The Blunders of a Bashful Man
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"Oh, girls! let's go behind, and see how they keep things. I wonder
how many pieces of dress-silk there are left!"
"I guess I'll go behind the counter, and play clerk. If any one comes
in, I'll go, as sure as the world! and wait on 'em. Won't it be fun?
There comes old Aunty Harkness now. I dare say she is after a spool of
thread or a paper of needles. I'm going to wait on her. Mr. Flutter
won't care--I'll explain when he comes in. What do you want, auntie?"
in a very loud voice.
My head buzzed like a saw--my heart made such a loud thud against my
side I thought stars! she wanted "an ounce o' snuff," and that
article was kept in a glass jar in plain sight on the other side of
the store. There was a movement in that direction, and I recovered
partially, I half resolved to rise up suddenly--pretend I'd been
hiding for fun--and laugh the whole thing off as a joke. But the
insulting, the ridiculous comments I had overheard, had made me too
indignant. Pretty joke, indeed! But I wished I had obeyed the dictates
of prudence and affected to consider it so. Father came bustling in
while the girls were trying to tie up the snuff, and sneezing
beautifully.
"What! what! young ladies! Where's John?"
"That's more than we know--tschi-he! We've been waiting at least ten
minutes. Auntie Harkness wanted some stch-uff, and we thought we'd do
it for her. I s'pose you've no objections, Mr. Flutter?"
"Not the least in the world, girls. Go ahead. I wonder where John is!
There! you'll sneeze your pretty noses off--let me finish it. John has
no business to leave the store. I don't like it--five cents, auntie,
to _you_--and I told him particularly not to leave it a minute. I
don't understand it; very sorry you've been kept waiting. What shall I
show you, young lady?" and father passed behind the counter and stood
with his toes touching my legs, notwithstanding I had shrunk into as
small space as was convenient, considering my size and weight. It was
getting toward dusk of the short winter afternoon, and I hoped and
prayed he wouldn't notice me.
"What shall I show you, young ladies?"
"Some light kid gloves, No. 6, please."
"Yes, certainly--here they are. I do believe there's a strange dog
under the counter! Get out--get out, sir, I say!" and my cruel parent
gave me a vicious kick.
I pinched his leg impressively. I meant it as a warning, to betray to
him that it was I, and to implore him, figuratively, to keep silence.
But he refused to comprehend that agonized pinch; he resented it. He
gave another vicious kick. Then he stooped and looked under--it was a
little dark--too dark, alas! under there. He saw a man--but not to
recognize him.
"Ho!" he yelled; "robber! thief! burglar! I've got you, fellow! Come
out o' that!"
I never before realized father's strength. He got his hand in my
collar, and he jerked me out from under that counter, and shook me,
and held me off at arm's length.
"There, Mr. Burglar," said he, triumphantly, "sneak in here again
will--JOHN!"
The girls had been screaming and running, but they stood still now.
"Yes, _John_!" said I, in desperation. "The drawer came loose under
the counter, and I was nailing on a strip of board when those _young
ladies_ came in. I kept quiet, just for fun. They began to talk in an
interesting manner, curiosity got the better of politeness, and I'm
afraid I've played eavesdropper," and I made a killing bow, meant
especially for Belle.
"Well, you're a pretty one!" exclaimed father.
"_So they say_," said I. "Don't leave, young ladies. I'd like to sell
you a magnifying-glass, and some cold cream." But they all left in a
hurry. They didn't even buy a pair of gloves.
The girls must have told of it, for the story got out, and Fred
advised me to try counter-irritation for my bashfulness.
"You're not a burglar," said he, "but you're guilty of
counter-fitting."
"Nothing would suit me better," I retorted, "than to be tried for it,
and punished by solitary confinement."
And there was nothing I should have liked so much. The iron had
entered my soul. I was worse than ever. I purchased a four-ounce vial
of laudanum, went to my room, and wrote a letter to my mother:
"Mother, I am tired of life. My nose is turn-up, my mouth is large; I
pocket other people's saucers and napkins; I am always making
blunders. This is my last blunder. I shall never blush again.
Farewell. Let the inscription on my tombstone be--'Died of
Bashfulness.' JOHN."
And I swallowed the contents of the vial, and threw myself on my
little bed.
CHAPTER VI.
HE IS DOOMED FOR WORSE ACCIDENTS.
