It warn't a mite of wonder that the musicianers made me jump so when I was in the entry way, for clear on t'other eend of the room was a long pen chuck full and running over with fiddlers, base drums, and great brass horns, all pulling and blowing and thumping away like all natur; didn't they send out the music!—never on arth did I hear any thing like it! It made me choke and sigh and ketch my breath like a dying hen; and all I could du, my feet would keep going over the steps, and my yaller gloves seemed as if they never would git still agin, they kept so busy a beating time on the leg of my new trousers. Jest over the pen where the fiddlers sot, hung a great picter as big as the side of a house. I thought of what you said about theatres being filled with picters of the devil's own painting; but I couldn't make up my mind that that was one on 'em, for it was so green and cold, and a pale man, pictered out on a heap of stuns in the middle on it, looked as shivery as if he'd had a fit of the fever and ague—besides there was water painted out, and every body knows that Old Scratch aint tee-total enough to paint a picter chuck full of clouds and water and sich like, without one spark of fire to make him feel to hum in his own premises.
By-am-by sich sights of the people, all dressed off as if they were a going to a general training ball, kept a pouring in through the leetle doors in the galleries till the seats were all chuck full; such a glistening of harnsome eyes and feathers, and flowers, I never did see. A purty leetle gal cum and sot close down by me, and now and then I took a slanting squint at her; by hokey, she was a slick leetle critter, with the consarnedest soft eyes I ever looked into.
I wonder what on arth is the reason that I can't sit down by a harnsome gal, but my heart will begin to flounder about like a fish jest arter he's hooked. Think, sez I, if there's any dancing a going on to-night, darn me if I don't shin up to that gal for a partner. But, where on arth the folks were a going tu find a place to dance in I couldn't make out, for in the hull building there warn't room enough tu hang up a flax-seed edgeways.
I was jest a going tu ask cousin John about it, when the fiddles pulled up a minit, and all tu once that great picter give a twitch, and up it went like a streak of chalk, into the ruff, or the Lord knows where. I jumped right on eend, I was so struck with what I see.
Clear back where the curtain had been was a purty little garden, as nat'ral as one of our onion patches. It was chuck full of trees and flowers, and a snug leetle house stood on one side; clear back, jest under the edge of the sky, lay the soft water, looking as blue and still as could be. What to make on it I couldn't tell; it warn't like a picter, and yet I couldn't think how on arth there could be room enough tu have sich a place near the theatre. While I sot there a bending for'ard with one of my yaller gloves pressed down on each knee, and staring like a stuck pig with my mouth a leetle open, a lot of folks dressed off in short jackets and trousers cut off at the knees, come a dancing out of the house, and begun tu talk all at once, and chatter and laugh together as chipper as a flock of birds. They seemed as happy as clams in high water; and the fellers skipped and hung round the gals like good fellers.
But the gals were dressed out too bad. I'll be darned if some of 'em didn't make me feel streaked, their frocks were so short. They didn't seem tu make no bones of showing their legs half-way tu their knees. I swanny if I wasn't ashamed of the purty gal that sot by me. Think sez I, if she don't blush and feel all overish I'm mistaken. Arter a while, I give her a slantidicular squint, but she sot as still as a kitten, and looking as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, but was a staring right straight at the garden without seeming to mind the gals' legs a bit more than if they had been so many broom sticks.
It warn't a great while afore I didn't seem to mind it much either, for a little old comical looking chap come out in front of the garden, and begun to chatter and larf, and fling his arms about every which way, and to tell about some young gal that was a going to be married. Madeline, he called her.
Wal, while he was a talking, a feller, all in red regimentals, come round the house, as big as my pussey cousin, with a set of letters in his hand, and blowing a tin toot-horn, as if he wanted us all tu come tu dinner. He turned to be a sort of post-rider, with letters; he give one to the funny old chap that owned the house, but it only had another letter in it, and that was for the gal that was a going tu be married.
I begun to feel awful curious tu see that gal, arter hearing them talk about her so much; but the post-office feller cut up his shines, and ordered the folks about as obstroperous as my pussey cousin; a prime chap he was—and I took a sort of a notion to him, he acted out so slick.