|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 57
The third day of my attendance at school was stormy, and my home being
at some distance, I was obliged to remain, with most of the others,
through the noon intermission. The little girls got to playing at pawns.
I retreated to a corner near the door, and stood a silent and not
unterrified spectator.
By-and-by, a cherry-lipped little girl had to pay a forfeit, and one of
her schoolmates pronounced the sentence, in a loud voice:
"Kiss Apron-string Sunderland!"
That meant me. There was a wild scream of laughter, in which all joined,
and I took ingloriously to flight, with little Cherry-lips close at my
heels. I strained every nerve and sinew--it was a matter of life and
death to me--and I have no doubt but I should have won the race in fine
style, if I had not, unfortunately, in my blind haste, run against Miss
Patty Hanson, the primest and worst tempered spinster in Hallswell.
My _momentum_ was such that I knocked Miss Patty from _terra firma_, very
much as the successful ball knocks down the nine-pins; and the _debris_
of the wreck--consisting of a fractured umbrella, a torn calico gown, and
a fearfully dislocated bonnet--Miss Hanson rose up--a Nemesis! And such a
thrashing as I received, at her hand, would have made the blackest
villain out of purgatory confess his sins without prevarication!
I had heard my mother say that no one died till their time had come, and
I felt satisfied that my time _had_ come. I vainly endeavored to repeat,
"Now I lay me down to sleep!"
as both fitting and appropriate to the occasion; but Miss Patty thumped
the words out of me, to the tune of the Umbrella Quickstep, in staccato.
Little Cherry-lips came nobly to the rescue.
"For shame! Miss Hanson," she cried, "to beat a little boy at such a
rate! It won't mend your umbrella, nor straighten your calash! And the
perspiration is washing the paint all out of your cheeks!"
My enemy left me to fly at my defender, whose name was Florence Hay. But
Florence was a little too agile for the old lady, whom she speedily
distanced, while I made good my escape into the sheltering foliage of
an apple-tree, where, securely perched on a strong limb, I remained until
school was out, and the girls had all gone home.
After a time, at my urgent entreaties, my parents removed me from the
village-school, and placed me at an institute for boys. I had thought,
previously to the change, that I should be perfectly happy when it was
effected; but I had, somehow, miscalculated. I missed the bewitching
faces of the girls I had fled from, and, for the first time in my life,
I realized that the world would be a terrible humdrum sort of a place if
there were nothing but men here.
To confess the plain truth, I had discovered that, in spite of my
bashfulness, I loved every single girl I had ever seen--not even
excepting good black Bess in my mother's kitchen, who concocted such
admirable turnovers and seedcakes. But at that time, sooner than have
acknowledged such a weakness, I would have been broiled alive.
As I grew toward manhood, my bashfulness got no better. It was confirmed;
it had become a chronic disease, as irremediable as the rheumatism, and a
thousand times more distressing.
I was frequently invited to quiltings, apple parings, huskings, etc.; but
I never dared to go, lest I should be expected to have something to say
to some of the feminine portion of the company.
If my mother sent me on any errand to a house where there were girls, I
used to stand a half hour on the door step, waiting for courage to rap;
and if one of the aforesaid girls happened to answer the summons, it was
with the greatest difficulty that I could restrain myself from taking
refuge in flight. And after I had got in, and made known my business,
I knew no more what was told me in return than we know why the comet of
last summer had a curved train.
At church, I habitually sat with averted face, and cut my finger nails;
in fact I had performed that operation for those digital ornaments so
often that there was very little left of them to practice upon. I most
devoutly wished that it had been so that folks could have been created
with knitting-work, or something of the kind, in their hands--it would
have been so nice when one didn't know what to do with his upper
extremities.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|