The Blunders of a Bashful Man Part 9

CHAPTER IX.

MEETS A PAIR OF BLUE EYES.

I kept pretty quiet the remainder of that summer--didn't even attend church for several weeks. In fact, I got father to give me a vacation, and beat a retreat into the country during the month of July, to an aunt of mine, who lived on a small farm with her husband, her son of fourteen, and a "hand." Their house was at least a mile from the nearest neighbor's, and as I was less afraid of Aunt Jerusha than of any other being of her s.e.x, and as there was not another frock, sun-bonnet, or ap.r.o.n within the radius of a mile, I promised myself a month of that negative bliss which comes from retrospection, solitude, and the pleasure of following the men about the harvest-field. Sitting quietly under some shadowing tree, with my line cast into the still pool of a little babbling trout-brook, where it was held in some hollow of nature's hand, I had leisure to forget the past and to make good resolutions for the future. Belle Marigold was forever lost to me. She was Mrs. Hencoop; and Fred had knocked me down because I had been so unfortunate as to lose my presence of mind at his wedding.

All was over between us.

The course now open for me to pursue was to forever steel my heart to the charms of the other s.e.x, to attend strictly to business, to grow rich and honored, while, at the same time, I hardened into a sort of granite obelisk, incapable of blushing, faltering, or stepping on other people's toes.

One day, as the men were hauling in the "loaded wains" from the fields to the great barn, I sat under my favorite tree, as usual, waiting for a bite. Three speckled beauties already lay in a basin of water at my side, and I was thinking what a pleasant world this would be were there no girls in it, when suddenly I heard a burst of silvery laughter!

Looking up, there, on the opposite side of the brook, stood two young ladies! They were evidently city girls. Their morning toilets were the perfection of simple elegance--hats, parasols, gloves, dresses, the very cream of style.

Both of them were pretty--one a dark, bright-eyed brunette, the other a blonde, fair as a lily and sweet as a rose. Their faces sparkled with mischief, but they made a great effort to resume their dignity.

I jumped to my feet, putting one of them--my feet, I mean--in the basin of water I had for my trout.

"Oh, it's too bad to disturb you, sir," said the dark-eyed one. "You were just having a nibble, I do believe. But we have lost our way. We are boarding at the Widow Cooper's, and came out for a ramble in the woods, and got lost; and here, just as we thought we were on the right way home, we came to this naughty little river, or whatever you call it, and can't go a step farther. Is there no way of getting across it, sir?"

"There is a bridge about a quarter of a mile above here, but to get to it you will have to go through a field in which there is a very cross bull. Then there is a log just down here a little ways--I'll show it to you, ladies"; and tangling my beautiful line inextricably in my embarra.s.sment, I threw down my fishing-rod and led the way, I on one side of the stream and they on the other.

"Oh, oh!" cried Blue-Eyes, when we reached the log. "I'll be sure to get dizzy and fall off."

"Nonsense!" said Black-Eyes, bravely, and walked over without winking.

"I shall never--never dare!" screamed Blue-Eyes.

"Allow me to a.s.sist you, miss," I said, in my best style, going on the log and reaching out my hand to steady her.

She laid her little gray glove in my palm, and put one tiny slipper on the log, and then she stood, the little coquette! shrinking and laughing, and taking a step and retreating, and I falling head over ears in love with her, deeper and deeper every second. I do believe, if the other one hadn't been there, I would have taken her right up in my arms and carried her over. Well, Black-Eyes began to scold, and so, at last, she ventured across, and then she said she was tired and thirsty, and did wish she had a gla.s.s of milk; and so I asked her to go to the house, and rest a few minutes, and Aunt Jerusha would give them some milk. You'd better believe aunt opened her eyes, when she saw me marching in as bold as bra.s.s, with two stylish young ladies; while, the moment I met her sly look, all my customary confusion--over which I had contrived to hold a tight rein--ran rampant and jerked at my self-possession until I lost control of it!

"These young ladies, Aunt Jerusha," I stammered, "would like a gla.s.s of milk. They've got lost, and don't know where they are, and can't find their way back, and I expect I'll have to show them the way."

"They're very welcome," said aunt, who was kindness itself, and she went into the milk-pantry and brought out two large goblets of morning's milk, with the rising cream sticking around the inside.

I started forward gallantly, took the server from aunt's hand, and conveyed it, with almost the grace of a French waiter, across the large kitchen to where the two beautiful beings were resting in the chairs which I had set for them. Unfortunately, being blinded by my bashfulness, I caught my toe in a small hole in aunt's rag carpet, the result being that I very abruptly deposited both gla.s.ses of milk, bottom up, in the lap of Blue-Eyes. A feeling of horror overpowered me as I saw that exquisite toilet in ruins--those dainty ruffles, those cunning bows the color of her eyes, submerged in the lacteal fluid.

