HE DOES HIS DUTY AS A CITIZEN.
Babbletown began to be very lively as soon as the weather got cool,
the fall after I came home. We had a singing-school once a week, a
debating society that met every Wednesday evening, and then we had
sociables, and just before Christmas a fair. All the other young men
had a good time. Every day, when some of them dropped in the store for
a chat and a handful of raisins, they would aggravate me by asking:
"_Aren't_ we having a jolly winter of it, John?"
_I_ never had a good time. _I_ never enjoyed myself like other folks.
I spent enough money and made enough good resolutions, but something
always occurred to destroy my anticipated pleasure. I can't hear a
lyceum or debating society mentioned to this day, without feeling
"cold-chills" run down my spine.
I took part in the exercises the evening ours was opened. I had been
requested by the committee to furnish the poem for the occasion. As I
was just from a first-class academy, where I had read the valedictory,
it was taken for granted that I was the most likely one to "fill the
bill."
I accepted the proposition. To be bashful is a far different thing
from being modest. I wrote the poem. I sat up nights to do it. The way
candles were consumed caused father to wonder where his best box of
spermacetis had gone to. I knew I could do the poetry, and I firmly
resolved that I would read it through, from beginning to end, in a
clear, well-modulated voice, that could be heard by all, including the
minister and Belle Marigold. I would not blush, or stammer, or get a
frog in my throat. I swore solemnly to myself that I would not. _Some
folks_ should see that my bashfulness was wearing off faster than the
gold from an oroide watch. Oh, I would show 'em! Some things could be
done as well as others. I would no longer be the laughing-stock of
Babbletown. My past record should be wiped out! I would write my poem,
and I would _read it_--read it calmly and impressively, so as to do
full justice to it.
I got the poem ready. I committed it to memory, so that if the lights
were dim, or I lost my place, I should not be at the mercy of the
manuscript. The night came. I entered the hall with Belle on my arm,
early, so as to secure her a front seat.
"Keep cool, John," were her whispered words, as I left her to take my
place on the platform.
"Oh, I shall be cool enough. I know every line by heart; have said it
to myself one hundred and nineteen times without missing a word."
I'm not going to bore you with the poem here; but will give the first
four lines as they were _written_ and as I _spoke_ them:
"Hail! Babbletown, fair village of the plain!
Hail! friends and fellow-citizens. In vain
I strive to sing the glories of this place,
Whose history back to early times I trace."
The room was crowded, the president of the society made a few opening
remarks, which closed by presenting Mr. Flutter, the poet of the
occasion. I was quite easy and at home until I arose and bowed as he
spoke my name. Then something happened to my senses, I don't know
what; I only knew I lost every one of them for about two minutes. I
was blind, deaf, dumb, tasteless, senseless, and feelingless. Then I
came to a little, rallied, and perceived that some of the boy were
beginning to pound the floor with their heels. I made a feint of
holding my roll of verses nearer the lamp at my right hand, summoned
traitor memory to return, and began:
"Hail!"
Was that my voice? I did not recognize it. It was more as if a mouse
in the gallery had squeaked. It would never do. I cleared any
throat--which was to have been free from frogs--and a strange, hoarse
voice, no more like mine than a crow is like a nightingale, came out
with a jerk, about six feet away, and remarked, as if surprised:
"Hail!"
With a desperate effort, I resolved that this night or never I was to
achieve greatness. I cleared the way again and recommenced:
"Hail!"
A boy's voice at the back of the room was heard to insinuate that
perhaps it would be easier for me to let it snow or rain. That made me
angry. I was as cool as ice all in a moment; I felt that I had the
mastery of the situation, and, making a sweeping gesture with my left
hand, I looked over my hearers' heads, and continued:
"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 "scraps" 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
"scraps," 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 butter in three
minutes out of a quart of chalk-and-water, a set of ladies' nightcaps,
two child's aprons, 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 assured 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
embarrassed 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 grass! 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.