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 a.s.sured, years ago, that it would wear off and betray the bra.s.s 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 bra.s.s 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 circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sengers. 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 princ.i.p.al 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!'"