... Johnny Blunt’s Courtship
After the sleigh ride last winter and the slippery tricks served by Patty Bean, nobody would suspect Johnny Blunt hankering after women again in a hurry. To hear him rave and take on, and rail out against the whole feminine gender, you would have taken it for granted that he would never look at one again, to all eternity.
Johnny did take an oath and swore if he ever meddled, or had any dealings with women again—in the sparking line, he meant—he might be hung or choked. But swearing off women, and then going into a meeting house chock full of gals, all shining and glistening in their Sunday clothes and clean faces, is like swearing off liquor and going into a grog shop—it’s all smoke.
Johnny held out pretty well for three whole Sundays but on the fourth there were strong symptoms of a change. A chap looking very much like Johnny, was seen on his way to the meeting house, with a new patent hat on, his head hung by the ears upon a shirt-collar, his cravat had a pudding in it, and branched out in front into a double-bow-knot. He carried a straight back, and a stiff neck, as a man ought to when he has his best clothes on, and every time he spit, he sprung his body forward like a jack-in-the-box, in order to shoot clear of the ruffles.
Squire Jones’ pew was next but two to Johnny’s and when Johnny stood up he naturally looked straight at Sally Jones.
Now Sally had a face not to be grinned at in a fog. She was easy to look at and Johnny succumbed.
Squire Jones had got his evening fire on and set himself to read the great Bible, when he heard a rap at his door.
“Walk in. Well John, howder do? Git out Pompey!”
“Pretty well, I thank you Squire; and how do you do?”
“Why, so as to be crawling. Ye ugly beast, will ye hold yer yop! Haul up a chair and sit down, John.”
“How do you do, Mrs. Jones?”
“Oh, middlin’. How’s yer marm?”
“Don’t forget the mat there Mr. Blunt.”
This put Johnny in mind that he had been off soundings several times in the long muddy lane, and that his boots were in a sweet pickle.
It was now old Captain Jones’ turn, the grandfather. Being roused from a doze by the bustle and rattle, he opened both his eyes, at first with wonder and astonishment. At last, he began to halloo so loud that you could hear him a mile, for he took it for granted that everybody is just as exactly deaf as he is.
“Who is it, I say? Who in the world is it?”
Mrs. Jones going close to his ear, screamed out, “It’s Johnny Blunt!”
“Ho, Johnny Blunt! I remember he was one summer at the siege of Boston.”
“No, no, father; bless your heart, that was his grandfather, that’s been dead and gone this twenty years!”
“Ho! But where does he come from?”
“Daown taown.”
“Ho! And what does he foller for a livin’?”
And he did not stop asking questions after this sort, till all the particulars of the Blunt family were published and proclaimed by Mrs. Jones’ screech. Then he sunk back into his doze again.
The dog stretched himself before one andiron, the cat squat down before the other. Silence came on by degrees, like a calm snowstorm, till nothing was heard but a cricket under the hearth, keeping time with a sappy yellow birch forestick. Sally sat up prim as if she were pinned to the chairback, her hands crossed genteelly upon her lap, and her eyes looking straight into the fire.
For Johnny’s part he sat looking very much like a fool. The more he tried to say something, the more his tongue stuck fast. He put his right leg over his left, and said “Hem!” Then he changed, and put the left over the right. It was no use, the silence kept coming thicker and thicker. Drops of sweat began to crawl all over him. He got his eye upon his hat, hanging on a peg by the door, and then he eyed the door. At this moment, the old Captain all at once sung out:
“Johnny Blunt!”
It sounded like a clap of thunder and Johnny started right up on end.
“Johnny Blunt, you’ll never handle sich a drumstick as your father did, if you live to the age of Methuselah. He would toss up drumsticks, and while it was wheelin’ in the air, turn twice around, and then ketch it as it come down, without losin’ a stroke in the tune. What d’ye think of that, ha? But scull your chair round close alongside er me, so you can hear. Now what have you come arter?”
“I arter? Oh, jist takin’ a walk. Pleasant walkin’. I guess I mean, jist to see how ye all do.”
“Ho, that’s another lie! You’ve come a courtin, Johnny Blunt, and you’re a’ter our Sal. Say, now, do you want to marry, or only to court?”
This was a choker. Poor Sally made but one jump, and landed in the middle of the kitchen; and then she skulked in the dark corner, till the old man, after laughing himself breathless, was put to bed.
Then came apples and cider, and the ice being broke, plenty of chat with Mammy Jones about the minister and the “sarmon.”
At last, Mrs. Jones lighted t’other candle, and after charging Sally to look well to the fire, she led the way to bed, and the Squire gathered up his shoes and stockings and followed.
Sally and Johnny were left sitting a good yard apart. For fear of getting tongue-tied again, Johnny set right in with a steady stream of talk. He told her all the particulars about the weather that was past, and also made some pretty ’cute guesses at what it was like to be in the future. Johnny gave a gentle hitch to his chair until finally he planted himself fast by Sally’s side.
“I swow, Sally, you looked so plaguy handsome today, that I wanted to eat you up!”
“Pshaw! Get along with you,” said she.
Johnny’s hand had crept along, somehow, upon its fingers, and began to scrape acquaintance with hers. She sent it home with a desperate jerk. Try it again—no better luck.
“Why, Miss Jones, you’re gettin’ upstroperlous; a little old maidish, I guess.”
“Hands off is fair play, Mr. Blunt.”
Johnny finally managed not only to get hold of Sally’s hand but managed to slip his arm around her waist. But not satisfied with this he began to go poking out his lips for a kiss. But he rued it for Sally fetched him a slap in the face, that made him see stars, and set his ears to ringing like a brass kettle, for a quarter of an hour.
“Ah, Sally, give me a kiss, and ha’ done with it, now?”
“I won’t, so there, nor tech to—”
“I’ll take it whether or no.”
“Do it, if you dare!”
How a bus will crack of a still, frosty night! Mrs. Jones was about halfway between asleep and awake.
“There goes my yeast bottle,” says she to herself, “Burst into twenty hundred pieces; and my bread is all dough again.”
The upshot of the matter is that Johnny fell in love with Sally Jones, head over ears. Every Sunday night, rain or shine, finds him rapping at Squire Jones’ door; and twenty times has he been within a hair’s breadth of popping the question. But now Johnny has made a final resolve. If he lives till next Sunday night, and doesn’t get choked in the trial, Sally Jones will hear thunder.
