Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 September 1875 — THE BASHFUL LOVER. [ARTICLE]

THE BASHFUL LOVER.

John Patterson was driving his venerable horse slowly homeward from the little village of Briarton. They were passing the low-lying farm of Nathan Wynne, and John, without daring for the life of him to turn his head, rolled his great black eyes toward the substantial stone farm-house in the hope of catching a glimpse of Kitty, the farmer’s comely daughter. But, 'though John kept his eyes turned in their sockets till his head ached fearfully, he saw nothing of Kitty. John was desperately in love ’with Kitty Wynne and had been for many a day, and yet dared not tell her so. Tell her that he loved her and ask her to marry him ? Why, he would not so much as look at her when there was any danger of his being caught at it for the world, and simply because he could not, for it was John’s misfortune to be excessively bashful. He generally made out to bow to her when he met' her, but even that always brought a great lump into his throat and turned his face the color of a peony. As Johnqvasseito-tver-a-'Hile knoil and out of— -stgliGof--the- house, the farmer’s great orchard—the trees ready to break down under their weight of ripe fruit — was before him. “ What a while that miller kept me waiting for my grist. I’m as hungry as a bear. I must have a pocketful of those yellow beauties to eat on my way home.” And with this John drew rein on his horse, scaled the fence and struck, out in a bee line for his favorite tree. He knew as well as Farmer Wynne did, and in fact every man and boy around knew, just where the best apples were to be found, for Nathan was not one of those men whom large and small boys of predatory habits designate as a “ stingy old blinks.” His fruit was as free to all as the water in the little brook which divided the orchard by its never-ceasing flow. John had filled his pockets, and was about to retrace his steps to the wagon when he caught the flutter of a pink dress through a cluster of quince trees, and heard Kitty's merry voice in conversation with some one. Stealing a hasty glance through the trees John recognized Kitty’s companion to be her cousin, Hetty Shaw, from the village. They were coming directly toward the tree under which John was standing. What in the world Was he to do? He did not fancy running away like a detected thief, and his trembling knees and palpitating heart warned him that if he would not die then and there he must seek a place of concealment. To add to John’s bucketful of embarrassment on this occasion he was conscious that he was not in the least “fixed up.” He was in his every-day garb, and there was a huge black patch on the knee of his gray pantaloons; and John hated patches because he was poor and obliged to wear them. The sleeves of his coat were far too short, as also the legs of his pants, and to make tfle matter worse his clothes-were covered with flour which he had somehow got on while he was waiting for his grist at the mill. John glanced upTnto the tree, bub the foliage was not thick, ami there was little chance for a hiding-place there. Near the tree was an inverted hogshead, which had been used as a stand from which to pick apples from the tree. The hogshead had once been used as a temporary clog-kennel, and a hole perhaps eighteen inches in diameter had been made to admit the dog. There was no time to be lost. -The hogshead afforded the only retreat within the trembling young man’s reach, and he was not long in squeezing himself inside of it. The girls came on and sat down on the grass right where John, by stooping down and peering through the circular hole, could watch them. Kitty, he thought, looked prettier and brighter than ever in her pink dress, and the sun, which was settling into the west, made her brown hair ag golden as the apples in her lap. Kitty held up an apple by the stem, saying: “ Name it, Hetty; but not Will Joyce, _.nor,Jefry Davis, nor ” M There, stop; the apple is named,’? said Hetty, merrily. Kitty pared and ate her apple, carefully saving* all the seeds. When she had them all in her chubby hand she held them*out for Hetty to spell the name. Touching each seed with her finger, Hetty spelled: “ J-o-h-n P-a-t-t-e-r-s-o-n.” “It spells it exactly. Why, Kitty, what are you blushing so for? One would think that fellow’s name was spelled out in your heart in indelible letters by the way you look.” Kitty said nothing, though she looked uncommonly sober for her, John thought, and he wondered if the girls didn’t hear his heart beat; he thought they must, it

