Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 October 1875 — BIBBS: A LOVE STORY. [ARTICLE]

BIBBS: A LOVE STORY.

There was no doubt about it; John Weare was perfectly wretched that night. He had quarreled with Jennie Bell and he wasn’t going to make it up. The fact was she gave herself too many airs, and he didn’t mean to stand it any longer. He didn’t care if she was pretty; that was no reason why she should let half a dozen fellow's at a time hang about the shop or stroll in one at a time and, leaning on their elbows, chatter and smirk and smile over the counter, cadets and officers, too, wild young fellows, who only did so for their own Idle amusement, and would no more dream of marrying her than they w'ould of inviting her to the ball that was coining* 1 off next month. To be sure, he was only a common cavalry soldier, but then he had been in the service a good many years now r , had an excellent character, and a good trade at his back, and, moreover, his father had died not long since, and there was the cottage all ready for Jennie to walk into, and they might settle down at once if she’d only be sensible. Jennie acted as shop-woman for her sister, Mrs. Evans. A very noor little shop it was, very small and badly stocked, for Mrs. Evans had only managed to get a few pounds’ worth of things with what had been subscribed for her in the garrison after the fever had carried off her husband. The speculation answ ? ered pretty well at first, for many of the officers’ wives, knowing what an industrious woman Mrs. Evans was, made a point of buying their tapes and cottons and sticks of sealingwax of her. Then Jennie’s pretty face was seen behind the counter, and the shop was filled from morning to night with officers and frisky young cadets, and the original customers took flight—though Mrs. Evans did not know it, for she, believing the business was safe in the keeping of Jennie, worked hard at the dressmaking (she had three children to support, and the shop alone would Hot do it). The officers were not profitable customers, for they only went to flirt with Jennie under the excuse of buying a penny Saper, or perhaps asking for a time-table. ennie made the most trim and pretty Sand obliging of shop-women, and the place itself was always a pattern of neatness ; but the officers’ wives did not care to go and buy their thread where they were evidently interrupting a flirtation, and so the business continued to fall off, and Mrs. Evans began to get quite unhappy about it. Jennie—pretty, kind-hearted, thoughtless Jennie—had no idea that she had anything to do with it, or she would have sent every one of her admirers off at a pace that would have astonished them. She had been only too delighted, after her brother-in-law died, to come from Devonshire and live with, her sister at Wool-

wich —not only because she was very fond of her sister, but also because she had wished many times to see John again. She had made his acquaintance when her brother and he—for they had been in the same regiment—were stationed at Plymouth, and she had made them a flying visit with her father. John had told her then that he was tired of the service and wanted to settle down, and she inwardly thought that he could do no better than ask her to settle with him. He had been very attentive when she came to Woolwich, and gradually established himself on the footing of a lover till he found the shop always filled with officers and cadets. At first he was shy of appearing before his superiors, then he got jealous and at last angry, for he felt and knew that they meant her no good, and besides it was doing real injury to the business ot the shop. At last he spoke his mind and told the coquettish Jennie what he thought, and was snubbed for his pains. If you think I don’t know how to take care of myself, Mr. Weare, you are much mistaken, and I don’t want anyone to tell me what’s right or wrong. I know for myself.” “ Well, Miss Jennie, I didn’t mean to give offense. I only told you what I thought.” “Then you might have kept your thoughts to yourself,” she said with a little toss of her pretty head—“ unless they had been nice ones,” she added. He heard the aside, and picked up his courage. “ It’s awfully hard, too, when one that cares for you really can’t get near you,” he pleaded. Just then Jennie caught sight of Capt. McGee, a tall and handsome man, with long whiskers and a red nose, coming in the direction of the shop, with a big bunch of flowers in his hand. She had heard John Weare’s last words, but she was sefcrefly of opinion that “ he' ought to have come up to the scratch before,” so she thought a little jealousy might da him good. “Oh! here comes Capt. McGee,” she said .in a delighted tone. “ Well, he’s just the biggest blackleg in the service, Jennie, and if you take my advise yoU’H send him off sharp.” “I believe you are jealous, Mr? Weare, and telling stories about the Captain; he is always very polite to me,” and she smoothed her pretty hair and arranged the trifles on the counter. “ Oh, lie’s polite enough, no doubt.” " “ And he’s bringing me some flowers.” “JNow, look here, Jennie, are you going to take them ?” “ Of course I am.”

