"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 "sc.r.a.ps" 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 "sc.r.a.ps," 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 b.u.t.ter in three minutes out of a quart of chalk-and-water, a set of ladies' nightcaps, two child's ap.r.o.ns, 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 a.s.sured 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 embarra.s.sed 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 gra.s.s! 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-ap.r.o.ns, 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 pa.s.sed 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 Sloc.u.m, 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 n.o.bler 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-gla.s.s, so that he can count the hairs with less trouble."