en away at a boys' academy for
three years, and returned about the first of June to my parents and to
Babbletown to find that I was considered a young man, and expected to
take my part in the business and pleasures of life as such. My father
dismissed his clerk and put me in his place behind the counter of our
store.

Within three days every girl in that village had been to that store
after something or another--pins, needles, a yard of tape, to look at
gloves, to _try on shoes_, or examine gingham and calico, until I was
happy, because out of sight, behind a pile high enough to hide my
flushed countenance. I shall never forget that week. I ran the
gauntlet from morning till night. I believe those heartless wretches
told each other the mistakes I made, for they kept coming and coming,
looking as sweet as honey and as sly as foxes. Father said I'd break
him if I didn't stop making blunders in giving change--he wasn't in
the prize-candy business, and couldn't afford to have me give
twenty-five sheets of note paper, a box of pens, six corset laces, a
bunch of whalebones, and two dollars and fifty cents change for a
two-dollar bill.

He explained to me that the safety-pins which I had offered Emma Jones
for crochet-needles were _not_ crochet-needles; nor the red wafers I
had shown Mary Smith for gum-drops, gum-drops--that gingham was not
three dollars per yard, nor pale-blue silk twelve-and-a-half cents,
even to Squire Marigold's daughter. He said I must be more careful.

"I don't think the mercantile business is my _forte_, father," said I.

"Your fort!" replied the old gentleman; "fiddlesticks! We have nothing
to do with military matters. But if you think you have a special call
to anything, John, speak out. Would you like to study for the
ministry, my son?"

"Oh, no, indeed! I don't know exactly what I would like, unless it
were to be a Juan Fernandez, or a--a light-house keeper."

Then father said I was a disgrace to him, and I knew I was.

On the fourth day some young fellows came to see me, and told me there
was to be a picnic on Saturday, and I must get father's horse and
buggy and take one of the girls. In vain I pleaded that I did not know
any of them well enough. They laughed at me, and said that Belle
Marigold had consented to go with me; that I knew her--she had been in
the store and bought some blue silk for twelve-and-a-half cents a
yard; and they rather thought she fancied me, she seemed so ready to