The Fatal Glove by Clara Augusta Jones Trask

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"But what will he think?" asked Florence Hay, softly. "He is so bashful!
Goodness! Kate, how can I?"

"Nonsense! You must pay the forfeit, or your thimble remains in my
possession! I won't be coaxed over, this time!" returned Kate,
decisively.

There was a slight scuffle, and then the eager hands of the coterie
began to pull away my fortifications. I resisted with the strength of
desperation, but I was no match for a dozen frolicsome girls. They
unswathed me, and while four of them held my two arms, Florence Hay
kissed me. Mahomet! Such a thrill as went through my heart! I devoutly
wished that she would repeat the experiment; but, instead of doing so,
she scampered from the room, followed by her boisterous companions.
Completely overcome, I crept under the bed, where I remained until
nightfall sent our merry visitors to their several homes.

Well, the years passed on, and brought my eighteenth birthday. I had lost
nothing of my besetting difficulty. My mother was thoroughly mortified by
my conduct, and did not hesitate to lecture me soundly on my folly; and
my aunt Alice emphatically declared I was the most consummate fool that
she had ever seen! I knew it was true; but--so perverse is man--I did not
feel at all obliged to her for uttering it.

One day it rained a little; in fact, it often does so. Florence Hay was
returning home from the village just as the shower came up, and, partly
out of regard for my mother, with whom she was a great favorite, partly
from the fear of ruining her new spring bonnet, she stepped into our
house.

My mother was delighted to see her, and made her quite at home directly.
It was no new thing for the little maiden to visit my mother; but on such
occasions I had always, hitherto, taken flight to the fields or the
hay-mow. Now, however, it was raining hard, and I was holding silk for
my mother to mind; and a retreat was impossible.

Though in exquisite torture, every moment, lest the pretty visitor should
address some question to me, and oblige me to speak, yet I enjoyed being
where I could look into her bewitching face immensely. She had such blue
eyes! and such cherry lips! And those lips had kissed me! I blushed
red-hot to think of it, and my good mother anxiously commented on my high
color, saying she was afraid I was going to have the erysipelas.
Erysipelas, indeed!

It rained all the afternoon. Florence stayed to tea, and, by the time the
meal was over, I had broken two plates, knocked down a saucer, upset the
cream pitcher, and nearly cut the end of my thumb off with my knife.
Also, the rain had ceased, and it was dark.

Florence declared she could not stop another moment. Her friends would be
alarmed about her; she must go at once. My mother urged her to remain all
night. But she could not think of it; and, while she was arranging her
wraps, my mother beckoned me into the entry.

"Roy," she said, decisively, "Florence should not go home alone!"

"I can't help it!" said I, doggedly. "I guess nothing will devour her on
the journey."

"My son!" she exclaimed, with just severity, "I cannot permit you to
speak in that way of one whom I so highly respect! It is ungentlemanly!
Your father is absent, the servant is busy, and Florence has a full
half-mile to walk. You will attend her home!"

My limbs trembled under me. I should have darted from the back door, and
left my mother's favorite to shift for herself; but my austere relative
had kept a firm hold of my arm, and, without further parley, drew me back
to the parlor.

"If you must go, dear," she said to Florence, "I will not urge you. Roy
will walk home with you."

Florence opened wide her blue eyes in evident astonishment; and, as for
me, the whole creation was in a whirl! The room went round and round like
a top--I was obliged to grasp the back of a chair to keep from falling--I
was penetrated with speechless dismay.

"Roy! Florence is waiting!" said my unrelenting mother.

There was no appeal. To use a vulgar, but expressive phrase, I was "in
for it;" and, nerved by a sort of desperate courage, which sometimes
comes to the aid of the weak in great extremities, I flung open the door,
blundered down the steps, and out into the street. Florence followed
leisurely behind, shut the gate after her, and fastened the latch. How I
envied her her provoking coolness!

