crape.

As I was saying, after all those dreadful experiences, I was glad to
settle down in the store, where I honestly strove to overcome my
weakness; but it was still so troublesome that father always
interfered when the girls came in to purchase dry-goods. He said I
almost destroyed the profits of the business, giving extra measure on
ribbons and silks, and getting confused over the calicoes. But I'm
certain the shoe was on the other foot; there wasn't a girl in town
would go anywhere else to shop when they could enjoy the fun of
teasing me; so that if I made a few blunders, I also brought custom.

Cold weather came again, and I was one year older. There was a grand
ball on the twenty-second of February, to which I invited Hetty
Slocum, who accepted my escort. We expected to have lots of fun. The
ball-room was in the third story of the Spread-Eagle Hotel. There was
to be a splendid supper at midnight in the big dining-room; hot
oysters "in every style," roast turkey, chicken-pie, coffee, and all
the sweet fixings.

It turned out to be a clear night; I took Hetty to the hotel in
father's fancy sleigh, in good style, and having got her safely to the
door of the ladies' parlor without a blunder to mar my peace of mind,
except that I stepped on her slippered foot in getting into the
sleigh, and crushed it so, that Hetty could hardly dance for the pain,
I began to feel an unusual degree of confidence in myself, which I
fortified by a stern resolution, on no account to get to blushing and
stammering, but to walk coolly up to the handsomest girls and ask them
out on the floor with all the self-possessed gallantry of a man of
the world.

Alas! "the best-laid plans of mice an' men must aft gang," like a
balky horse--just opposite to what you want them to. I spoke to my
acquaintances in the bar-room easily enough, but when one after one
the fellows went up to the door of the ladies' dressing-room to escort
their fair companions to the ball-room, I felt my courage oozing away,
until, under the pretext of keeping warm by the fire, I remained in
the bar-room until every one else had deserted it. Then I slowly made
my way up, intending to enter the gentlemen's dressing-room, to tie my
white cravat, and put on my white kids. I found the room
deserted--every one had entered the ball-room but myself; I could hear
the gay music of the violins, and the tapping of the feet on the floor
overhead. Surely it was time that I had called