Bunch Grass Part 15

"I've heard," said I, "that she can smack--hard."

"An' I'd be a liar if I denied it," replied Jasperson. "Wal, gen'lemen, I'm obligated to ye. Next Sabbath I'll wade right in."

Upon the following Sunday our hero rose betimes, tubbed himself, shaved himself, perfumed his small person with bergamot, and then arrayed it in the ivy-bosomed s.h.i.+rt and the $75 suit of broadcloth.

His toilet occupied just two hours and seventeen minutes. Ajax decorated the lapel of his coat with a handsome rosebud, and then the impatient swain tied round his neck a new white silk handkerchief, mounted his horse, and betook himself at a gallop to the village church. Ajax remarked with regret that the pace was too hot at the start, and feared that our colt would finish badly. As we walked back to the verandah, I told my brother that he had a.s.sumed a big responsibility; for I was convinced that Miss Dutton, albeit possessed of many admirable qualities, was not the woman to make little Jasperson either happy or comfortable. She, doubtless, being a wise bird, would greedily snap up this nice worm who had waxed fat in the richest soil. But how would the worm fare when swallowed up and absorbed?

At five that afternoon the amorous poet rode slowly up to the corral.

As he sat limply upon his sorrel horse, smiling dismally at Ajax, we could see that the curl was out of his moustache, and out of the brim of his sombrero; upon his delicate face was inscribed failure.

"Boys," said he, throwing one leg over the horn of the saddle; "I didn't get there. I--I mired down!"

Later, he gave us some interesting details. It transpired that he had met his sweetheart, after Sabbath-school, and had sat beside her during the regular service; after church he had accepted a warm invitation from Mrs. Swiggart to join the family circle at dinner. At table he had been privileged to supply Miss Birdie with many dainties: pickled cuc.u.mbers, cup-custards, and root beer. He told us frankly that he had marked nothing amiss with the young lady's appet.i.te, but that for his part he had made a sorry meal.

"My swaller," he said plaintively, "was in kinks before the boolyon was served."

"You say," murmured Ajax, "that Miss Dutton's appet.i.te was good?"

"It was just grand," replied the unhappy bard. "I never seen a lady eat cup-custards with sech relish."

"We may infer, then," observed my brother, "that Miss Birdie is still in happy ignorance of your condition; otherwise pity for you would surely have tempered that craving for cup-custards."

"I dun'no', boys, about that. Me an' Miss Birdie sung out o' the same hynm book, and--and I sort o' showed down. I reckon she knows what ails Jasper Jasperson."

Ajax unwisely congratulated the lovelorn one upon this piece of news.

He said that the Rubicon was now pa.s.sed, and retreat impossible. We noted the absence of the rosebud, and Jasperson blus.h.i.+ngly confessed that he had presented the flower to his best girl after dinner, an act of homage--so we presumed--in recognition of the lady's contempt of danger in mixing pickled cuc.u.mbers with cup-custards.

"After that," said Jasperson, "I thought of the alb.u.m, an' 'twas then my feet begun to get cold. But I up and as't to see it, as bold as a coyote in a hen-roost. Then she sez, kind of soft an' smilin': 'Why, Mister Jasper, what d'you want to see my alb.u.m for? you don't know my folks.'"

"A glorious opportunity," said Ajax. "What did you reply, my buck?"

"Dog-gone it! I'd ought to have sailed right in, but I sot there, s.h.i.+verin', an' said:' Oh! because ...' jest like a school-girl. And I could see that the answer made her squirm. She must ha' thought I was the awflest fool. But to save me that's all I could stammer out--'Oh, because ...'"

"Well," said Ajax, encouragingly, "the best of us may be confounded in love and war."

"You do put heart into a man," murmured the little fellow. "Wal, sir, we sot down an' looked through the alb.u.m. And on the first page was Miss Birdie's father, the mortician and arterialist."

"The what?" we exclaimed.

"Undertaker and _em_-bammer. He's an expert, too. Why, Miss Birdie was a-tellin' me--"

I ventured to interrupt him. "I don't think, Jasperson, I should like an undertaker for a father-in-law. Have you considered that point?"

"I have, gen'lemen. It might come in mighty handy. Wal, he was the homeliest critter I ever seen. I da.s.sn't ring in that little song an'

dance you give me. And on the nex' page was Mis' Dutton." He sighed softly and looked upward.

"The mother," said Ajax briskly. "Now, I dare swear that she's a good- looking woman. Nature attends to such matters. Beauty often marries the b---- the homely man."

"Mis' Dutton," said Jasperson solemnly, "is now a-singing in the heavenly choir, an' bein' dead I can't say nothing; but, gen'lemen, ye'll understand me when I tell ye that Miss Birdie never got her fine looks from her maw. Not on your life!"

"Doubtless," said Ajax sympathetically, "there was something in the faces of Miss Dutton's parents that outweighed the absence of mere beauty: intelligence, intellect, character."

"The old man's forehead is kind o' lumpy," admitted Jasperson, "but I didn't use that. I sot there, as I say, a-s.h.i.+verin', an' never opened my face. She then showed me her cousins: daisies they were and no mistake; but I minded what you said, an' when Miss Birdie as't me if they wasn't beauties, I sez no--not even good-lookin'; an', by golly!

she got mad, an' when I tetched her hand, obedient to orders, she pulled it away as if a tarantula had stung it. After that I made tracks for the barn. I tell ye, gen'lemen, I'm not put up right for love-makin'."