We went on; she one side of the road--I the other, and about three yards
in advance of her. By-and-bye, when we had proceeded in utter silence for
a quarter of a mile, my companion said, demurely:

"Roy, you can get over the fence, and go in the field; and I will keep
the road."

The little jade was quizzing me. I could not endure her ridicule, so
forthwith I made a sort of flying leap to her side of the street,
spattering the mud in every direction as I alighted beside her. I had
just begun to think how much better the footing was on that sidewalk than
the one I had just left, when I heard somebody whistling, and, looking
up, I saw Will Richardson, a mutual acquaintance, approaching. The cold
perspiration started to my brow--how could I endure to be seen going home
with a girl? I could not! No, never! The idea was out of the question!
I flew to the wall, sprang over, and threw myself down behind a pile of
stones.

I heard Will and Florence laughing together in a vastly amused way--and
then she took his arm, and off they went! I shook my clenched hand after
them; at that moment, I think I could have cudgeled Will without
compunction.

The ridiculous story of my adventure got wind; no doubt Will spread it,
and I was the laughing stock of the village. My mother gave me a sound
berating, and my staid, punctilious father administered the severest
rebuke of all--he said I was a disgrace to my ancestors.

I managed to live through it, though, and a few months later entered
college. I will not linger on the days spent with my Alma Mater; the
history of the scrapes which my mischief-loving fellow students got me
into during those four years, would fill three volumes of octavo.

At the end of the prescribed time, I graduated with the highest honors,
for I had always been a most determined bookworm; and, with my diploma in
my pocket, I returned home.

My friends were rejoiced to see me, they said; aunt Alice informed me
that I had improved wonderfully in manners, as well as looks; she thought
me decidedly handsome, she said, which remark, I privately concluded, was
the most sensible of any I had ever heard her make.

The day following my arrival at home, my mother spoke of Florence. I
had been longing to ask about her, but dared not hazard the question.
My mother thought that I ought to call on the Hay family, we had always
been intimate, she said, and it would be no more than courteous for me
to surprise them with my presence.

I told her the truth. I should be extremely happy to do so, but I lacked
the courage.

"Mother," said I, frankly, "you know my cardinal failing. Be merciful
unto me. I should only make a fool of myself."

"I will make an errand for you," she replied, quickly; "Mrs. Hay is
troubled with a cough, and she wanted some of my tomato preserves for it.
You shall carry them over."

Ah! it takes a woman to manage things; depend on that.

I caught eagerly at the suggestion, for the imaged face of Florence Hay
had obtruded between my eyes and endless Greek roots a great many times
during the past four years. I was glad of an excuse to see once more the
face itself.

Armed with my letter of introduction, a glass jar of tomatoes, and
arrayed in my best suit, I rang the bell at the door of Mr. Hay. A
servant girl admitted me, and showed me directly into the room where
Florence was sitting.

How very beautiful she had grown during my absence! I had never seen so
fair a vision! She rose at my entrance, and, bowing with inimitable
grace, extended her hand.

"Am I correct in believing that I have the pleasure of addressing Mr.
Sunderland?" she said, with gentle politeness.

I bowed--the jar slipped from my grasp and fell to the floor; I made a
hasty movement to take the hand she had offered me, and in so doing put
my foot on the jar; it was crushed to atoms, and the seeds and syrup flew
in every direction! The obstacle beneath my feet made me stagger; I
grasped the folds of a window-curtain in the hope of saving myself, but
my equilibrium was too far gone--down came the curtain--over I went, head
first, against a flower-stand, on which were a nondescript array of
flowerpots, a canary bird in a cage, and a big Maltese cat in a basket.

The force of my fall upset the stand, and, with all its favorites, it
turned over on the carpet! Plants, cat, bird, cage, and Roy Sunderland,
all lay in one mass of ruin together at the feet of the astonished Miss
Hay. The cat was the first to recover her presence of mind, and with a
"midnight cry" which would have appalled the stoutest heart, she sprang
into my face, tearing up the skin with a violence worthy the admiration
of all persons who believe in the wisdom of "getting at the root of a
matter" at once.