was thumping away so furiously. He thought, too, that Kitty was angry that anyone would suppose that she cared for him. How t humbly he felt; he could scarce have told why; and how his cheeks burned with the flush of wounded pride. “ Now, really, Kitty,” said her cousin, with a bantering laugh, “if you don’t drive away that forlorn look I shall think you care more than your pride will let you acknowledge for that great, awkward booby, who hasn’t tlie courage, nor never will have, to ask you to have him.” “ Hush, Hetty!” said Kitty, as she rose to her feet, and her cheeks glowed with a flush of deepest crimson. “You do not know John Patterson we do, or you would not utter what you have. He is. not awkward at home with his mother. You ought to see how kind and considerate he is to her. Father drops in there often, and he says there isn’t a more noblehearted man to be found. Yesterday, you, Hetty, were making game of John because he wears clothes that are patched and oldfashioned. John is industrious, and do you know what he does with his money ? Father says he is paying off the mortgage on his mother’s little farm, and that when he has a few dollars more than are necessary for a payment he expends it for books. Mark my word, lletty, John Patterson will yet be a man that you will be proud to class among your friends. He has intellect of no common order. It’s only his great bashfulness that keeps him back now.” • “ Now, Kitty, you are too absurd,” and Hetty laughed as though she thought her' companion in jest. “ Well, it is leapyear; you had better offer yourself to this paragon. I don’t believe he will refuse.” “ I know no one whom I would sooner marry—so, there!” And Kitty’s face was scarlet with blushes as she made this frank acknowledgment. But John was not looking at her now. He was crouched in the most remote -part of the hogshead, trying, by various gestures, to drive away a huge nfastiff which threatened to make his whereabouts known. The sun had gone down, and John’s hungry horse had quietly walked off home, and still the two girls chatted away. “ Well, Bruno, what have you got in there? I’m sure you’ve been whining and pawing there for half an hour, at least.” And lletty came forward and patted the dog’s hairy back with her hands. “ Why, Kitty, there is some dreadful animal in here. What apair ofeyesithas! Are there any wild-cats in the woods? Thank my nerves, if uncle and Charley are away, I can fire a gun. I’ll soon know what that horrid creature is. In my opinion, here is where your geese have gone to. I’ll warrant the ground in there is strewn with bones. ‘ You and Bruno keep watch while ! run to the house for a gun.” Hetty had rattled all this off in a breathless fashion, and before Kitty had time to look at the “dreadful animal,’’ only the great, luminous eyes of which fbuld be seen, her cousin was on her way to the house.

What was John to do now? Stay where he was and be shot by the courageous little Hetty, or crawl from his lair like a Hottentot from his hut, and right before Kitty’s eyes, too? The faithful dog began to wag his tail and whine with renewed animation, and John thought the gun must be coming surely. Life was sweeter to him now, since hearing what Kitty had said of himself, than ever before, and, creeping to the opening, he began the get-ting-out process. Kitty, who was peering anxiously in, saw that “ the creature” was moving—that it was coming toward her —and giving a spasmodic little scream she sank helplessly to the ground, and covered her face with her apron. Kitty’s distress made John for the moment forget that he was the most bashful man alive, and surely the arms which Kitty felt encircling her waist were not those of a wild beast. Knowing this, it did not need a great ariiount of courage to enable her to-uncover her fiiceand see that the great eyes which had so frightened her belonged to John Patterson. It was strange that neither she nor John, during the half hour they tarried together under the apple-tree, thought of Hetty or the gun she had gone to bring. Perhaps neither would have remembered Hetty’s boasted “ nerve” in connection with the use of that weapon again had not that young lady herself two years later reminded a certain happy bridegroom and his equally happy bride of the incident, and informed them that she knew all the time that John was in the hogshead, as she saw him put himself there, and that Tier part of the conversation under the apple-tree was indulged in solely with a view to encourage the bashful lover to propose. Mrs. John Patterson scolded her cousin-bride-maid for her duplicity, but for all that it was plain to be seen she was no£ angry, especially since Hetty had that very day acknowledged that she was proud to class her cousin’s handsome husband among her friends.— N. Y. Weekly. —The Dover (Tenn.) Record states that while a little daughter of Mrs. Nancy Haskins, of Houston County, was asleep on the floor in its mother’s house it “ cried that a rail had fallen on its finger and smashed it.” The mother, thinking the child was dreaming, paid no attention to it. When daylight came a sight appeared to her gaze that chilled her blood. By the side of the pallet was a rattlesnake some three and a half feet in length, and in the mouth of which was the child’s thumb. The noise made by the mother startled the snake, which glided through the crack. Upon examination of the child’s thumb it was found to be lacerated very much and torn by the fangs of the snake, the effect of which was soon visible on the child, and at one time it was thought impossible to save its life, but it was saved, we learn, by a remedy of Dr. Nixon, of that county, which is moss made into tea and drank, and used also as a poultice. The snake was killed the same morning by some young men. —“My son,” said a stern father to a seyen-year-old hopeful,‘“l must discipline you. Your teacher says you are the worst boy in the school.” “’Well, papa,” was the reply, “only yesterday she told mC 1 was just like my father.”