“It depends upon what sort of a story it is,” said she, colouring.
“Oh, yes,” said the Campbell girls, who didn’t appear quite so skittish as she was, “do tell us, no doubt you will make a funny one out of it. Come, begin.”
Squire, you are older than I be, and I suppose you will think all this sort of thing is clear sheer nonsense, but depend upon it a kiss is a great mystery. There is many a thing we know that we can’t explain, still we are sure it is a fact for all that. Why should there be a sort of magic in shaking hands, which seems only a mere form, and sometimes a painful one too, for some folks wring your fingers off amost, and make you fairly dance with pain, they hurt you so. It don’t give much pleasure at any time. What the magic of it is we can’t tell, but so it is for all that. It seems only a custom like bowing and nothing else, still there is more in it than meets the eye. But a kiss fairly electrifies you, it warms your blood and sets your heart a beatin’ like a brass drum, and makes your eyes twinkle like stars in a frosty night. It tante a thing ever to be forgot. No language can express it, no letters will give the sound. Then what in natur is equal to the flavour of it? What an aroma it has! How spiritual it is! It ain’t gross, for you can’t feed on it; it don’t cloy, for the palate ain’t required to test its taste. It is neither visible, nor tangible, nor portable, nor transferable. It is not a substance, nor a liquid, nor a vapour. It has neither colour nor form. Imagination can’t conceive it. It can’t be imitated or forged. It is confined to no clime or country, but is ubiquitous. It is disembodied when completed, but is instantly reproduced, and so is immortal. It is as old as the creation, and yet is as young and fresh as ever. It preëxisted, still exists, and always will exist. It pervades all natur. The breeze as it passes kisses the rose, and the pendant vine stoops down and hides with its tendrils its blushes, as it kisses the limpid stream that waits in an eddy to meet it, and raises its tiny waves, like anxious lips to receive it. Depend upon it Eve learned it in Paradise, and was taught its beauties, virtues, and varieties by an angel, there is something so transcendent in it.
How it is adapted to all circumstances! There is the kiss of welcome and of parting, the long-lingering, loving present one, the stolen or the mutual one, the kiss of love, of joy, and of sorrow, the seal of promise, and the receipt of fulfilment. Is it strange therefore that a woman is invincible whose armoury consists of kisses, smiles, sighs, and tears? Is it any wonder that poor old Adam was first tempted, and then ruined? It is very easy for preachers to get up with long faces and tell us he ought to have been more of a man. My opinion is, if he had been less of a man, it would have been better for him. But I am not agoin’ to preach; so I will get back to my story; but, Squire, I shall always maintain to my dying day, that kissing is a sublime mystery.
“Well,” sais I, “ladies, I was broughten up to home, on my father’s farm, and my edecation, what little I had of it, I got from the Minister of Slickville, Mr Joshua Hopewell, who was a friend of my father’s, and was one of the best men I believe that ever lived. He was all kindness and all gentleness, and was at the same time one of the most learned men in the United States. He took a great fancy to me, and spared no pains with my schooling, and I owe everything I have in the world to his instruction. I didn’t mix much with other boys, and, from living mostly with people older than myself, acquired an old-fashioned way that I have never been able to shake off yet; all the boys called me ‘Old Slick.’ In course, I didn’t learn much of life that way. All I knew about the world beyond our house and hisin, was from books, and from hearing him talk, and he convarsed better than any book I ever set eyes on. Well, in course I grew up unsophisticated like, and I think I may say I was as innocent a young man as ever you see.”
Oh, how they all laughed at that! “You ever innocent!” said they. “Come, that’s good; we like that; it’s capital! Sam Slick an innocent boy! Well, that must have been before you were weaned, or talked in joining hand, at any rate. How simple we are, ain’t we?” and they laughed themselves into a hooping-cough amost.
“Fact, Miss Janet,” said I, “I assure you” (for she seemed the most tickled at the idea of any of them) “I was, indeed. I won’t go for to pretend to say some of it didn’t rub off when it became dry, when I was fishing in the world on my own hook; but, at the time I am speaking of, when I was twenty-one next grass, I was so guileless, I couldn’t see no harm in anything.”
“So I should think,” said she; “it’s so like you.”
“Well, at that time there was a fever, a most horrid typhus fever, broke out in Slickville, brought there by some shipwrecked emigrants. There was a Highland family settled in the town the year afore, consisting of old Mr Duncan Chisholm, his wife, and daughter Flora. The old people were carried off by the disease, and Flora was left without friends or means, and the worst of it was, she could hardly speak a word of intelligible English. Well, Minister took great pity on her, and spoke to father about taking her into his house, as sister Sally was just married, and the old lady left without any companion; and they agreed to take her as one of them, and she was in return to help mother all she could. So, next day, she came, and took up her quarters with us. Oh my, Miss Janet, what a beautiful girl she was! She was as tall as you are, Jessie, and had the same delicate little feet and hands.”
I threw that in on purpose, for women, in a general way, don’t like to hear others spoken of too extravagant, particularly if you praise them for anything they hain’t got; but if you praise them for anything they pride themselves on, they are satisfied, because it shows you estimate them also at the right valy, too. It took, for she pushed her foot out a little, and rocked it up and down slowly, as if she was rather proud of it.