I scrambled up--gave the animal a blow that sent her to the other side of
the room--and hatless, and bloody, made for the door. With frantic haste
I seized the handle--it did not yield; the door was fastened by a spring
lock, and I was a prisoner!

Imagine my dismay! Florence stood looking at me, and there was a smile on
her face that she, with great difficulty restrained from breaking into a
decided ha! ha! Just then I would have sold myself to any reliable man
for a six-pence, and thirty days credit.

Mortified and crestfallen, I was strongly inclined to follow the example
of the heroines in sensation novels, and burst into tears; but crying, it
is said, makes the nose red, and, remembering this, I forbore.

I suppose Florence pitied me; she must have seen from the woe begone
expression of my face that I was in the last stages of human endurance,
for she came quietly to my side and laid her hand on my arm.

"Come in, Roy," she said, kindly--almost tenderly, I thought--and drew me
into a small boudoir opposite the sitting-room. Things in the latter
apartment were too nearly wrecked to make it pleasant for occupation,
I suppose.

"There," she said, seating me on a sofa by her side, and speaking in a
consoling tone one would use to a child who had burnt his apron, or broke
the sugar-bowl, "don't think anything more of it." She was wiping the
blood from pussy's autograph on my face with her handkerchief--"Accidents
will happen, you know!"

She was so close to me--her sweet face so very near mine--and the
temptation was so great that I trust I may be excused, especially as I
am a bashful man, and not in the habit of committing such indiscretions.

I threw my arms around her and paid back, with interest, the kiss I had
kept so long. A burning blush overspread her face.

"Oh, Roy! how could you?" she exclaimed, reproachfully.

I had gone too far to retreat; the words which for years had filled my
heart struggled up to my lips and clamored for utterance.

"Florence!" I cried, passionately, "I love you! and I want you to be
entirely mine! Take me, and cure me of the bashful folly which has been
the bane of my life!"

She did not reply. I was in a tumult of fear and hope, but a sort of
desperate courage kept me firm.

"One word, Florence, only one word! Am I to be consigned to Hades, or
Paradise? Do not keep me in suspense!"

She nestled closer to my side; her soft cheek rested against mine; her
breath swept my lips. She spoke but one word in accents of deepest
tenderness, and that word was my name--

"Roy!"

"Florence! my darling!"

I trust that everybody will forgive me, and feel charitably toward me,
when I declare on my honor that I was happier, at that moment, than I had
ever been in my life before! "Popping the question" is acknowledged by
all to be a serious piece of business; and if ordinary men find it a
serious business, how much more terrible must it be to a bashful
individual like myself?

A silence fell between Florence and me; perhaps I was holding her so
close to my heart that the effort of speaking was difficult, I should not
wonder. By-and-by she lifted up her face, and said, quietly:

"Did you mean for me to marry you, Roy?"

"Marry me? Yes, dearest, and that, too, before many days have elapsed!
I have been a fool so long that now I cannot afford to wait!"

"Yes; but if I promise myself to you, how can I be sure that, on the way
to the altar, you will not jump over the fence, and leave me to fate and
Will Richardson?"

"Confound Will Richardson! Florence, forgive me! I was little less than
a brute! Is there peace between us?"

"Both peace and love," she whispered, softly; and my heart was at rest.

My mother was overjoyed by the turn affairs had taken. Everything had
happened just as she had wished; and, to this day, the good lady idolizes
tomatoes, insisting upon it that it was through the agency of those
preserves that Florence and I came to an understanding. It might have
been--I cannot tell--great events sometimes originate in small causes.

Florence--dear little wife!--for five years she has sustained to me that
relation; and if she has not cured me of my bashfulness, she has at least
broken me of its extreme folly.

To other men afflicted as I was with constitutional shyness, I can
conscientiously recommend my course. Don't be afraid; the ladies admire
courage, and "None but the brave deserve the fair."

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