It may seem strange for you to hear of me again, after the conclusion
of the last chapter of my blunders. But it was not I who made the last
blunder--it was the druggist. Quite by mistake the imbecile who waited
upon me put up four ounces of the aromatic syrup of rhubarb. I felt
myself gradually sinking into the death-sleep after I had taken it;
with the thought of Belle uppermost in my mind, I allowed myself to
sink--"no more catastrophes after this last and grandest one--no more
red faces--big mouth--tea-napkins--wonder--if she--will be--sorry!"
and I became unconscious.
I was awakened from a comfortable slumber by loud screams; mother
stood by my bed, with the vial labeled "laudanum" in one hand, my
letter in the other. Father rushed into the room.
"Father, John's committed suicide. Oh! bring the tartar-emetic quick!
Make some coffee as strong as lye! Oh! send for a stomach-pump. Tell
Mary to bring the things and put the coffee on; and you come here, an'
we'll walk him up and down--keep him a-going--that's his only
salvation! Oh! John, John! that ever your bashfulness should drive you
into this! Up with him, father! Oh! he's dying! He ain't able to help
himself one bit!"
They dragged me off the bed, and marched me up and down the room.
Supposing, as a matter of course, that I ought to be expiring, I felt
that I was expiring. My knees tottered under me; they only hauled me
around the more violently. They forced a spoonful of tartar-emetic
down my throat; Mary, the servant-girl, poured a quart of black coffee
down me, half outside and half in; then they jerked me about the floor
again, as if we were dancing a Virginia reel.
The doctor came and poked a long rubber tube down and converted me
into a patent pump, until the tartar-emetic, and the coffee, and the
pumpkin-pie I had eaten for dinner had all revisited this mundane
sphere.
They had no mercy on me; I promenaded up and down and across with
father, with Mary, with the doctor, until I felt that I should die if
they didn't allow me to stop promenading.
The worst of it was, the house was full of folks; they crowded about
the chamber door and looked at me, dancing up and down with the hired
girl and the doctor.
"Shut the door--they shall _not_ look at me!" I gasped, at last. The
doctor felt my pulse and said proudly to my mother:
"Madam, your son will live! Our skill and vigilance have saved him."
"Bless you, doctor!" sobbed my parents.
"I will _not_ live," I moaned, "to be the laughing stock of
Babbletown. I will buy some more."
"John," said my father, weeping, "arouse yourself! You shall leave
this place, if you desire it--only live! I will get you the position
of weather-gauger on top of Mount Washington, if you say so, but don't
commit any more suicide, my son!"
I was affected, and promised that I wouldn't, provided that I was
found a situation somewhere by myself. So the excitement subsided.
Father slept with me that night, keeping one eye open; the doctor got
the credit of saving my life, and the girls of Babbletown were scared
out of laughing at me for a whole month.
When we came to talk the matter over seriously--father and I--it was
found to be too late in the season to procure me the Mount Washington
appointment for the winter; besides, the effect of my attempt to
"shuffle off this mortal coil" was to literally overrun our store with
customers. People came from the country for fifteen miles around, in
ox teams, on horse-back, in sleighs and cutters, and bob-sleds, and
crockery-crates, to buy something, in hopes of getting a glimpse of
the bashful young man who swallowed the pizen. Now, father was too
cute a Yankee not to take advantage of the mob. He forgot his
promises, and made me stay in the store from morning till night, so
that women could say: "I bought this 'ere shirting from the young man
who committed suicide; he did it up with his own hands."
"I'll give you a fair share o' the profits, John," father would say,
slyly.
Well, things went on as it greased; the girls mostly stayed away--the
Babbletown girls, for they had guilty consciences, I suspect; and in
February there came a thaw. I stood looking out of the store window
one day; the snow had melted in the street, and right over the stones
that had been laid across the road for a walk, there was a great
puddle of muddy water about two yards wide and a foot deep. I soon saw
Hetty Slocum tripping across the street; she came to the puddle and
stood still; the soft slush was heaped up on either side--she couldn't
get around and she couldn't go through. My natural gallantry got the
better of my resentment, and I went out to help her over,
notwithstanding what she had said when I was under the counter.
Planting one foot firmly in the center of the puddle and bracing the
other against the curb-stone, I extended my hand.
"If you're good at jumping, Miss Slocum," said I, "I'll land you
safely on this side."
"Oh," said she, roguishly, "Mr. Flutter, can I trust you?" and she
reached out her little gloved hand.
All my old embarrassment rushed over me. I became nervous at the
critical moment when I should have been cool. I never could tell just
how it happened--whether her glove was slippery, or my foot slipped on
a piece of ice under slush, or what--but the next moment we were both
of us sitting down in fourteen inches of very cold, very muddy water.
[Illustration: THE NEXT MOMENT WE WERE BOTH OF US SITTING DOWN IN
FOURTEEN INCHES OF VERY COLD, VERY MUDDY WATER.]
