket, seven needle-books,
a cradle-quilt, a good many bookmarks, a sofa-cushion, and an infant's
rattle, warranted to cut one's eye teeth; besides which I had tickets
in a fruit cake, a locket, a dressing-bureau, a baby-carriage, a
lady's watch-chain, and an infant's wardrobe complete.

When I feebly remonstrated that I'd spent all the money I brought, I
was smilingly assured by innumerable female Tootses that "it was of no
consequence"; but I found there _were_ consequences when I came to
settle afterward for half the things at the fair, because I was too
bashful to say No, boldly.

Fred Hencoop auctioned off the remaining articles after eleven
o'clock. Every time he put up something utterly unsalable, he would
look over at me, nod, and say: "Thank you, John; did you say fifty
cents?" or "Did I hear you say a dollar? A dollar--dollar--going, gone
to our friend and patron, John Flutter, Jr.," and some of the lady
managers would "make a note of it," and I was too everlastingly
embarrassed to deny it.

"John," said father, about four o'clock in the afternoon the day after
the fair--"John, did you buy all these things?"--the front part of the
store was piled and crammed with my unwilling purchases.

"Father, I don't know whether I did or not."

"How much is the bill?"

"$98.17."

"How are you going to pay it?"

"I've got the hundred dollars in bank grandmother gave me when she
died."

"Draw the money, pay your debts, and either get married at once and
make these things useful, or we'll have a bonfire in the back yard."

"I guess we'd better have the bonfire, father. I don't care for any
girl but Belle, and she won't have me."

"Won't have you! I'm worth as much as Squire Marigold any day."

"I know it, father; but I took her down to supper last night, and I
was so confused, with all the married ladies looking on, I made a
mess of it. I put two teaspoonfuls of sugar in her oyster stew,
salted her coffee, and insisted on her taking pickles with her
ice-cream. She didn't mind that so much, but when I stuffed my saucer
into my pocket, and conducted her into the coal-cellar instead of the
hall, she got out of patience. Father, I think I'd better go to
Arizona in the spring. I'm--"

"Go to grass! if you want to," was the unfeeling reply; "but don't you
ever go to another fair, unless I go along to take care of you."

But I think the bonfire made him feel better.

CHAPTER V.

HE COMMITS SUICIDE.

Two days after the fair (one day after the bonfire), some time during
the afternoon, I found myself alone in the store. Business was so dull
that father, with a yawn, said he guessed he'd go to the post-office
and have a chat with the men.

"Be sure you don't leave the store a moment alone, John," was his
parting admonition.

Of course I wouldn't think of such a thing--he need not have mentioned
it. I was a good business fellow for my age; the only blunders I ever
made were those caused by my failing--the unhappy failing to which I
have hitherto alluded.

I sat mournfully on the counter after father left me, my head
reclining pensively against a pile of ten-cent calicoes; I was
thinking of my grandmother's legacy gone up in smoke--of how Belle
looked when she found I had conducted her into the coal-cellar--of
those tidies, cradle-quilts, bib-aprons, dolls' and ladies' fixings,
which had been nefariously foisted upon me, a base advantage taken of
my diffidence!--and I felt sad. I felt more than melancholy--I felt
mad. I resented the tricks of the fair ones. And I made a mighty
resolution! "Never--never--never," said I, between my clenched teeth,
"will I again be guilty of the crime of bashfulness--_never_!"

I felt that I could face a female regiment--all Babbletown! I was
indignant; and there's nothing like honest, genuine indignation to
give courage. Oh, I'd show 'em. I wouldn't give a cent when the deacon
passed the plate on Sundays; I wouldn't subscribe to the char----

In the midst of my dark and vengeful resolutions I heard merry voices
on the pavement outside.

Hastily raising my head from the pile of calicoes, I saw at least five
girls making for the store door--a whole bevy of them coming in upon
me at once. They were the same rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed, deceitful,
shameless creatures who had persuaded me into such folly at the fair.
There was Hetty Slocum, the girl who coaxed me into buying the doll;
and Maggie Markham, who sold me the quilt; and Belle, and two others,
and they were chatting and giggling over some joke, and had to stop on
the steps until they could straighten their faces. I grew
fire-red--with indignation.

