Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor Volume II Part 21

Late that evening, after we had got home and dined, as I sat in my room over Pickwick with a sedative cigar, a gentle knock at the door told of Daniel. I called "Come in!" and entering with a slow, dejected air, he sat down by my fire. For ten minutes he remained silent, though occasionally looking up as if about to speak, then dropping his head again to ponder on the coals. Finally I laid down d.i.c.kens, and spoke myself.

"You don't seem well to-night, Daniel?"

"I don't feel very well, uncle."

"What's the matter, my boy?"

"Oh-ah, I don't know. That is, I wish I knew how to tell you."

I studied him for a few moments with kindly curiosity, then answered,--

"Perhaps I can save you the trouble by cross-examining it out of you.

Let's try the method of elimination. I know that you're not hara.s.sed by any economical considerations, for you've all the money you want; and I know that ambition doesn't trouble you, for your tastes are scholarly.

This narrows down the investigation of your symptoms--listlessness, general dejection, and all--to three causes,--dyspepsia, religious conflicts, love. Now, is your digestion awry?"

"No, sir; good as usual. I'm not melanancholy on religion, and"--

"You don't tell me you're in love?"

"Well--yes--I suppose that's about it, Uncle Teddy."

I took a long breath to recover from my astonishment at this unimaginable revelation, then said:

"Is your feeling returned?"

"I really don't know, uncle; I don't believe it is. I don't see how it can be. I never did any thing to make her love me. What is there in me to love? I've borne nothing for her,--that is, nothing that could do her any good,--though I've endured on her account, I may say, anguish. So, look at it any way you please, I neither am, do, nor suffer any thing that can get a woman's love."

"Oh, you man of learning! Even in love you tote your grammar along with you, and arrange a divine pa.s.sion under the active, pa.s.sive, and neuter!"

Daniel smiled faintly.

"You've no idea, Uncle Teddy, that you are twitting on facts; but you hit the truth there; indeed you do. If she were a Greek or Latin woman, I could talk Anacreon or Horace to her. If women only understood the philosophy of the flowers as well as they do the poetry"--

"Thank G.o.d they don't, Daniel!" sighed I, devoutly.

"Never mind,--in that case I could entrance her for hours, talking about the grounds of difference between Linnaeus and Jussieu. Women like the star business, they say,--and I could tell her where all the constellations are; but sure as I tried to get off any sentiment about them, I'd break down and make myself ridiculous. But what earthly chance would the greatest philosopher that ever lived have with the woman he loved, if he depended for her favor on his ability to a.n.a.lyze her bouquet or tell her when she might look out for the next occultation of Orion? I can't talk bread-and-b.u.t.ter talk. I can't do any thing that makes a man even tolerable to a woman!"

"I hope you don't mean that nothing but bread-and-b.u.t.ter talk is tolerable to a woman!"

"No; but it's necessary to some extent,--at any rate the ability is,--in order to succeed in society; and it's in society men first meet and strike women. And oh, Uncle Teddy! I'm such a fish out of water in society!--such a dreadful floundering fis.h.!.+ When I see her dancing gracefully as a swan swims, and feel that fellows, like little Jack Mankyn, who 'don't know twelve times,' can dance to her perfect admiration; when I see that she likes ease of manners,--and all sorts of men without an idea in their heads have that,--while I turn all colors when I speak to her, and am clumsy, and abrupt, and abstracted, and bad at repartee,--Uncle Teddy! sometimes (though it seems so ungrateful to father and mother, who have spent such pains for me)--sometimes, do you know, it seems to me as if I'd exchange all I've ever learned for the power to make a good appearance before her!"

"Daniel, my boy, it's too much a matter of reflection with you! A woman is not to be taken by laying plans. If you love the lady (whose name I don't ask you, because I know you'll tell me as soon as you think best), you must seek her companions.h.i.+p until you're well enough acquainted with her to have her regard you as something different from the men whom she meets merely in society, and judge your qualities by another standard than that she applies to them. If she's a sensible girl (and G.o.d forbid you should marry her otherwise), she knows that people can't always be dancing, or holding fans, or running after orange-ice. If she's a girl capable of appreciating your best points (and woe to you if you marry a girl who can't!), she'll find them out upon closer intimacy, and, once found, they'll a hundred times outweigh all brilliant advantages kept in the show-case of fellows who have nothing on the shelves. When this comes about, you will pop the question unconsciously, and, to adapt Milton, she'll drop into your lap 'gathered--not harshly plucked.'"