My best beaver hat flew off and was run over by a passing sled, while
a little dog ran away with Hetty's seal-skin muff.
I floundered around in that puddle for about two minutes, and then I
got up. Hetty still sat there. She was white, she was so mad.
"I might a known better," said she. "Let me alone. I'd sit here
forever, before I'd let _you_ help me up."
The boys were coming home from school, and they began to hoot and
laugh. I ran after the little dog who was making off with the muff.
How Hetty got up, or who came to her rescue I don't know. That cur
belonged about four miles out of town, and he never let up until he
got home.
I grabbed the muff just as he was disappearing under the house with
it, and then I walked slowly back. The people who didn't know me took
me for an escaped convict--I was water-soaked and muddy, hatless, and
had a sneaking expression, like that of a convicted horse-thief. Two
or three persons attempted to arrest me. Finally, two stout farmers
succeeded, and brought me into the village in triumph, and marched me
between them to the jail.
"Why, what's Mr. Flutter been doin'?" asked the sheriff, coming out to
meet us.
"Do you mean to say you know him?" inquired one of the men.
"Yes, I know him. That's our esteemed fellow-citizen, young Flutter."
"And he ain't no horse-thief nor nuthin'!"
"Not a bit of it, I assure you."
The man eyed me from head to foot, critically and contemptuously.
"Then all I've got to say," he remarked slowly, "is this--appearances
is very deceptive."
It was getting dusk by this time, and I was thankful for it.
"I slipped down in a mud-puddle and lost my hat," I explained to the
sheriff, as I turned away, and had the satisfaction of hearing the
other one of my arresters say, behind my back:
"Oh, drunk!"
I hired a little boy, for five cents, to deliver Miss Slocum's muff at
her residence. Then I went into the house by the kitchen, bribed Mary
to clean my soiled pants without telling mother, slipped up-stairs,
and went to bed without my supper.
The next day I bought a handsome seven-dollar ring, and sent it to
Hetty as some compensation for the damage done to her dress.
That evening was singing-school evening. I went early, so as to get my
seat without attracting attention. Early as I was, I was not the
first. A group of young people was gathered about the great
black-board, on which the master illustrated his lessons. They were
having lots of fun, and did not notice me as I came in. I stole
quietly to a seat behind a pillar. Fred Hencoop was drawing something
on the board, and explaining it. As he drew back and pointed with the
long stick, I saw a splendid caricature of myself pursuing a small
dog with a muff, while a young lady sat quietly in a mud-puddle in the
corner of the black-board, and Fred was saying, with intense gravity:
"This is the man, all tattered and torn, that spattered the maiden all
forlorn. _This_ is the dog that stole the muff. _This_ is the ring he
sent the maid--"
"Muff-in ring," suggested some one, and then they laughed louder than
ever.
I felt that that singing-school was no place for me that evening, and
I stole away as noiselessly as I had entered.
I went home and packed my trunk. The next morning I said to father:
"Give me my share of the profits for the last month," and he gave me
one hundred and thirty dollars. "I am going where no one knows me,
mother, so good-bye. You'll hear from me when I'm settled," and I was
actually off on the nine o'clock New York express.
Every seat was full in every car but one--one seat beside a pretty,
fashionably-dressed young lady was vacant. I stood up against the
wood-box and looked at that seat, as a boy looks at a jar of
peppermint-drops in a candy-store window. After a while I reflected
that these people were all strangers, and, of course, unaware of my
infirmity; this gave me a certain degree of courage. I left the
support of the wood-box and made my way along the aisle until I came
to the vacant seat.
"Miss," I began, politely, but the lady purposely looked the other
way; she had her bag in the place where I wanted to sit, and she
didn't mean to move it, if she could help it. "Miss," I said again, in
a louder tone.
Two or three people looked at us. That confused me; her refusing to
look around confused me; one of my old bad spells began to come on.
"Miss," I whispered, leaning toward her, blushing and embarrassed, "I
would like to know if you are engaged--if--if you are taken, I mean?"
She looked at me then sharp enough.
"Yes, sir, I _am_," she said calmly; "and going to be married next
week."
The passengers began to laugh, and I began to back out. I didn't stop
at the wood-box, but retreated into the next car, where I stood until
my legs ached, and then sat down by an ancient lady, with a long nose,
blue spectacles, and a green veil.
CHAPTER VII.
I MAKE A NARROW ESCAPE.
