|I NEVER wrote a novel, because I always thought it required more of
a mashed-rasp-berry imagination than I could muster, but I was the
business manager, once, for a year and a half, of a little two-bit
novelette that has never been published.
I now propose to publish it, because I cannot keep it to myself any
longer.
Allow me, therefore, to reminisce.
Harry Bevans was an old schoolmate of mine in the days of and although
Bevans was not his sure-enough name, it will answer for the purposes
herein set forth. At the time of which I now speak he was more bashful
than a book agent, and was trying to promote a cream-colored mustache
and buff "Donegals" on the side.
Suffice it to say that he was madly in love with Fanny Buttonhook, and
too bashful to say so by telephone.
Her name wasn't Buttonhook, but I will admit it for the sake of
argument. Harry lived over at Kalamazoo, we will say, and Fanny at
Oshkosh. These were not the exact names of the towns, but I desire to
bewilder the public a little in order to avoid any harassing disclosures
in the future. It is always well enough, I find, to deal gently will
those who are alive and moderately muscular.
Young Bevans was not specially afraid of old man Buttonhook, or his
wife. He didn't dread the enraged parent worth a cent. He wasn't afraid
of anybody under the cerulean dome, in fact, except Miss Buttonhook;
but when she sailed down the main street, Harry lowered his colors and
dodged into the first place he found open, whether it was a millinery
store or a livery stable.
Once, in an unguarded moment, he passed so near her that the gentle
south wind caught up the cherry ribbon that Miss Buttonhook wore at her
throat, and slapped Mr. Bevans across the cheek with it before he knew
what ailed him. There was a little vision of straw hat, brown hair,
and pink-and-white cuticle, as it were, a delicate odor of violets, the
"swish" of a summer silk, and my friend, Mr. Bevans, put his hand to his
head, like a man who has a sun-stroke, and fell into a drug store and a
state of wild mash, ruin and helpless chaos.
His bashfulness was not seated nor chronic. It was the varioloid, and
didn't hurt him only when Miss Buttonhook was present, or in sight. He
was polite and chatty with other girls, and even dared to be blithe and
gay sometimes, too, but when Frances loomed up in the distance, he would
climb a rail fence nine feet high to evade her.
He told me once that he wished I would erect the frame-work of a
letter to Fanny, in which he desired to ask that he might open up a
correspondence with her. He would copy and mail it, he said, and he was
sure that I, being a disinterested party, would be perfectly calm.
I wrote a letter for him, of which I was moderately proud. It would melt
the point on a lightning rod, it seemed to me, for it was just as full
of gentleness and poetic soothe as it could be, and Tupper, Webster's
Dictionary and my scrap-book had to give down first rate. Still it was
manly and square-toed. It was another man's confession, and I made it
bulge out with frankness and candor.
As luck would have it, I went over to Oshkosh about the time Harry's
prize epistle reached that metropolis, and having been a confidant
of Miss B's from early childhood, I had the pleasure of reading Bev's
letter, and advising the young lady about the correspondence.
Finally a bright thought struck her. She went over to an easy chair, and
sat down on her foot, coolly proposing that I should outline a letter
replying to Harry's, in a reserved and rather frigid manner, yet bidding
him dare to hope that if his orthography and punctuation continued
correct, he might write occasionally, though it must be considered
entirely _sub rosa_ and abnormally _entre nous_ on account of "Pa."
By the way, "Pa" was a druggist, and one of the salts of the
earth--Epsom salts, of course.
I agreed to write the letter, swore never to reveal the secret workings
of the order, the grips, explanations, passwords and signals, and then
wrote her a nice, demure, startled-fawn letter, as brief as the collar
to a party dress, and as solemn as the Declaration of Independence.
Then I said good-by, and returned to my own home, which was neither
in Kalamazoo nor Oshkosh. There I received a flat letter from 'William
Henry Bevans, inclosing one from Fanny, and asking for suggestions as
to a reply. Her letter was in Miss Buttonhook's best vein. I remember
having written it myself.
Well, to cut a long story short, every other week I wrote a letter for
Fanny, and on intervening weeks I wrote one for the lover at Kalamazoo.
By keeping copies of all letters written, I had a record showing where I
was, and avoided saying the same pleasant things twice.
Thus the short, sweet summer scooted past. The weeks were filled
with gladness, and their memory even now comes back to me, like a
wood-violet-scented vision. A wood-violet-scented vision comes high, but
it is necessary in this place.
Toward winter the correspondence grew a little tedious, owing to the
fact that I had a large, and tropical boil on the back of my neck, which
refused to declare its intentions or come to a focus for three weeks. In
looking over the letters of both lovers yesterday, I could tell by the
tone of each just where this boil began to grow up, as it were, between
two fond hearts.
This feeling grew till the middle of December, when there was a red-hot
quarrel. It was exciting and spirited, and after I had alternately
flattered myself first from Kalamazoo and then from Oshkosh, it was
a genuine luxury to have a row with myself through the medium of the
United States mails.
Then I made up and got reconciled. I thought it would be best to secure
harmony before the holidays so that Harry could go over to Oshkosh and
spend Christmas. I therefore wrote a letter for Harry in which he said
he had, no doubt, been hasty, and he was sorry. It should not occur
again. The days had been like weary ages since their quarrel, he
said--vicariously, of course--and the light had been shut out of his
erstwhile joyous life. Death would be a luxury unless she forgave him,
and Hades would be one long, sweet picnic and lawn festival unless she
blessed him with her smile.
You can judge how an old newspaper reporter, with a scarlet imagination,
would naturally dash the color into another man's picture of humility
and woe.
She replied--by proxy--that he was not to blame. It was her waspish
temper and cruel thoughtlessness. She wished he would come over and take
dinner with them on Christmas day and she would tell him how sorry she
was. When the man admits that he's a brute and the woman says she's
sorry, it behooves the eagle eye of the casual spectator to look up into
the blue sky for a quarter of an hour, till the reconciliation has had
a chance and the brute has been given time to wipe a damp sob from his
coat-collar.
I was invited to the Christmas dinner. As a successful reversible
amanuensis I thought I deserved it. I was proud and happy. I had passed
through a lover's quarrel and sailed in with whitewinged peace on time,
and now I reckoned that the second joint, with an irregular fragment
of cranberry jelly, and some of the dressing, and a little of the white
meat please, was nothing more than right.
Mr. Bevans forgot to be bashful twice during the day, and even smiled
once also. He began to get acquainted with Fanny after dinner, and
praised her beautiful letters. She blushed clear up under her "wave,"
and returned the compliment.
That was natural. When he praised her letters I did not wonder, and
when she praised his I admitted that she was eminently correct. I never
witnessed better taste on the part of two young and trusting hearts.
After Christmas I thought they would both feel like buying a manual and
doing their own writing, but they did not dare to do so evidently. They
seemed to be afraid the change would be detected, so I piloted them into
the middle of the succeeding fall, and then introduced the crisis into
both their lives.
It was a success.
I felt about as well as though I were to be cut down myself, and married
off in the very prime of life. Fanny wore the usual clothing adopted
by young ladies who are about to be sacrificed to a great horrid man. I
cannot give the exact description of her trousseau, but she looked like
a hazel-eyed angel, with a freckle on the bridge of her nose. The
groom looked a little scared, and moved his gloved hands as though they
weighed twenty-one pounds apiece.
However, it's all over now. I was up there recently to see them. They
are quite happy. Not too happy, but just happy enough. They call their
oldest son Birdie. I wanted them to call him William, but they were
headstrong and named him Birdie. That wounded my pride, and so I called
him Earlie Birdie.