The Blunders of a Bashful Man.

by Metta Victoria Fuller Victor.

CHAPTER I.

HE ATTENDS A PICNIC.

I have been, am now, and shall always be, a bashful man. I have been told that I am the only bashful man in the world. How that is I can not say, but should not be sorry to believe that it is so, for I am of too generous a nature to desire any other mortal to suffer the mishaps which have come to me from this distressing complaint. A person can have smallpox, scarlet fever, and measles but once each. He can even become so inoculated with the poison of bees and mosquitoes as to make their stings harmless; and he can gradually accustom, himself to the use of a.r.s.enic until he can take 444 grains safely; but for bashfulness--like mine--there is no first and only attack, no becoming hardened to the thousand petty stings, no saturation of one's being with the poison until it loses its power.

I am a quiet, nice-enough, inoffensive young gentleman, now rapidly approaching my twenty-sixth year. It is unnecessary to state that I am unmarried. I should have been wedded a great many times, had not some fresh attack of my malady invariably, and in some new shape, attacked me in season to prevent the "consummation devoutly to be wished." When I look back over twenty years of suffering through which I have literally stumbled my way--over the long series of embarra.s.sments and mortifications which lie behind me--I wonder, with a mild and patient wonder, why the Old Nick I did not commit suicide ages ago, and thus end the eventful history with a blank page in the middle of the book.

I dare say the very bashfulness which has been my bane has prevented me; the idea of being cut down from a rafter, with a black-and-blue face, and drawn out of the water with a swollen one, has put me so out of countenance that I had not the courage to brave a coroner's jury under the circ.u.mstances.

Life to me has been a scramble through briers. I do not recall one single day wholly free from the scratches inflicted on a cruel sensitiveness. I will not mention those far-away agonies of boyhood, when the teacher punished me by making me sit with the girls, but will hasten on to a point that stands out vividly against a dark background of accidents. I was nineteen. My sentiments toward that part of creation known as "young ladies" were, at that time, of a mingled and contradictory nature. I adored them as angels; I dreaded them as if they were mad dogs, and were going to bite me.

My parents were respected residents of a small village in the western part of the State of New York. I had been away at a boys' academy for three years, and returned about the first of June to my parents and to Babbletown to find that I was considered a young man, and expected to take my part in the business and pleasures of life as such. My father dismissed his clerk and put me in his place behind the counter of our store.

Within three days every girl in that village had been to that store after something or another--pins, needles, a yard of tape, to look at gloves, to _try on shoes_, or examine gingham and calico, until I was happy, because out of sight, behind a pile high enough to hide my flushed countenance. I shall never forget that week. I ran the gauntlet from morning till night. I believe those heartless wretches told each other the mistakes I made, for they kept coming and coming, looking as sweet as honey and as sly as foxes. Father said I'd break him if I didn't stop making blunders in giving change--he wasn't in the prize-candy business, and couldn't afford to have me give twenty-five sheets of note paper, a box of pens, six corset laces, a bunch of whalebones, and two dollars and fifty cents change for a two-dollar bill.

He explained to me that the safety-pins which I had offered Emma Jones for crochet-needles were _not_ crochet-needles; nor the red wafers I had shown Mary Smith for gum-drops, gum-drops--that gingham was not three dollars per yard, nor pale-blue silk twelve-and-a-half cents, even to Squire Marigold's daughter. He said I must be more careful.

"I don't think the mercantile business is my _forte_, father," said I.

"Your fort!" replied the old gentleman; "fiddlesticks! We have nothing to do with military matters. But if you think you have a special call to anything, John, speak out. Would you like to study for the ministry, my son?"

"Oh, no, indeed! I don't know exactly what I would like, unless it were to be a Juan Fernandez, or a--a light-house keeper."

Then father said I was a disgrace to him, and I knew I was.

On the fourth day some young fellows came to see me, and told me there was to be a picnic on Sat.u.r.day, and I must get father's horse and buggy and take one of the girls. In vain I pleaded that I did not know any of them well enough. They laughed at me, and said that Belle Marigold had consented to go with me; that I knew her--she had been in the store and bought some blue silk for twelve-and-a-half cents a yard; and they rather thought she fancied me, she seemed so ready to accept my escort; should they tell her I would call for her at ten o'clock, sharp, on Sat.u.r.day morning?

There was no refusing under the circ.u.mstances, and I said "yes" with the same gaiety with which I would have signed my own death-warrant.

Yet I wanted to go to the picnic, dreadfully; and of all the young ladies in Babbletown I preferred Belle Marigold. She was the handsomest and most stylish girl in the county. Her eyes were large, black, and mischievous; her mouth like a rose; she dressed prettily, and had an elegant little way of tossing back her dark ringlets that was fascinating even at first sight. I was told my doom on Thursday afternoon, and do not think I slept any that or Friday night--am positive I did not Sat.u.r.day night. I wanted to go and I wanted to take that particular girl, yet I was in a cold sweat at the idea. I would have given five dollars to be let off, and I wouldn't have taken fifteen for my chance to go. I asked father if I could have the horse and buggy, and if he would tend store. I hoped he would say No; but when he said Yes, I was delighted.

"I'll take the opportunity when you are at the picnic to get the accounts out of the quirks you've got 'em into," said he.

