The Blunders of a Bashful Man | Page 9

or debating society mentioned to this day, without feeling "cold-chills" run down my spine.
I took part in the exercises the evening ours was opened. I had been requested by the committee to furnish the poem for the occasion. As I was just from a first-class academy, where I had read the valedictory, it was taken for granted that I was the most likely one to "fill the bill."
I accepted the proposition. To be bashful is a far different thing from being modest. I wrote the poem. I sat up nights to do it. The way candles were consumed caused father to wonder where his best box of spermacetis had gone to. I knew I could do the poetry, and I firmly resolved that I would read it through, from beginning to end, in a clear, well-modulated voice, that could be heard by all, including the minister and Belle Marigold. I would not blush, or stammer, or get a frog in my throat. I swore solemnly to myself that I would not. Some folks should see that my bashfulness was wearing off faster than the gold from an oroide watch. Oh, I would show 'em! Some things could be done as well as others. I would no longer be the laughing-stock of Babbletown. My past record should be wiped out! I would write my poem, and I would read it--read it calmly and impressively, so as to do full justice to it.
I got the poem ready. I committed it to memory, so that if the lights were dim, or I lost my place, I should not be at the mercy of the manuscript. The night came. I entered the hall with Belle on my arm, early, so as to secure her a front seat.
"Keep cool, John," were her whispered words, as I left her to take my place on the platform.
"Oh, I shall be cool enough. I know every line by heart; have said it to myself one hundred and nineteen times without missing a word."
I'm not going to bore you with the poem here; but will give the first four lines as they were written and as I spoke them:
"Hail! Babbletown, fair village of the plain! Hail! friends and fellow-citizens. In vain I strive to sing the glories of this place, Whose history back to early times I trace."
The room was crowded, the president of the society made a few opening remarks, which closed by presenting Mr. Flutter, the poet of the occasion. I was quite easy and at home until I arose and bowed as he spoke my name. Then something happened to my senses, I don't know what; I only knew I lost every one of them for about two minutes. I was blind, deaf, dumb, tasteless, senseless, and feelingless. Then I came to a little, rallied, and perceived that some of the boy were beginning to pound the floor with their heels. I made a feint of holding my roll of verses nearer the lamp at my right hand, summoned traitor memory to return, and began:
"Hail!"
Was that my voice? I did not recognize it. It was more as if a mouse in the gallery had squeaked. It would never do. I cleared any throat--which was to have been free from frogs--and a strange, hoarse voice, no more like mine than a crow is like a nightingale, came out with a jerk, about six feet away, and remarked, as if surprised:
"Hail!"
With a desperate effort, I resolved that this night or never I was to achieve greatness. I cleared the way again and recommenced:
"Hail!"
A boy's voice at the back of the room was heard to insinuate that perhaps it would be easier for me to let it snow or rain. That made me angry. I was as cool as ice all in a moment; I felt that I had the mastery of the situation, and, making a sweeping gesture with my left hand, I looked over my hearers' heads, and continued:
"Hail! Fabbletown, bare village of the plain--Babbletown, fair pillage of the vain--. Hail! friends and fellow-citizens--!"
It was evident that I had borrowed somebody else's voice--my own mother wouldn't have recognized it--and a mighty poor show of a voice, too. It was like a race-horse that suddenly balks, and loses the race. I had put up heavy stakes on that voice, but I couldn't budge it. Not an inch faster would it go. In vain I whipped and spurred in silent desperation--it balked at "fellow-citizens," and there it stuck. The audience, good-naturedly, waited five minutes. At the end of that time, I sat down, amid general applause, conscious that I had made the sensation of the evening.
Belle gave me the mitten that evening, and went home in Fred Hencoop's sleigh.
We didn't speak, after that, until about a week before the