It is a serious thing to be as bashful as I am. There's nothing at all
funny about it, though some people seem to think there is. I was
assured, years ago, that it would wear off and betray the brass
underneath; but I must have been triple-plated. I have had rubs enough
to wear out a wash-board, yet there doesn't a bit of brass come to the
surface yet. Beauty may be only skin-deep; modesty, like mine,
pervades the grain. If I really believed my bashfulness was only
cuticle-deep, I'd be flayed to-day, and try and grow a hardier
complexion without any Bloom of Youth in it. No use! I could pave a
ten-thousand-acre prairie with the "good intentions" I have wasted,
the firm resolutions I have broken. Born to be bashful is only another
way of expressing the Bible truth, "Born to trouble as the sparks are
to fly upward."
When I sat down by the elderly lady in the railway train, I felt
comparatively at ease. She was older than mother, and I didn't mind
her rather aggressive looks and ways; in short, I seemed to feel that
in case of necessity she would protect me. Not that I was afraid of
anything, but she would probably at least keep me from proposing to
any more young ladies. Alas! how _could_ I have any presentiment of
the worse danger lurking in store for me? How could I, young,
innocent, and inexperienced, foresee the unforeseeable? I could not.
Reviewing all the circumstances by the light of wiser days, I still
deny that I was in any way, shape, or manner to blame for what
occurred. I sat in my half of the seat, occupying as little room as
possible, my eyes fixed on the crimson plush cushions of the seat
before me, my thoughts busy with the mortifying past, and the great
unknown future into which I was blindly rushing at the rate of thirty
miles an hour--sat there, dreading the great city into which I was so
soon to plunge--when a voice, closely resembling vinegar sweetened
with honey, said, close to my ear:
"Goin' to New York, sir?"
"Yes, ma'am," I answered, coming out of my reverie with a little jump.
"I'm real glad," said my companion, taking off her blue spectacles,
and leaning toward me confidentially; "so I am. I'm quite unprotected,
sir, quite, and I shall be thankful to place myself under your care.
I'm goin' down to the city to buy my spring stock o' millinery, an'
any little attention you can show me will be gratefully
received--gratefully. I don't mind admitting to _you_, young man, for
you look pure and uncorrupted, that I am terribly afraid of men. They
are wicked, heartless creatures. I feel that I might more safely trust
myself with ravening wolves than with men in general, but _you_ are
different. _You_ have had a good mother."
"Yes, ma'am, I have," I responded, rather warmly.
I was pleased at her commendation of me and mother, but puzzled as to
the character of the danger to which she referred. I finally concluded
that she was afraid of being robbed, and I put my lips close to her
ear, so that no one should overhear us, and asked:
"Do you carry your money about you?--you ought not to run such a risk.
I've been told there are always one or more thieves on every express
train."
"My dear young friend," she whispered back, very, very close in my
ear, "I was not thinking of money--_that_ is all in checks, safely
deposited in--in--in te-he! inside the lining of my waist. I was only
referring to the dangers which ever beset the unmarried lady,
especially the unsophisticated maiden, far, far from her native
village. Why, would you believe it, already, sir, since I left home, a
man, a _gentleman_, sitting in the very seat where you sit now, made
love to me, out-and-out!"
"Made love to you?" I stammered, shrinking into the farthest corner,
and regarding her with undisguised astonishment.
"You may well appear surprised. Promise me that you will remain by my
side until we reach our destination."
She appeared kind of nervous and agitated, and I promised. Instead of
being protected, I found myself figuring in the _role_ of protector.
My timid companion did the most of the talking; she pumped me pretty
dry of facts about myself, and confided to me that she was doing a
good business--making eight hundred a year clear profit--and all she
wanted to complete her satisfaction was the right kind of a partner.
She proposed to me to become that partner. I said that I did not
understand the millinery business; she said I had been a clerk in a
dry-goods store, and that was the first step; I said I didn't think I
should fancy the bonnet line. She said I should be a _silent_ partner;
all in the world I'd have to do would be to post the books, and she'd
warrant me a thousand dollars a year, for the business would double. I
said I had but one hundred and thirty dollars; she said, write to my
pa for more, but she'd take me without a cent--there was something in
my face that showed her I was to be trusted.
She was so persistent that I began to be alarmed--I felt that I should
be drawn into that woman's clutches against my will. I got pale and
cold, and the perspiration broke out on my brow. Was it for this I
had fled from home and friends? To become a partner in the
hat-and-bonnet business, with a dreadful old maid, who wore blue
spectacles and curled her false hair. I shivered.
"Poor darling!" said she, "the boy is cold," and she wrapped me up in
a big plaid shawl of her own.
The very touch of that shawl made me feel as if I had a thousand
caterpillars crawling over me; yet I was too bashful to break loose
from its folds. I grew feverish.
