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I felt more than melancholy I felt mad. I resented the tricks of the fair ones. And I made a mighty resolution! "Never never never," said I, between my clenched teeth, "will I again be guilty of the crime of bashfulness never!" I felt that I could face a female regiment all Babbletown! I was indignant; and there's nothing like honest, genuine indignation to give courage. Oh, I'd show 'em.
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!
Well, things went on as it greased; the girls mostly stayed away the Babbletown girls, for they had guilty consciences, I suspect; and in February there came a thaw.
Six or eight more were peeping out of the sitting-room, where they were laying the table for tea. Babbletown always did seem to me to have more than its fair share of female population. I think I would like to live in one of those mining towns out in Colorado, where women are as scarce as hairs on the inside of a man's hand. Somebody coughed as I was going up the walk.
I did not feel like staying for the ice-cream and kissing-plays, but had a sly hunt for my hat, and took leave of the tea-party about the eighth of a second afterward. Babbletown began to be very lively as soon as the weather got cool, the fall after I came home.
There was no refusing under the circumstances, and I said "yes" with the same gaiety with which I would have signed my own death-warrant. Yet I wanted to go to the picnic, dreadfully; and of all the young ladies in Babbletown I preferred Belle Marigold. She was the handsomest and most stylish girl in the county.
That evening, as father and mother were sitting down to their solitary but excellent tea, I walked in on 'em. "No more foreign trips for me," said I; "I will stick to Babbletown, and try and stand the consequences." About four days after this, father laid a letter on the counter before me a large, long, yellow envelope, with a big red seal. "Read that," was his brief comment.
"I will not live," I moaned, "to be the laughing stock of Babbletown. I will buy some more." "John," said my father, weeping, "arouse yourself! You shall leave this place, if you desire it only live! I will get you the position of weather-gauger on top of Mount Washington, if you say so, but don't commit any more suicide, my son!"
The next afternoon I measured off four yards of the sweetest sash-ribbon ever seen in Babbletown, and charged myself with seven dollars half my month's salary, as agreed upon between father and me and rolled up the ribbon in white tissue paper, preparatory to the event of the evening. "Where are you going?" father asked, as I edged out of the store just after dark. "Oh, up the street a piece."
I exclaimed in desperation, drawing out the right package at last, and myself displaying to her dazzled view the four yards of glittering ribbon. "There's not another in Babbletown so handsome. Wear it for my sake, Belle!" "I will," she sighed, after she had secretly rubbed it, and held it to the light to make sure of its quality. "I will, John, for your sake."
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