"I know that's sensible, Uncle Teddy, and I'll try. Let me tell you the sacredest of secrets,--regularly every day of my life I send her a little poem fastened round the prettiest bouquet I can get at Hanft's."

"Does she know who sends them?'"

"She can't have any idea. The German boy that takes them knows not a word of English except her name and address. You'll forgive me, uncle, for not mentioning her name yet? You see she may despise or hate me some day when she knows who it is that has paid her these attentions; and then I'd like to be able to feel that at least I've never hurt her by any absurd connection with myself."

"Forgive you? Nonsense! The feeling does your heart infinite credit, though a little counsel with your head would show you that your only absurdity is self-depreciation."

Daniel bid me good-night. As I put out my cigar and went to bed, my mind reverted to the dauntless little Hotspur who had spent the afternoon with me and reversed his mother's wish, thinking,--

"Oh, if Daniel were more like Billy!"

It was always Billy's habit to come and sit with me while I smoked my after-breakfast cigar, but the next morning did not see him enter my room till St. George's hands pointed to a quarter of nine.

"Well, Billy Boy Blue, come blow your horn; what haystack have you been under till this time of day? We sha'n't have a minute to look over our spelling together, and I know a boy who's going in for promotion next week. Have you had your breakfast, and taken care of Crab?"

"Yes, sir; but I didn't feel like getting up this morning."

"Are you sick?"

"No-o-o--it isn't that; but you'll laugh at me if I tell you."

"Indeed I won't, Billy!"

"Well,"--his voice dropped to a whisper, and he stole close to my side,--"I had such a nice dream about _her_ just the last thing before the bell rang; and when I woke up I felt so queer,--so kinder good and kinder bad,--and I wanted to see her so much, that if I hadn't been a big boy I believe I should have blubbered. I tried ever so much to go to sleep and see her again; but the more I tried the more I couldn't. After all, I had to get up without it, though I didn't want any breakfast, and only ate two buckwheat cakes, when I always eat six, you know, Uncle Teddy. Can you keep a secret?"

"Yes, dear, so you couldn't get it out of me if you were to shake me upside-down like a savings-bank."

"Oh, ain't you mean! That was when I was small I did that. I'll tell you the secret, though,--that girl and I are going to get married. I mean to ask her the first chance I get. Oh, isn't she a smasher!"

"My dear Billy, sha'n't you wait a little while to see if you always like her as well as you do now? Then, too, you'll be older."

"I'm old enough, Uncle Teddy, and I love her dearly! I'm as old as the kings of France used to be when they got married,--I read it in Abbott's histories. But there's the clock striking nine! I must run or I shall get a tardy mark, and, perhaps, she'll want to see my certificate sometimes."

So saying, he kissed me on the cheek and set off for school as fast as his legs could carry him. O Love, omnivorous Love, that sparest neither the dotard leaning on his staff nor the boy with pantaloons b.u.t.toning on his jacket,--omnipotent Love, that, after parents and teachers have failed, in one instant can make Billy try to become a good boy!

With both of my nephews hopelessly enamored, and myself the confidant of both, I had my hands full. Daniel was generally dejected and distrustful; Billy buoyant and jolly. Daniel found it impossible to overcome his bashfulness; was spontaneous only in sonnets, brilliant only in bouquets. Billy was always coming to me with pleasant news, told in his slangy New-York boy vernacular. One day he would exclaim,--"Oh, I'm getting on prime! I got such a smile off her this morning as I went by the window!" Another day he wanted counsel how to get a valentine to her,--because it was too big to shove in a lamp-post, and she might catch him if he left it on the steps, rang the bell, and ran away.

