Of course, I was in love with a girl much older than I, but the odor of petroleum, which, in spite of soap and water, maintained its hold upon me day and night, gave me the feeling of a tethered dog. Hope would not live with it, somehow. Then my face itself was so innocent of beard, beauty, or manliness. The little mirror which hung in a corner of the store flung back at me, always, a look of sheer contempt. One day, when I was alone, I took a store razor and began my first shave. As I went on, my face seemed to be enlarging and taking a highly serious view of itself. I stood by the mirror feeling it. As I did so, secret and burning thoughts began to move my tongue. Unconsciously I was talking to myself when I heard a loud guffaw. It was Bony Squares, lately returned from a far city to his home at Mill Pond. He was a printer who had travelled much, and could box and play ball and keep a crowd roaring on the store-steps every Saturday night. Moreover, he wore boiled shirts, and collars cut very low, and wonderful neckties of colored silk, and had a smart way with him.
“Ah, ha!” he exclaimed, “you've been a-shav-ing yerself!”
I smiled and blushed, and said nothing.
He dropped his walking-stick and hopped over it two or three times, and cackled, “Ha, ha! ho, ho! You're going to have a mustache, and then you're going to see a gal by the name o' Mary.”
It seemed as if ruin stared me in the face.
“Lend me two dollars,” Bony Squares demanded. “Come, be quick about, it or I'll tell on ye—hope t' die if I don't.”
It was to me a large sum, for my income was only four dollars and twenty-five cents a month. But my fear of ridicule had the persuasiveness of a thumb-screw. I had two dollars and nineteen cents that I had been saving for the fair at Heartsdale. With great solemnity I took the two-dollar bill out of my pocket and put it in the hand of my oppressor.
“I'm going for a drive to-night,” he said, as he took the money. “It's a matter of business that 'll pay me pretty well, and I may need some help. Come along, and I'll pay you back the money I've borrowed and a dollar besides.”
“Where to?” I inquired.
“Oh, down the country about fifteen miles. I'm going to get a Bungwood cow for a friend o' mine.”