I think a ghastly pallor must have overspread my face as I stood motionless, grasping the server in my clenched hands.

What do you think Blue-Eyes said? _This_ is the way she "gave me fits." Looking up prettily to my aunt, she says:

"Oh, madam, I am _so_ sorry for your carpet."

"Your dress!" exclaimed Aunt Jerusha.

"Never mind _that_, madam. It can go to the laundry."

"Well, I never!" continued aunt, flying about for a towel, and wiping her off as well as she could; "but John Flutter is so careless. He's _always_ blundering. He means well enough, but he's bashful. You'd think a clerk in a dry-goods store would get over it some time now, wouldn't you? Well, young ladies, I'll get some more milk for you; but I won't trust it in _his_ hands."

When Aunt Jerusha let the cat out of the bag about my bashfulness, Blue-Eyes flashed, at me from under her long eyelashes a glance so roguish, so perfectly infatuating, that my heart behaved like a thermometer that is plunged first into a tea-kettle and then into snow; it went up into my throat, and then down into my boots. I still grasped the server and stood there like a revolving lantern--one minute white, another red. Finally my heart settled into my boots. It was evident that fate was against me. I was _doomed_ to go on leading a blundering existence. My admiration for this lovely girl was already a thousand times stronger than any feeling I had ever had for Belle Marigold. Yet how ridiculous I must appear to her. How politely she was laughing at me.

The sense of this, and the certainty that I was born to blunder, came home to me with crushing weight. I turned slowly to Aunt Jerusha, who was bringing fresh milk, and said, with a simplicity to which pathos must have given dignity:

"Aunt, will you show them the way to Widow Cooper's? I am going to the barn to hang myself," and I walked out.

"Is he in earnest?" I heard Blue-Eyes inquire.

"Wall, now, I shouldn't be surprised," avowed Aunt Jerusha. "He's been powerful low-spirited lately. You see, ladies, he was born that bashful that life is a burden to him."

I walked on in the direction of the barn; I would not pause to listen or to cast a backward glance. Doubtless, my relative told them of my previous futile attempt to poison myself--perhaps became so interested in relating anecdotes of her nephew's peculiar temperament, that she forgot the present danger which threatened him. At least, it was some time before she troubled herself to follow me to ascertain if my threat meant anything serious.

When she finally arrived at the large double door, standing wide open for the entrance of the loaded wagons, she gave a sudden shriek.

I was standing on the beam which supported the light flooring of the hay-loft; beneath was the threshing-floor; above me the great rafters of the barn, and around one of these I had fastened a rope, the other terminus of which was knotted about my neck.

I stood ready for the fatal leap.

As she screamed, I slightly raised my hand:

"Silence, Aunt Jerusha, and receive my parting instructions. Tell Blue-Eyes that I love her madly, but not to blame herself for my untimely end. The ruin of her dress was only the last drop in the cup--the last straw on the camel's back. Farewell!" and as she threw up her arms and shrieked to me to desist, I rolled up my eyes--and sprang from the beam.

For a moment I thought myself dead. The experience was different from what I had antic.i.p.ated. Instead of feeling choked, I had a pain in my legs, and it seemed to me that I had been shut together like an opera-gla.s.s. Still I knew that I must be dead, and I kept very quiet until the sound of little screams and gurgles of--what?--_laughter_, smote my ears!

Then I opened my eyes and looked about. I was not dangling in the air overhead, but standing on the threshing-floor, with a bit of broken halter about my neck. The rope had played traitor and given way without even chafing my throat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I STOOD READY FOR THE FATAL LEAP."]

I dare say the sight of me, standing there with my eyes closed and looking fully convinced that I was dead, must have been vastly amusing to the two young ladies, who had followed Aunt Jerusha to the door. They laughed as if I had been the prince of clowns, and had just performed a most funny trick in the ring. I began to feel as if I had, too.

Aunt rushed forward and gave me a shake.

"Another blunder, John," she said; "it's plain as the nose on a man's face that Providence never intended you to commit suicide."

And then Blue-Eyes, repressing her mirth, came forward, half shy and half coaxing, and said to me:

"How my sister and I would feel if you had killed yourself on our account! Come! do please show us the way to our boarding-house. Mamma will be so anxious about us."

Cunning witch! she knows, how to twist a man around her little finger.

"Come," she continued, "let _me_ untie this ugly rope."

And I did let her, and picked up my hat to walk with them to the Widow Cooper's.

They made themselves very agreeable on the way--so that I would think no more of hanging myself, I suppose.

Only one more little incident occurred on the road. We met a tramp. He was a roughly-dressed fellow, with a straw hat such as farmers wear, whose broad brim nearly hid his face. He sauntered up impudently, and, before we could pa.s.s him, he chucked Blue-Eyes under the chin. In less than half a second he was flying backward over the rail fence, although he was a tall fellow, more than my weight.