Daniel wrote his own valentine; but, despite its originality, that doc.u.ment gave him no such comfort as Billy got from twenty-five cents'

worth of embossed paper, pink cupids, and doggerel. Finally, Billy announced to me that he had been to play with Jimmy, and got introduced to his girl.

Shortly after this Lu gave what they call "a little company,"--not a party, but a reunion of forty or fifty people with whom the family were well acquainted, several of them living in our immediate neighborhood.

There was a goodly proportion of young folk, and there was to be dancing but the music was limited to a single piano played by the German exile usual on such occasions, and the refreshments did not rise to the splendor of a costly supper. This kind of compromise with fas.h.i.+onable gayety was wisely deemed by Lu the best method of introducing Daniel to the _beau monde_,--a push given the timid eaglet by the maternal bird, with a soft tree-top between him and the vast expanse of society. How simple was the entertainment may be inferred from the fact that Lu felt somewhat discomposed when she got a note from one of her guests asking leave to bring along her niece, who was making her a few weeks' visit.

As a matter of course, however, she returned answer to bring the young lady and welcome.

Daniel's dressing-room having been given up to the gentlemen I invited him to make his toilet in mine, and, indeed, wanting him to create a favorable impression, became his valet _pro tem._, tying his cravat, and teasing the divinity-student look out of his side-hair. My little dandy Billy came in for another share of attention, and when I managed to b.u.t.ton his jacket for him so that it showed his s.h.i.+rt-studs "like a man's," Count d'Orsay could not have felt a more pleasing sense of his sufficiency for all the demands of the gay world.

When we reached the parlor we found Pa and Ma Lovegrove already receiving. About a score of guests had arrived. Most of them were old married couples, which, after paying their devoirs, fell in two like unriveted scissors,--the gentlemen finding a new pivot in pa and the ladies in ma, where they mildly opened and shut upon such questions as severally concerned them, such as "the way gold closed," and "how the children were."

Besides the old married people there were several old young men of distinctly hopeless and unmarried aspect, who, having nothing in common with the other cla.s.s, nor sufficient energy of character to band themselves for mutual protection, hovered dejectedly about the arch pillars, or appeared to be considering whether, on the whole, it would not be feasible and best to sit down on the centre-table. These subsisted upon such crumbs of comfort as Lu could get an occasional chance to throw them by rapid sorties of conversation,--became galvanically active the moment they were punched up, and fell flat the moment the punching was remitted. I did all I could for them, but, having Daniel in tow, dared not sail too near the edge of the Doldrums, lest he should drop into sympathetic stagnation and be taken preternaturally bashful, with his sails all aback, just as I wanted to carry him gallantly into action with some clipper-built cruiser of a nice young lady. Finally, Lu bethought herself of that last plank of drowning conversationists, the photograph alb.u.m. All the dejected young men made for it at once, some reaching it just as they were about to sink for the last time, but all getting a grip on it somehow, and staying there in company with other people's babies whom they didn't know, and celebrities whom they knew to death, until, one by one, they either stranded upon a motherly dowager by the Fire-place Shoals, or were rescued from the Sofa Reef by some gallant wrecker of a strong-minded young lady, with a view to taking salvage out of them in the German.

Besides these, were already arrived a dozen nice little boys and girls, who had been invited to make it pleasant for Billy. I had to remind him of the fact that they were his guests, for, in comparison with the queen of his affections, they were in danger of being despised by him as small fry.

The younger ladies and gentlemen,--those who had fascinations to disport, or were in the habit of disporting what they considered such, were probably still at home consulting the looking-gla.s.s until that oracle should announce the auspicious moment for their setting forth.

Daniel was in conversation with a perfect G.o.dsend of a girl, who understood Latin and had begun Greek. Billy was taking a moment's vacation from his boys and girls, busy with "Old Maid" in the extension-room, and whispering with his hand in mine, "Oh, don't I wish _she_ were here!" when a fresh invoice of ladies, just unpacked from the dressing-room in all the airy elegance of evening costume, floated through the door. I heard Lu say,--