"Oh, father, why are you not here?" I cried inwardly. "Oh, father,
what a shame to go off to the post-office and leave your son to face
these tried to feel as I felt five minutes before, like facing a
female regiment. _Now_ was the time to prove my courage--to turn over
a new leaf, take a new departure, begin life over again, show to these
giggling girls that I had some pride--some self-independence--some
self-resp----"

The door creaked on its hinges, and at the sound a blind confusion
seized me. In vain I attempted, like a brave but despairing general,
to rally my forces; but they all deserted me at once; I was hidden
behind the calicoes, and with no time to arrange for a nobler plan of
escaping a meeting with the enemy--no auger-hole though which to
crawl. I followed the first impulse, stooped, and _hid under the
counter_.

In a minute I wished myself out of that; but the minute had been too
much--the bevy had entered and approached the counter, at the very
place behind which I lay concealed. I was so afraid to breathe; the
cold sweat started on my forehead.

"Why! there's no one in the store!" exclaimed Belle's voice.

"Oh, yes; there must be. Let us look around and see," responded
Maggie, and they went tiptoeing around the room, peeping here and
there, while I silently tore my hair. I was so afraid they would come
behind the counter and discover me.

In three minutes, which seemed as many hours, they came to the
starting-point again.

"There isn't a soul here."

"La, how funny! We might take something."

"Yes, if we were thieves, what a fine opportunity we would have."

"I'll bet three cents it's John's fault; his father would never leave
the store in this careless way."

"What a queer fellow he is, anyway!"

"Ha, ha, ha! so perfectly absurd! _Isn't_ it fun when he's about?"

"I never was so tickled in my life as when he bought that quilt."

"I thought I would die laughing when he took me into the coal-cellar,
but I kept a straight face."

"Do _you_ think he's good-looking, Hetty?"

"Who? John Flutter! _good-looking_? He's a perfect fright."

"That's just what I think. Oh, isn't it too good to see the way he
nurses that little mustache of his? I'm going to send him a
magnifying-glass, so that he can count the hairs with less trouble."

"If you will, I'll send a box of cold cream; we can send them through
the post-office, and he'll never find out who they came from."

"Jolly! we'll do it! Belle won't send anything, for he's dead in love
with _her_."

"Much good it'll do him, girls! Do you suppose I wouldn't marry that
simpleton if he was made of gold."

"Did you ever see such a red face as he has? I would be afraid to come
near it with a light dress on."

"And his ears!"

"Monstrous! and always burning."

"And the awkwardest fellow that ever blundered into a parlor. You know
the night he waited on me to Hetty's party? he stepped on my toes so
that I had to poultice them before I went to bed; he tore the train
all off my pink tarlatan; he spilled a cup of hot coffee down old Mrs.
Ballister's back, and upset his saucer of ice-cream over Ada's sweet
new book-muslin. Why, girls, just as sure as I am standing here, I saw
him cram the saucer into his pocket when Belle came up to speak with
him! I tell you, I was glad to get home that night without any more
accidents."

"They say he always puts the tea-napkins into his pocket when he takes
tea away from home. But it's not kleptomania, it's only bashfulness. I
never heard before of his pocketing the saucers."

"Well, he really did. It's awful funny. I don't know how we'd get
along without John this winter--he makes all the fun we have. What's
that?"

"I don't know, it sounded like rats gnawing the floor."

(It was only the amusing John gritting his teeth, I am able to
explain).

"Did you ever notice his mouth?--how large it is."

"Yes, it's frightful. I don't wonder he's ashamed of himself with that
mouth."

"I don't mind his mouth so much--but his _nose_! I never did like a
turn-up nose in a man. But his father's pretty well off. It would be
nice to marry a whole store full of dry-goods and have a new dress
every time you wanted one. I wonder where they have gone to! I believe
I'll rap."

The last speaker seized the yard-stick and thumped on the counter
directly over my head.

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