"There," said she, "you are getting your color back."
The more attention she paid to me the more homesick I grew. I looked
piteously in the conductor's face as he passed by. He smiled
relentlessly. I glanced wildly yet furtively about to see if,
perchance, a vacant seat were to be descried.
"Rest thy head on this shoulder; thou art weary," she said. "I will
put my veil over your face and you can catch a nap."
But I was not to be caught napping.
"No, I thank you--I never sleep in the day time," I stammered.
Oh, what a ride I was having! How wretched I felt! Yet I was too
bashful to shake off the shawl and stand up before a car-load of
people.
Suddenly, something happened. The blue spectacles flew over my head,
and I flew over the seat in front of me. Thank goodness! I was saved
from that female! I picked myself up from out of the _debris_ of the
wreck. I saw a green veil, and a lady looking around for her lost
teeth, and having ascertained that no one was killed, I limped away
and hid behind a stump. I stayed behind that stump three mortal hours.
When the train went again on its winding way I was not one of the
passengers. I walked, bruised and sore as I was, to the nearest
village, and took the first train in the opposite direction. That
evening, as father and mother were sitting down to their solitary but
excellent tea, I walked in on 'em.
"No more foreign trips for me," said I; "I will stick to Babbletown,
and try and stand the consequences."
About four days after this, father laid a letter on the counter before
me--a large, long, yellow envelope, with a big red seal. "Read that,"
was his brief comment.
I took it up, unfolded the foolscap, and read:
"JOHN FLUTTER, SENIOR:--I have the honor to inform you that
my client, Miss Alvira Slimmens, has instructed me to
proceed against your son for breach of promise of marriage,
laying her damages at twelve hundred dollars. As your son is
not legally of age, we shall hold you responsible. A
compromise, to avoid publicity of suit, is possible. Send
us your check for $1,000 and you will hear no more of this
matter.
"Respectfully,
"WILLIAM BLACK, Attorney-at-Law,
"_Pennyville, N. Y._"
"Oh, father!" I cried, "I swear to you this is not my fault!" Looking
up in distress I saw that my parent was laughing.
"I have heard of Alvira before," said he; "no, it is _not_ your fault,
my poor boy. Let me see, Alvira was thirty twenty-one years ago when I
was married to your ma. I used to be in Pennyville sometimes, in those
days, and she was sweet on me, John, then. I'll answer this letter,
and answer it to her, and not her lawyer. Don't you be uneasy, my son.
I'll tend to her. But you had a narrow escape; I don't wonder you,
with your bashfulness, fled homeward to your ma."
"Then it wasn't my blunder this time, father?"
"I exonerate you, my son!"
For once a glow of happiness diffused itself over my much-tried
spirits. I was so exalted that when a young lady came in for a bottle
of bandoline I gave her Spaulding's prepared glue instead; and the
next time I met that young lady she wore a bang--she had used the
new-fangled bandoline, and the only way to get the stuff out of her
hair was to cut it off.
CHAPTER VIII.
HE ENACTS THE PART OF GROOMSMAN.
"Out of the frying-pan into the fire!" This should have been my chosen
motto from the beginning. The performance of the maddening feat
indicated in the proverb has been the principal business of my life. I
am always finding myself in the frying-pan, and always flopping out
into the fire. My father's interference saved me from the dreadful old
creature into whose net I had stumbled when I fled from my native
village, only to return with the certainty that I was unfit to cope
with the world outside of it.
"I will never put my foot beyond the township line again," I vowed to
my secret soul. I had a harrowing sorrow preying upon me all the
remainder of the winter. I was given to understand that Belle Marigold
was actually engaged to Fred Hencoop. And she might have been mine!
Alas, that mighty _might_!
"Of all sad words of tongue or pen
The saddest are these--'It might have been!'"
I am positive that when I first came home from school she admired me
very much. She welcomed my early attentions. It was only the
ridiculous blunders into which my bashfulness continually drove me
that alienated her regard. If I had not caught my foot in the reins
that time I got out of the buggy in front of her house--if I had not
fallen in the water and had my clothes shrink in drying--nor choked
almost to death--nor got under the counter--nor failed to "speak my
piece"--nor sat down in that mud-puddle--nor committed suicide--nor
run away from home--nor performed any other of the thousand-and-one
absurd feats into which my constitutional embarrassment was
everlastingly urging me, I declare boldly, "Belle might have been
mine." She had encouraged me at first. Now it was too late. She had
"declined," as Tennyson says, "on a lower love than mine"--on Fred
Hencoop's.
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