The Morning Call—A Coquette's Dressing Room.
Dear Par:
Arly the next morning, I got up and put on my new clothes agin, and sot afore the fire, thinking of eenamost every thing on arth, till the clock struck nine; then I slicked down my hair a leetle, and pulled foot up Broadway agin. I kinder expected every minit that I should meet Miss Miles, as I did yesterday; but somehow there didn't seem tu be any body a stirring. There warn't a single one of them whiskered chaps in sight, and all the women-folks that I could see, up or down, seemed tu have on nothing but their everyday clothes. I saw tew or three rale homespun, modest-looking young critters, but they warn't dressed up, and some on 'em were a carrying band-boxes and sich things afore them. Once I got allfired wrathy, for a nigger woman stood out on the stun side-walk with a great long brush in her hand, a scrubbing the winders of a big house with it; and jest as I come along, she give the brush a flourish, and sent a hull thunder-shower of dirty water all over my new clothes.
"You etarnal black nigger, you! you'd better look out, and keep your soap-suds for them that wants washing," sez I.
But she hee-he'd out a larfin, and begun tu brush away agin jest as if I hadn't said a word tu her. Think sez I, it wouldn't be jest the thing for any body tu see me a jawing here with a nigger wench, so I may as well grin and bear it, for I don't know of anything that proves a feller a leetle soft in the garret, so much as keeping up a quarrel with a person that is so much beneath him that there aint nothing tu be gained, though you du git the upper hand. So I choked in, and took out my hankercher and wiped off my coat-sleeves, and went along; but it warn't no easy matter tu navigate so as not tu git a second ducking, for every nigger in York seemed to be out a washing winders. I come near slipping up tew or three times, the stuns were so wet afore all the housen. I can tell you what, this going tu make morning calls ain't no joke, especially if a feller happens tu be dressed up. The niggers will sponge his coat for him, if the tailor forgot tu, without charging him for the trouble.
Jest afore I got up tu the great four-story house where Miss Miles lives, I begun to feel sort of anxious agin. Think sez I, what on arth shall I say tu her when I du get there? So I kept a thinking over a capital leetle speech that I meant tu make. I'd read in story-books about lovers that always went down on their knees when they talked soft sodder to sich stuck-up gals as Miss Miles; but tu save my life, I couldn't make up my mouth to it; the gal must be something more than common flesh and blood that would ever bring Jonathan Slick on his marrow bones, I'm thinking; so if she calculates that I'm a going to make such a mean coot of myself as that, why she may go to grass for what I care.
Besides, sez I tu myself, how on arth would I kneel down in these new-fashioned trousers, if I wanted tu ever so much; when arter putting one thing and another together, I made up my mind that kneeling down tu the gals must have gone out of fashion here in York when the chaps give up wearing them trousers puffed in at the waistbands. This kinder made my mind easy on that point; so I went on thinking over what I should say tu Miss Miles when I got tu her house.
Now it ain't no ways hard to make first-rate speeches up in a feller's head, when he's a going tu see a gal that he's a beginning tu take a shine arter; but somehow the worst on it all is, a chap al'ers forgets every word on it when he comes where the gal is.
I begun to grow awful uneasy jest afore I got to the house, and my heart sot to beating in my bosom, like the pestle in an old fashioned samp mortar. It seemed to me as if somebody was a looking arter me, and as if they knew that I was going a courting in broad daylight, which was enough to make any decent chap look sheepish that had never thought of making up to the gals only on a Sunday night arter dark, when these things seem to come nat'ral.
Wal, when I got agin the house, I took a squint up to the winders, for I thought mebby Miss Miles would be a looking out; but there warn't nobody to be seen, so I went up the wide marble steps, that looked as white as snow, with a great chunk of marble a curling down each side on 'em, and there I stood stock still, for my heart floundered about so that it eenamost choked me, and if I'd been hung I couldn't a got up pluck to pull the silver knob and make somebody come and let me in; for all the York people keep their doors fastened in the day time, so that if a feller's in ever so much of a hurry, he's got to stand out doors till a nigger comes to let him in.