Well, Sat.u.r.day came. As I opened my eyes my heart jumped into my throat. "I've got to go through with it now if it kills me," I thought.

Mother asked me why I ate no breakfast.

"Saving my appet.i.te for the picnic," I responded, cheerfully; which was one of the white lies my miserable bashfulness made me tell every day of my life--I knew that I should go dinner-less at the picnic unless I could get behind a tree with my plate of goodies.

I never to this day can abide to eat before strangers; things _always_ go by my windpipe instead of my aesophagus, and I'm tired to death of scalding my legs with hot tea, to say nothing of adding to one's embarra.s.sment to have people asking if one has burned oneself, and feeling that one has broken a cup out of a lady's best china tea-set.

But about tea and tea-parties I shall have more to say hereafter. I must hurry on to my first picnic, where I made my first public appearance as the Bashful Man.

I made a neat toilet--a fresh, light summer suit that I flattered myself beat any other set of clothes in Babbletown--ordered Joe, our ch.o.r.e-boy, to bring the buggy around in good order, with everything shining; and when he had done so, had the horse tied in front of the store.

"Come, my boy," said father, after a while, "it's ten minutes to ten.

Never keep the ladies waiting."

"Yes, sir; as soon as I've put these raisins away."

"Five minutes to ten, John. Don't forget the lemons."

"No, sir." But I _did_ forget them in my trepidation, and a man had to be sent back for them afterward.

It was just ten when I stepped into the buggy with an attempt to appear in high spirits. As I drove slowly toward Squire Marigold's large mansion on Main Street, I met dozens of gay young folks on the way out of town, some of them calling out that I would be late, and to try and catch up with them after I got my girl.

As I came in sight of the house my courage failed. I turned off on a by-street, drove around nearly half a mile, and finally approached the object of my dread from another direction. I do believe I should have pa.s.sed the house after I got to it had I not seen a vision of pink ribbons, white dress, and black eyes at the window, and realized that I was observed. So I touched the horse with the whip, drove up with a flourish, and before I had fairly pulled up at the block, Belle was at the door, with a servant behind her carrying a hamper.

"You are late, Mr. Flutter," she called out, half gayly, half crossly.

I arose from the seat, flung down the reins, and leaped out, like a flying-fish out of the water, to hand the beautiful apparition in. In my nervousness I did not observe how I placed the lines, my foot became entangled in them, I was brought up in the most unexpected manner, landing on the pavement on my new hat instead of the soles of my boots.

This was not only embarra.s.sing, but positively painful. There was a b.u.mp on my forehead, the rim of my hat was crushed, my new suit was soiled, my knee ached like Jericho, and there was a rent in my pantaloons right opposite where my knee hurt.

Belle t.i.ttered, the colored girl stuffed her ap.r.o.n in her mouth, and said "hi! hi!" behind it. I would have given all I had in life to give if I could have started on an exploring expedition for China just then, but I couldn't. The pavement was not constructed with reference to swallowing up bashful young men who wanted to be swallowed.

"I hope you are not hurt, Mr. Flutter, te-he?"

"Oh, not at all, not in the least; it never hurts me to fall. It was those constricted reins, they caught my foot. Does the basket go with us? I mean the servant. No, I don't, I mean the basket--does she go with us?"

"The hamper does, Mr. Flutter, or we should be minus sandwiches. Jane, put the hamper in."

Miss Marigold was in the buggy before I had straightened my hat-rim.

"I hope your horse is a fast one; we shall be late," she remarked, as I took my place by her side. "Here is a pin, Mr. Flutter; you can pin up that tear."

I was glad she asked me to let the horse go at full speed; it was the most soothing thing which could happen at that time. As he flew along I could affect to be busy with the cares of driving, and so escape the trials of conversation. I spoke to my lovely companion only three times in the eight miles between her house and the grove. The first time I remarked, "We are going to have a warm day"; the second, "I think the day will be quite warm"; the third time I launched out boldly: "Don't you think, Miss Marigold, we shall have it rather warm about noon?"

"You seem to feel the heat more than I do," she answered, demurely, which was true, for she looked as cool as a cuc.u.mber and as comfortable as a mouse in a cheese, while I was mopping my face every other minute with my handkerchief.

When we reached the picnic grounds she offered to hold the reins while I got out. As I lifted her down, the whole company, who had been watching for our arrival, burst out laughing. Miss Belle looked at me and burst out laughing, too.

"What's the matter?" I stammered.

"Oh, nothing," said she; "only you dusted your clothes with your handkerchief after you fell, and now you've wiped your face with it, and it's all streaked up as if you'd been making mud pies, and your hat's a little out of shape, and--"

"You look as if you'd been on a bender," added the fellow who had induced me to come to the confounded affair.

"Well, I guess I can wash my face," I retorted, a little mad. "I've met with an accident, that's all. Just wait until I've tied my horse."

There was a pond close by--part of the programme of the picnic was to go out rowing on the pond--and as soon as I had fastened my horse, I went down to the bank and stooped over to wash my face, and the bank gave way and I pitched headlong into twelve feet of water.

I was not scared, for I could swim, but I was puzzled as to how to enjoy a picnic in my wet clothes. I wanted to go home, but the boys said:

"No--I must walk about briskly and let my things dry on me--the day was so warm I wouldn't take cold."