r a whole month.

When we came to talk the matter over seriously--father and I--it was
found to be too late in the season to procure me the Mount Washington
appointment for the winter; besides, the effect of my attempt to
"shuffle off this mortal coil" was to literally overrun our store with
customers. People came from the country for fifteen miles around, in
ox teams, on horse-back, in sleighs and cutters, and bob-sleds, and
crockery-crates, to buy something, in hopes of getting a glimpse of
the bashful young man who swallowed the pizen. Now, father was too
cute a Yankee not to take advantage of the mob. He forgot his
promises, and made me stay in the store from morning till night, so
that women could say: "I bought this 'ere shirting from the young man
who committed suicide; he did it up with his own hands."

"I'll give you a fair share o' the profits, John," father would say,
slyly.

Well, things went on as it greased; the girls mostly stayed away--the
Babbletown girls, for they had guilty consciences, I suspect; and in
February there came a thaw. I stood looking out of the store window
one day; the snow had melted in the street, and right over the stones
that had been laid across the road for a walk, there was a great
puddle of muddy water about two yards wide and a foot deep. I soon saw
Hetty Slocum tripping across the street; she came to the puddle and
stood still; the soft slush was heaped up on either side--she couldn't
get around and she couldn't go through. My natural gallantry got the
better of my resentment, and I went out to help her over,
notwithstanding what she had said when I was under the counter.
Planting one foot firmly in the center of the puddle and bracing the
other against the curb-stone, I extended my hand.

"If you're good at jumping, Miss Slocum," said I, "I'll land you
safely on this side."

"Oh," said she, roguishly, "Mr. Flutter, can I trust you?" and she
reached out her little gloved hand.

All my old embarrassment rushed over me. I became nervous at the
critical moment when I should have been cool. I never could tell just
how it happened--whether her glove was slippery, or my foot slipped on
a piece of ice under slush, or what--but the next moment we were both
of us sitting down in fourteen inches of very cold, very muddy water.

[Illustration: THE NEXT MOMENT WE WERE BOTH OF US SITTING DOWN IN
FOURTEEN INCHES OF VERY COLD, VERY MUDDY WATER.]

My best beaver hat flew off and was