HE ENJOYS HIMSELF AT A BALL.
Once more I was settled quietly down to my old life, clerking in my father's store. You would naturally suppose that my travels would have given me some confidence, and that I had worn out, as it were, the bashfulness of youth; but in my case this was an inborn quality which I could no more get rid of, than I could of my liver or my spleen.
I had never confessed to any one the episode of the giant-powder or the Chicago widow; but the story of the baby had crept out, through the conductor, who told it to the station-master. If you want to know how that ended, I'll just tell you that, maddened by the grins and giggles of the passengers, I started for the car door with that baby, but, in passing those three giggling young ladies, I suddenly slung the infant into their collective laps, and darted out upon the station platform. That's the way I got out of that scrape.
As I was saying, after all those dreadful experiences, I was glad to settle down in the store, where I honestly strove to overcome my weakness; but it was still so troublesome that father always interfered when the girls came in to purchase dry-goods. He said I almost destroyed the profits of the business, giving extra measure on ribbons and silks, and getting confused over the calicoes. But I'm certain the shoe was on the other foot; there wasn't a girl in town would go anywhere else to shop when they could enjoy the fun of teasing me; so that if I made a few blunders, I also brought custom.
Cold weather came again, and I was one year older. There was a grand ball on the twenty-second of February, to which I invited Hetty Slocum, who accepted my escort. We expected to have lots of fun. The ball-room was in the third story of the Spread-Eagle Hotel. There was to be a splendid supper at midnight in the big dining-room; hot oysters "in every style," roast turkey, chicken-pie, coffee, and all the sweet fixings.
It turned out to be a clear night; I took Hetty to the hotel in father's fancy sleigh, in good style, and having got her safely to the door of the ladies' parlor without a blunder to mar my peace of mind, except that I stepped on her slippered foot in getting into the sleigh, and crushed it so, that Hetty could hardly dance for the pain, I began to feel an unusual degree of confidence in myself, which I fortified by a stern resolution, on no account to get to blushing and stammering, but to walk coolly up to the handsomest girls and ask them out on the floor with all the self-possessed gallantry of a man of the world.
Alas! "the best-laid plans of mice an' men must aft gang," like a balky horse—just opposite to what you want them to. I spoke to my acquaintances in the bar-room easily enough, but when one after one the fellows went up to the door of the ladies' dressing-room to escort their fair companions to the ball-room, I felt my courage oozing away, until, under the pretext of keeping warm by the fire, I remained in the bar-room until every one else had deserted it. Then I slowly made my way up, intending to enter the gentlemen's dressing-room, to tie my white cravat, and put on my white kids. I found the room deserted—every one had entered the ball-room but myself; I could hear the gay music of the violins, and the tapping of the feet on the floor overhead. Surely it was time that I had called for my lady, and taken her up.
I knew that Hetty would be mad, because I had made her lose the first dance; yet, I fooled and fooled over the tying of my cravat, dreading the ordeal of entering the ball-room with a lady on my arm. At last it was tied. I turned to put on my gloves; then, for the first time, I was made aware that I had mistaken the room. I was in the ladies', not the gentlemen's dressing-room. There were the heaps of folded cloaks, and shawls, and the hoods. That very instant, before I could beat a retreat, I heard voices at the door—Hetty's among them. I glared around for some means of escape. There were none. What excuse could I make for my singular intrusion? Would it be believed if I swore that I had been unaware of the character of my surroundings? Would I be suspected of being a kleptomaniac? In the intensity of my mortification I madly followed the first impulse which moved me. This was to dive under the bed.
I had no more than taken refuge in this curious hiding-place, than I regretted the foolish act; to be discovered there would be infamy and disgrace too deep for words. I would have crawled out at the last second, but it was too late; I heard the girls in the room, and was forced to try and keep still as a mouse, though my heart thumped so I was certain they must hear it.
"Where do you suppose he has gone?" asked one.
"Goodness knows," answered Hetty. "I have looked in the gentlemen's room—he's not there. Catch me going to a ball with John Flutter again."
"It's a real insult, his not coming for you," added another; "but, la! you must excuse it. I know what's the trouble. I'll bet you two cents he's afraid to come up-stairs. He! he! he!"
Then all of them tittered "he! he! he" and "ha! ha! ha!"
"Did you ever see such a bashful young fellow?"
"He's a perfect goose!"
"Isn't it fun alive to tease him?"
"Do you remember when he tumbled in the lake?"
"Oh! and the time he sat down in the butter-tub?"
"Yes; and that day he came to our house and sat down in Old Mother Smith's cap instead of a vacant chair, because he was blushing so it made him blind."
"Well, if he hadn't crushed my foot getting into the sleigh, I wouldn't care," added Hetty, spitefully. "I shall limp all the evening."
"I do despise a blundering, stupid fellow that can't half take care of a girl."
"Yes; but what would you do without Mr. Flutter to laugh at?"
"That's so. As long as he stays around we will have somebody to amuse us."
"He'd be good-looking if he wasn't always so red in the face."
"If I was in his place I'd never go out without a veil."
"To hide his blushes?"
"Of course. What a pity he forgot to take his hat off in church last Sunday, until his mother nudged him."
"Yes. Did you hear it smash when he put his foot in it when he got up to go?"
Heavens and earth! There I was, under the bed, an enforced listener to this flattering conversation. My breast nearly burst with anger at them, at myself, at a cruel fate which had sent me into the world, doomed to grow up a bashful man. If, by falling one thousand feet plumb down, I could have sunk through that floor, I would have run the risk.
"You heard about the ba——" began Hetty.
It was too much! In my torment I moved my feet without meaning to, and they hit against the leg of the bedstead with some force.
"What's that?"
"A cat under the bed, I should say."
"More likely a rat. Oh, girls! it may gnaw our cloaks; mine is under there, I know."
"Well, let us drive it out."
"Oh! oh! oh! I'm afraid!"
"I'm not; I'm going to see what is under there."
My heart ceased to beat. Should I live to the next centennial, I shall never forget that moment.
The girl who had spoken last stooped and looked under the bed; this motion was followed by a thrilling shriek.
"There's a man under the bed!" she screamed.
The other girls joined in; a wild chorus of shrieks arose, commingled with cries of "Robber!" "Thief!" "Burglar!"
Urged to desperation, I was about to roll out from my hiding-place and make a rush to get out, hoping to pass unrecognized by covering my face with my hands, when two or three dozen young men swooped into the room.
"What is it?"
"Where?"
"A man under the bed!"
"Let me at the rascal!"
"Ha! come out here, you villain!"
All was over. They dragged me out, covered with dust and feathers, and, pulling my despairing hands from over my miserable face, they turned me to the light. Then the fury and the threats subsided. There was a moment's profound silence—girls and fellows stared in mute astonishment, and then—then broke from one and all a burst of convulsive laughter. And in the midst of those shrieks and groans of mirth at my expense, everything grew dark, and I suffered no more. They told me afterward that I fainted dead away.