“ Well, then, good-by.*V “ Good-by,” she laughed. Of course she knew he wouldn’t go. “Jennie, he’ll be in directly and I shall be off, but you must choose between him and me. IF you are going to keep on talking to him I shall never come in the place again—so which is it to be?” “The Captain.” “ But lam not joking. I’ll never see you again.” “ No more am I joking, so good-by.” . “ Good-by"—and he went. 4* n. He kept resolutely away for a whole month—never once went near the place. If Jennie wanted him she might send for him or- get her sister to invite him to tea as she had done before. But John Weare was not sent for, neither was' he invited to tea, and his spirits began to wax low. “If she’d cared about me she’d have got in my way somehow' before this—trust a woman,” he thought. The idea of not being cared for was not cheerful. That night he strolled 'dtirelessly by the shop but on the opposite side of the way. Nothing was to be seen of Jennie. He walked on in a brown study, then crossed over and went deliberately by the shop, with only one eye, however, turned in its direction, but not a sign of Jennie. He w T ent back to the barracks in a dejected frame of mind.

“It’s an awful pity—such a nice girl; and there’s the cottage all ready for her to step into and me ready to retire from the service and a good trade at my back; it’s too bad, all along of that Capt. McGee, too. And the fruit in the garden (of the cottage) all ripe and no one to pick it.” The very next morning John Weare walked deliberately into the shop and asked for a penny newspaper, and had the felicity of being served by Mrs. Evans. “ Quite a stranger, Mr!’ Weare,” she said; but that was the only remark she made, and for the life of him he could not screw up his eburage to ask for her sister. That night John Weare was miserable. “She can't care a rush for me,” he thought,, and marched all over the tow r n, and nearly to Greenwich and back, in his excitement. The next day was a lucky one for John. He came across Bibbs. Bibbs was Mrs. Evans’ eldest boy. No one knew what his real name w r as, or why he was called Bibbs; but he was never called anything else. “ Bibbs,” said John Weare, “ come and have some fruit,” and he carried him off in triumph to the cottage, and stuffed him with gooseberries till he couldn’t move, and with black currants till his mouth was as black as a crow. Then he carried him inside and stood him on the table, and sat down before him. “How old are you, Bibbs?” He thought it bettef to begin the conversation with a question. “Five and a half. Is that your sword up there ?” “Yes. Who gave you those bronze shoes, Bibbs?” Now he knew Jennie had given them to him, but he wanted to hear her name. “Auntie. She’s going away soon,” he added. “ Let me look at your sword now.” “Where’s shading to?” he asked in consternation. .“Devonshire. Do let me try on your sword.” * “ Why is she going?” he asked, with a sick feeling at his hearty She’s ill, I think; and she’s always crying now; one day she was crying over her silver thing you gave her, and kissing it like anything.” Thp “silver thing” was a little heart of about the size of a shilling, which he had bought at Charlton Fair last October and timidly requested her to accept. John Weare jumped up and showed

Bibbs his sword, and carried him on his back all over the place and entreated him to have more black currants in his delight. But Bibbs declined. “ Aunt Jennie’s going to bring me some from Eltham to-night,” lie said. So Jennie was gbing to Eltliam, was she? John Weare took Bibbs home, and on his way presented him with a white woolly lamb that moved on wheels aud‘ squeaked, and a monkey that went up a stick on being gently pushed. “Cryingover her silver thing!” said J ohn Weare. “I’ll go and hang about the Eltham road till I see her and beg her pardon.” ,

And he went and Jennie met him and pouted and declared she hadn’t once thought of him, and then broke down and crie.a. And John begged her pardon, and declared that he had been a heartless brute; and then Jennie contradicted him and said it was all her fault, and told him how Mrs. Dunlop, the Colonel’s wife, had one day walked in and told her in the kindest possible manner that she was spoiling her sister’s business, for the ladies who had been interested in her welfare kept away because of Jennie’s flirting propensities, which filled up the shop with idle officers, who were always in the way; and how she had been so ashamed and wretched, and so cut up at the desertion of John Weare, that she had determined to go back to Devonshire. “ But you won’t now?” he said, as they leaned over the stile leading to the Eltham fields. “You’ll get ready at once, and we’ll be married as soon as possible, before the fruit in the garden is spoilt?” It took a long time to talk her into it (about three-quarters of an hour), but then she was very happy at heart, and chattered like a young magpie, and told John how she had snubbed Capt. McGee, and had thrown all his flowers out of the window. “ And it really was all through that dear Bibbs that you waylaid me to-night ?” she asked; “ Certainly.” “ Why, but for him I might never have seen you again!” “ Perhaps not.” “ I’ll give Bibbs a regular hug when I get home,” she thought. And she did; and the day before she was married she bought him a rocking-horse, which he delights in to this day.— Cassell's Family Magazine.