There is nothing that is more touching than the gallantry of men, total
strangers, to a lady who has met with an accident. Any man who has a
heart in him, who sees a lady whose apparel has become disarranged
in such a manner that she cannot see it, will, though she be a total
stranger, tell her of her misfortune, so she can fix up and not be
stared at. But sometimes these efforts to do a kindly action are not
appreciated, and men get fooled.
This was illustrated at Watertown last week. People have no doubt
noticed that one of the late fashions among women is to wear at the
bottom of the dress a strip of red, which goes clear around. To the
initiated it looks real nice, but a man who is not posted in the
fashions would swear that the woman's petticoat was dropping off, and
if she was not notified, and allowed to fix it, she would soon be in a
terrible fix on the street.
It was a week ago Monday that a lady from Oshkosh was at Watertown on
a visit, and she wore a black silk dress with a red strip on the bottom.
As she walked across the bridge Mr. Calvin Cheeney, a gentleman whose
heart is in the right place, saw what he supposed would soon be a
terrible accident, which would tend to embarrass the lady, so he stepped
up to her in the politest manner possible, took off his hat and said:
“Excuse me, madame, but I think your wearing apparel is becoming
disarranged. You might step right into Clark's, here, and fix it,” and
he pointed to the bottom of her dress.
She gave him a look which froze his blood, and shaking her dress out she
went on. He said it was the last time he would ever try to help a woman
in distress.
She sailed along down to a grocery store and stopped to look at some
grapes, when the practiced eye of Hon. Peter Brook saw that something
was wrong. To think is to act with Peter, and he at once said:
“Miss, your petticoat seems to be dropping off. You can go in the store
and get behind that box of codfish and fix it if you want to.”
Now that was a kind thing for Peter to do, and an act that any gentleman
might be proud of, but he was amazed at her when she told him to mind
his own business, and she would attend to her own petticoat, and she
marched off just a trifle mad.
She went into the postoffice to mail a postal card, just as Mr. Moak,
the postmaster, came out of his private office with Hon. L. B. Caswell,
the congressman. Mr. Moak, without the aid of his glasses, saw that
there was liable to be trouble, so he asked Caswell to excuse him a
moment, and turning to the delivery window where she was asking the
clerk what time the mail came in, he said:
“I beg a thousand pardons, madame. It ill becomes a stranger to speak
to one so fair without an introduction, but I believe that I am not
violating the civil service rules laid down by Mr. Hayes for the
guidance of postmasters when I tell you, lady, that something has broke
loose and that the red garment that you fain would hide from the gaze
of the world has asserted itself and appears to the naked eye about two
chains and three links below your dress. I am going abroad, to visit Joe
Lindon, the independent candidate for sheriff, and you can step into the
back office and take a reef in it.”
He did not see the look of fire in her eyes as he went out, because he
was not looking at her eye. She passed out, and Doc Spaulding, who has
got a heart in him as big as a box car, saw it, and touching his broad
brimmed felt hat he said, in a whisper:
“Madame, you better drop into a millinery store and fasten up your--”
But she passed him on a run, and was just going into a hardware store,
with her hand on her pistol pocket, when Jule Keyes happened along. Now,
Jule would consider himself a horse thief if he should allow a woman to
go along the street with anything the matter with her clothes, and he
not warn her of the consequences, so he stopped and told her that she
must excuse him, a perfect stranger, for mentioning her petticoat, but
the fact was that it was coming off.
By this time the woman was mad. She bought a pistol and started for the
depot, firmly resolved to kill the first man that molested her. She did
not meet anybody until she arrived at the Junction, and she sat down in
the depot to rest before the train came.
Pierce, the hotel man, is one of the most noticin' persons anywhere,
and she hadn't been seated a York minute before his eye caught the
discrepancy in her apparel. He tried to get the telegraph operator and
the express man to go and tell her about it, but they wouldn't, so he
went and took a seat near her.
“It is a warm day, madame,” said Pierce, looking at the red strip at the
bottom of her dress.
She drew her pistol, cocked it, and pointed it at Pierce, who was
trembling in every leg, and said:
“Look-a-here, you young cuss. I have had half a dozen grown persons down
town tell me my petticoat was coming off, and I have stood it because I
thought they were old enough to know what they were talking about, but
when it comes to boys of your age coming around thinking they know
all about women's clothes it is too much, and the shooting is going to
commence.”
Mr. Pierce made one bound and reached the door, and then got behind a
white grey hound and waited for her to go away, which she soon did. As
she was stepping on the car the conductor, Jake Sazerowski, said to
her:
“Your apparel, madame, seems to be demoralized,” but she rushed into the
car, and was seen no more.
Since then these gentlemen have all learned that the fashion calls for a
red strip at the bottom of a dress, and they will make no more mistakes.
But they were all serious enough, and their interference was prompted by
pure kindness of heart, and not from any wicked thoughts.