The Blunders of a Bashful Man

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"Now, or never," I thought, turning pale as death; and with one
resolute effort I slipped into the hall and so into the dining-room.

Susie was there, doing something; but when she saw me enter she gave a
little shriek and darted into the pantry. No! I was not to be baffled
thus. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead, but I thought of that
snob in the parlor, and pressed on to the pantry-door.

"Susie," said I, very softly, trying to open it--"Susie, I _must_
speak to you. Let me in."

The more I tried to open the door the more firmly she held it.

"Do go along with you, cousin John," she answered.

"I can't, Susie. I want to see you a minute."

"See me? Oh, what a wicked fellow! Go along, or I'll tell your
mother."

"Tell, or not; for once I'm going to have my own way," I said, and
pressing my knee against the door, I forced it open, and there stood
my pretty cousin, angry and blushing, trying to hide from my view the
crinoline which had come off in the parlor.

I retreated, closing the door and waiting for her to re-appear.

In a few minutes she came out, evidently offended.

"Susie," I stammered, "I did--did--didn't dream your bus--bus--bustle
had come off. I only wanted to tell you that--that I pr--pr--pri--prize
your li--li--li--"

"But I never lie," she interrupted me, saucily.

"That I shall be the most mis--is--is--er--able fellow that ever--"

"Now don't make a goose of yourself, cousin John," she said, sweetly,
laying her little hand on my shoulder for an instant. "Stop where you
are! Tom Todd asked me to marry him, half an hour ago, and I said I
would."

Tom Todd, then, had got the start of me; after all. Worse! he had
sneaked into the dining-room after Susie, and had come up behind us
and heard every word. As I turned, dizzy and confused, I saw his
smiling, insolent face. Enraged, unhappy, and embarrassed by his
grieving triumph, I hastily turned to retreat into the pantry!
Unfortunately, there were two doors close together, one leading to the
pantry, the other to the cellar. In my blind embarrassment I mistook
them; and the next moment the whole company were startled by a loud
bump--bumping, a crash, and a woman's scream.

There was a barrel of soft-soap at the foot of the cellar-stairs, and
I fell, head first, into that.

CHAPTER XIX.

DRIVEN FROM HIS LAST DEFENCE.

Susie was Mrs. Todd before I recovered from the effects of my
involuntary soap-bath.

"Smart trick!" cried my father when he fished me out of the barrel.

I thought it _was_ smart, sure enough, by the sensation in my eyes.
But I have drawn a veil over that bit of my history. I know my
eyesight was injured for all that summer. I could not tell a piece of
silk from a piece of calico, except by the feeling; so I was excused
from clerking in the store, and sat round the house with green goggles
on, and wished I were different from what I was. By fall my eyesight
got better. One day father came in the parlor where I was sitting
moping, having just seen Tom Todd drive by in a new buggy with his
bride, and said to me:

"John, I am disappointed in you."

"I know it," I answered him meekly.

"You look well enough, and you have talent enough," he went on; "but
you are too ridiculously bashful for an ostrich."

"I know it," I again replied. "Oh, father, father, why did they take
that caul from my face?"

"That--what?" inquired my puzzled sire.

"That caul--wasn't I born with a caul, father?"

"Now that I recall it, I believe you were," responded father, while
his stern face relaxed into a smile, "and I wish to goodness they had
left it on you, John; but they didn't, and that's an end of it. What I
was going to say was this. Convinced that you will never succeed as my
successor--that your unconquerable diffidence unfits you for the
dry-goods trade--I have been looking around for some such situation as
I have often heard you sigh for. The old light-house keeper on
Buncombe Island is dead, and I have caused you to be appointed his
successor. You will not see a human being except when supplies are
brought to you, which, in the winter, will be only once in two months.
Even then your peace will not be disturbed by any sight of one of the
other sex. You will not need a caul there! Go, my son, and remain
until you can outgrow your absurd infirmity."

I felt dismayed at the prospect, now that it was so near at hand. I
had often--in the distance--yearned for the security of a light-house.
Yet I now looked about on our comfortable parlor with a longing eye. I
recalled the pleasant tea-hour when there were no visitors; I thought
of the fun the boys and girls would have this coming winter, and I
wished father had not been so precipitate in securing that vacant
place.

Just then Miss Gabble came up our steps, and shortly after entered the
parlor. She was one of those dreaded beings, who always filled me with
the direst confusion. She sat right down by my side and squeezed my
hand.

"My poor, dear fellow-mortal!" said she, getting her sharp face so
close to mine I thought she was going to kiss me, "how do you do?
Wearing them goggles yet? It is too bad. And yet, after all, they are
sort of becoming to you. In fact, you're so good-looking you can wear
anything. And how your mustache does grow, to be sure!"

I saw father was getting up to leave the room, and I flung her hand
away, saying quickly to him: "I'll get the glass of water, father."

And so I beat him that time, and got out of the room, quite willing to
live in the desert of Sahara, if by it I could get rid of such
females.

Well, I went to Buncombe Island. I retired from the world to a
light-house in the first bloom of my youth. I did not want to be a
monk--I could not be a man--and so I did what fate and my father laid
out for me to do. Through the fine autumn weather I enjoyed my
retirement. I had taken plenty of books and magazines with me to while
away the time; there was a lovely promenade along the sea-wall on
which the tall tower stood, and I could walk there for hours without
my pulse being disturbed by visions of parasols, loves of bonnets, and
pretty faces under them. I communed with the sea. I told it my rations
were too salt; that I didn't like the odor of the oil in filling the
lamps; that my legs got tired going up to the lantern, and that my
arms gave out polishing the lenses. I also confided to it that I would
not mind these little trifles if I only had one being to share my
solitude--a modest, shy little creature that I wouldn't be afraid to
ask to be my wife.

