oyster stew,
salted her coffee, and insisted on her taking pickles with her
ice-cream. She didn't mind that so much, but when I stuffed my saucer
into my pocket, and conducted her into the coal-cellar instead of the
hall, she got out of patience. Father, I think I'd better go to
Arizona in the spring. I'm--"

"Go to grass! if you want to," was the unfeeling reply; "but don't you
ever go to another fair, unless I go along to take care of you."

But I think the bonfire made him feel better.

CHAPTER V.

HE COMMITS SUICIDE.

Two days after the fair (one day after the bonfire), some time during
the afternoon, I found myself alone in the store. Business was so dull
that father, with a yawn, said he guessed he'd go to the post-office
and have a chat with the men.

"Be sure you don't leave the store a moment alone, John," was his
parting admonition.

Of course I wouldn't think of such a thing--he need not have mentioned
it. I was a good business fellow for my age; the only blunders I ever
made were those caused by my failing--the unhappy failing to which I
have hitherto alluded.

I sat mournfully on the counter after father left me, my head
reclining pensively against a pile of ten-cent calicoes; I was
thinking of my grandmother's legacy gone up in smoke--of how Belle
looked when she found I had conducted her into the coal-cellar--of
those tidies, cradle-quilts, bib-aprons, dolls' and ladies' fixings,
which had been nefariously foisted upon me, a base advantage taken of
my diffidence!--and I felt sad. I felt more than melancholy--I felt
mad. I resented the tricks of the fair ones. And I made a mighty
resolution! "Never--never--never," said I, between my clenched teeth,
"will I again be guilty of the crime of bashfulness--_never_!"

I felt that I could face a female regiment--all Babbletown! I was
indignant; and there's nothing like honest, genuine indignation to
give courage. Oh, I'd show 'em. I wouldn't give a cent when the deacon
passed the plate on Sundays; I wouldn't subscribe to the char----

In the midst of my dark and vengeful resolutions I heard merry voices
on the pavement outside.

Hastily raising my head from the pile of calicoes, I saw at least five
girls making for the store door--a whole bevy of them coming in upon
me at once. They were the same rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed, deceitful,
shameless creatures who had persuaded me into such folly at the fair.
There was Hetty Slocum, the girl who co