Ajax puffed at his pipe, deep in thought. I could see that he was affected by the miscarriage of his counsels. Presently he removed the briar from his lips, and said abruptly: "Jasperson, you a.s.sert that you showed down in church. What d'you mean by that? Tell me exactly what pa.s.sed."

The man we believed to be a laggard in love answered confusedly that he and Miss Dutton had been singing that famous hymn, "We shall meet in the sweet By-and-by." The congregation were standing, but resumed their seats at the end of the hymn. Under cover of much sc.r.a.ping of feet and rustling of starched petticoats, Jasperson had a.s.sured his mistress that the sweet By-and-by was doubtless a very pleasant place, but that he hoped to meet her often in the immediate future. He told us that Miss Birdie had very properly taken no notice whatsoever of this communication; whereupon he had repeated it, lending emphasis to what was merely a whisper by a sly pressure of the elbow. This, too, the lady had neither approved nor resented.

Upon this Ajax a.s.sured our friend that he need not despair, and he said that the vexed question of the fair's appet.i.te had been set at rest: a happy certainty was the sauce that had whetted her hunger.

Jasperson listened with sparkling eyes.

"Say," said he; "if you'll help me out, I'll write a letter to Miss Birdie this very night."

I frowned and expostulated in vain. Within two minutes, pens, ink and paper were produced, and both Jasperson and my brother were hard at work. Between them the following composition was produced. Jasperson furnished the manner, Ajax the matter.

"To Miss Birdie Dutton.

"Dear Friend,--Since leaving you this afternoon, _more abrupt than a gentleman could wish_, I have taken up my pen to set forth that which is in my heart, but which cannot leave my trembling lips. Dear friend, there is too much _at steak_ for me to be calm in your presence. When I sat by your side, and gazed with you at the n.o.ble faces of your parents, reading there, dear friend, the names of those great qualities which have been inherited by you, _with queenly beauty thrown in_, then it was that a sudden sinking inside robbed your lover of his powers of speech. And how could I see the loveliness of your cousins when my eyes were dwelling with rapture upon the stately form of her I trust to call my own? Be mine, dear friend, for I love you and hope to marry you, to part neither here nor in the sweet By-and-by.

"Yours respectfully,

"Jasper Jasperson.

"P.S.--_Important_. The ranch is four hundred and three acres, _paid for_. And there's money somewhere to build a nice residence, and to furnish it according to Hoyle. We'd keep a hired girl.

"P.P.S.--_And a pianner_. J.J.(_A true lover_)."

This billet-doux was sealed and despatched, and in due time brought an acceptance. The engagement was formally ratified at a banquet given by the Swiggarts, and the health of the high contracting parties was enthusiastically drunk in pink lemonade. The marriage was arranged to take place during the summer vacation, and Pacific Grove was selected as the best spot in California for the honeymoon.

Thus smoothly for a season ran the course of true love. But three weeks later, when the landscape was wearing its imperial livery of lupin and eschscholtizia, when the fields at night were white with moonflowers, when a glorious harvest was a.s.sured, and all beasts and birds and insects were garrulous of love and love's delight--upon May- day, in short--was disclosed a terrible rift within poor Jasperson's lute.

He had escorted his sweetheart to the annual picnic, and returning late at night found Ajax and me enjoying a modest nightcap before turning in. We asked him to join us, but he refused with some asperity, and upon cross-examination confessed that he had promised Miss b.u.t.ton to take the pledge at the next meeting of the lodge. Now, we knew that Jasperson was the pink of sobriety, but one who appreciated an occasional gla.s.s of beer, or even a mild c.o.c.ktail; and we had heard him more than once denounce the doctrines of the Prohibitionists; so we were quite convinced that meek submission to the dictates of the Grand Secretary of Corona Lodge was both unnecessary and inexpedient. And we said so.

"Birdie knows I don't drink," stammered our hired man, "but she thinks I'd ought to take the pledge as an example."

"An example," echoed Ajax. "To whom? To _us?_"

"She said an example, gen'lemen, jest--an example."

"But she meant us," said Ajax sternly. "Our names were mentioned.

Don't you deny it, Jasperson."

"They was," he admitted reluctantly. "She as't me, careless-like, if you didn't drink wine with your meals, and I said yes. I'd ought to have said no."

"What!" cried my brother, smiting the table till the decanter and gla.s.ses reeled. "You think that you ought to have lied on our account.

Jasperson--I'm ashamed of you; I tremble for your future as the slave of Miss Dutton."

"Wal--I didn't lie," said Jasperson defiantly; "I up and told her the truth: that you had beer for supper, and claret wine, or mebbe sherry wine, or mebbe both for dinner, and that you took a toddy when you felt like it, an' that there was champagne down cellar, an' foreign liquors in queer bottles, an' Scotch whisky, an'--_everything_.

She as't questions and I answered them--like an idiot! Gen'lemen, the shame you feel for me is discounted by the shame I feel for myself.