"Oh, had we some bright little isle of our own,
In a blue summer ocean far off and alone."

I'd forget the curse of my life and be happy in spite of it.

When winter shut down, however, I didn't talk quite so much to the
sea; it was ugly and boisterous, and the windy promenade was
dangerous, and I shut myself up and pined like the "Prisoner of
Chillon." I have lots of spunk and pride, if I am bashful; and so I
never let on to those at home--when I sent them a letter once in two
months by the little tug that brought my oil and provisions--that I
was homesick. I said the ocean was glorious; that there was a Byronic
sublimity in lighting up the lantern; that standing behind a counter
and showing dry-goods to silly, giggling girls couldn't be compared
with it; that I hadn't blushed in six months, and that I didn't think
I should ever be willing to come back to a world full of grinning
snobs and confusing women.

And now, what do you think happened to me? My fate was too strong even
for Buncombe Island. It was the second of January. The tug had not
left the island, after leaving a nine-weeks' supply, more than twelve
hours before a fearful gale began to blow; it rose higher and higher
through the night, and in the morning I found that a small
sailing-vessel had been wrecked about half a mile from the
light-house, where the beach ran out for some distance into the water,
and the land was not so high as on the rock. I ran down there, the
wind still roaring enough to blow me away, and the spray dashing into
my eyes, and I found the vessel had gone to pieces and every man was
drowned.

But what was this that lay at my feet? A woman, lashed to a spar, and
apparently dead. When I picked her up, though, she opened her eyes and
shut them again. Enough! this was no time to think of peculiar
difficulties. I lugged her to the warm room in the light-house where I
sat and lived. I put her before the fire; I heated some brandy and
poured it between her lips; in short, when I sat down to my little
tea-table late that afternoon, somebody sat on the opposite side--a
woman--a girl, rather, not more than eighteen or nineteen. Here she
was, and here she must remain for two long months.

_She_ did not seem half so much put out as I. In fact, she was quite
calm, after she had explained to me that she was one of three
passengers on board the sailing-vessel, and that all the others were
drowned.

"You will have to remain here for two months," I ventured to explain
to her, coloring like a lobster dabbed into hot water.

"Oh, then, I may as well begin pouring the tea at once," she observed
coolly; "that's a feminine duty, you know, sir."

"I'm glad you're not afraid of me," I ventured to say.

"Afraid of you!" she replied, tittering. "No, indeed. It is _you_ who
are afraid of _me_. But I sha'n't hurt you, sir. You mind your
affairs, and I'll mind mine, and neither of us will come to grief.
Why, what a lot of books you've got! And such an easy-chair! It's just
splendid here, and so romantic, like the stories we read."

I repressed a groan, and allowed her, after supper, and she had done
as she said--washed the dishes--to take possession of my favorite book
and my favorite seat. She was tired with her adventures of the night
before, and soon asked where she was to sleep.

"In there," I answered, pointing to the door of a small bedroom which
opened out of the living-room.

She went in, and locked the door; and I went up to the lantern to see
that all was right, and to swear and tear around a little. Here was a
two-months'-long embarrassment! Here was all my old trouble back in a
new shape! What would my folks--what would the world say? Would they
believe the story about the wreck? Must my character suffer? Even at
the best, I must face this girl of the period from morning until
night. She had already discovered that I was bashful; she would take
advantage of it to torment me. What would the rude men say when they
came again with supplies?

Better measure tape in my father's store for a lot of teasing young
ladies whom I know, than dwell alone in a light-house with this
inconsiderate young woman!

"If ever I get out of this scrape, I will know when I am well off!" I
moaned, tearing my hair, and gazing wildly at the pitiless lights.

Suddenly a thought struck me. I had seen a small boat beached near the
scene of the wreck; it probably had belonged to the ship. I remained
in the lantern until it began to grow daybreak; then I crept down and
out, and ran to examine that boat. It was water-proof, and one of its
oars still remained. The waves were by this time comparatively calm. I
pushed the boat into the water, jumped in, rowed around to the other
side of the island, and that day I made thirty miles, with only one
oar, landing at the city dock at sunset. I was pretty well used-up I
tell you. But I had got away from that solitary female, who must have
spent a pensive day at Buncombe, in wondering what had become of me. I
reported at headquarters that night, resigned, and started for home.
I'm afraid the light-house lamps were not properly tended that night;
still, they may have been, and that girl was equal to anything.

Such is life! Such has been _my_ experience. Do you wonder that I am
still a bachelor? I will not go on, relating circumstances in my life
which have too much resemblance to each other. It would only be a
repetition of my miserable blunders. But I will make a proposition to
young ladies in general. I am well-to-do; the store is in a most
flourishing condition; I have but one serious fault, and you all know
what that is. Now, will not some of you take pity on me? I might be
waylaid, blindfolded, lifted into a carriage, and abducted. I might be
brought before a minister and frightened into marrying any nice,
handsome, well-bred girl that had courage enough for such an
emergency. Once safely wedded, I have a faint idea that my bashfulness
will wear off. Come! who is ready to try the experiment?

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Mother at the Races.

Mother at a Chicago Hotel.

Mother Goes Yachting.

Mother Escapes Matrimony,

Mother Meets Nature's Noblemen.

Mother Joins the Repertoire Company.

Mother in the One Night Stands.

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