Bohemian Days Part 20

"A WARNER."

Podge read the note, and her tears dropped upon it. He moved forward as if to speak to her, but correcting himself hastily, he wrote upon the tablets:

"Not even a suspicious person is affected the least by an anonymous letter. I only keep it that possibly I may detect the sender!"

CHAPTER IV.

A SUITOR.

Duff Salter and the ladies were sitting in the back parlor one evening following the events just related, when the door-bell rang, and Podge Byerly went to see who was there. She soon returned and closed the door of the front parlor, leaving a little crack, by accident, and lighted the gas there.

"Aggy," whispered Podge, coming in, "there's Mr. Calvin Van de Lear, our future minister. He's elegantly dressed, and has a nosegay in his hand."

"Can't you entertain him, dear?"

"I would be glad enough, but he asked in a very decided way for you."

"For me?"

Agnes looked distressed.

"Yes; he said very distinctly, 'I called to pay my respects particularly to Miss Agnes to-night.'"

Agnes left the room, and Duff Salter and Podge were again together.

Podge could hear plainly what was said in the front parlor, and partly see, by the brighter light there, the motions of the visitor and her friend. She wrote on Duff Salter's tablet, "A deaf man is a great convenience!"

"Why?" wrote the large, grave man.

"Because he can't hear what girls say to their beaux."

"Is that a beau calling on our beautiful friend?"

"I'm afraid so!"

"How do you feel when a beau comes?"

"We feel important."

"You don't feel grateful, then; only complimented."

"No; we feel that on one of two occasions we have the advantage over a man. We can play him like a big fish on a little angle."

"When is the other occasion?"

"Some women," wrote Podge, "play just the same with the man they marry!"

Duff Salter looked up surprised.

"Isn't that wrong?" he wrote.

She answered mischievously, "A kind of!"

The large, bearded man looked so exceedingly grave that Podge burst out laughing.

"Don't you know," she wrote, "that the propensity to plague a man dependent on you is inherent in every healthy woman?"

He wrote, "I do know it, and it's a crime!"

Podge thought to herself "This old man is dreadfully serious and suspicious sometimes."

As Duff Salter relapsed into silence, gazing on the fire, the voice of Calvin Van de Lear was heard by Podge, pitched in a low and confident key, from the parlor side:

"I called, Agnes, when I thought sufficient time had elapsed since the troubles here, to express my deep interest in you, and to find you, I hoped, with a disposition to turn to the sunny side of life's affairs."

"I am not ready to take more than a necessary part in anything outside of this house," replied Agnes. "My mind is altogether preoccupied. I thank you for your good wishes, Mr. Van de Lear."

"Now do be less formal," said the young man persuasively. "I have always been Cal. before--short and easy, Cal. Van de Lear. _You_ might call me almost anything, Aggy."

"I have changed, sir. Our afflictions have taught me that I am no longer a girl."

"You won't call me Cal., then?"

"No, Mr. Van de Lear."

"I see how it is," exclaimed the visitor. "You think because I am studying for orders I must be looked up to. Aggy, that's got nothing to do with social things. When I take the governor's place in our pulpit I shall make my sermons for this generation altogether crack, sentimental sermons, and drive away dull care. That's my understanding of the good shepherd."

"Mr. Van de Lear, there are some cares so natural that they are almost consolation. Under the pressure of them we draw nearer to happiness.

What merry words should be said to those who were bred under this roof in such misfortunes as I have now--as the absent have?"

Podge saw Agnes put her handkerchief to her face, and her neck shake a minute convulsively. Duff Salter here sneezed loudly: "Jericho!

Jerichew! Je-ry-cho-o!" He produced a tortoise-sh.e.l.l snuff-box, and Podge took a pinch, for fun, and sneezed until the tears came to her eyes and her hair was shaken down. She wrote on the tablets,

"Men could eat dirt and enjoy it."

He replied, "At last dirt eats all the men."

"It's to get rid of them!" wrote Podge. "My boys at school are dirty by inclination. They will chew anything from a piece of India rubber shoe to slippery elm and liquorice root. One piece of liquorice will demoralize a whole cla.s.s. They pa.s.s it around."

Duff Salter replied, "The boys must have something in their mouths; the girls in their heads!"

"But not liquorice root," added Podge.

"No; they put the boys in their heads!"

"Pshaw!" wrote Podge, "girls don't like boys. They like nice old men who will pet them."