The Making of an American | Page 8

my way and my bride; so reasoned the town, which
presently took note of my infatuation. But, then, it laughed, there was
time enough. I was fifteen and she was not thirteen. There was time
enough, oh, yes! Only I did not think so. My courtship proceeded at a
tumultuous pace, which first made the town laugh, then put it out of
patience and made some staid matrons express the desire to box my
ears soundly. It must be owned that if courting were generally done on
the plan I adopted, there would be little peace and less safety all around.
When she came playing among the lumber where we were working, as
she naturally would, danger dogged my steps. I carry a scar on the
shin-bone made with an adze I should have been minding when I was
looking after her. The forefinger on my left hand has a stiff joint. I cut
that off with an axe when she was dancing on a beam close by. Though
it was put on again by a clever surgeon and kept on, I have never had
the use of it since. But what did a finger matter, or ten, when she was
only there! Once I fell off the roof when I must crane my neck to see
her go around the corner. But I hardly took note of those things, except
to enlist her sympathy by posing as a wounded hero with my arm in a
sling at the dancing-school which I had joined on purpose to dance with
her. I was the biggest boy there, and therefore first to choose a partner,
and I remember even now the snickering of the school when I went
right over and took Elizabeth. She flushed angrily, but I didn't care.
That was what I was there for, and I had her now. I didn't let her go
again, either, though the teacher delicately hinted that we were not a
good match. She was the best dancer in the school, and I was the worst.
Not a good match, hey! That was as much as she knew about it.
It was at the ball that closed the dancing-school that I excited the strong

desire of the matrons to box my ears by ordering Elizabeth's father off
the floor when he tried to join in before midnight, the time set for the
elders to take charge. I was floor committee, but how I could do such a
thing passes my understanding, except on the principle laid down by
Mr. Dooley that when a man is in love he is looking for fight all around.
I must have been, for they had to hold me back by main strength from
running away to the army that was fighting a losing fight with two
Great Powers that winter. Though I was far under age, I was a big boy,
and might have passed; but the hasty retreat of our brave little band
before overwhelming odds settled it. With the echoes of the scandal
caused by the ball episode still ringing, I went off to Copenhagen to
serve out my apprenticeship there with a great builder whose name I
saw among the dead in the paper only the other day. He was ever a
good friend to me.
[Illustration: My Childhood's Home]
The third day after I reached the capital, which happened to be my
birthday, I had appointed a meeting with my student brother at the art
exhibition in the palace of Charlottenborg. I found two stairways
running up from the main entrance, and was debating in my mind
which to take, when a handsome gentleman in a blue overcoat asked,
with a slight foreign accent, if he could help me. I told him my trouble,
and we went up together.
We walked slowly and carried on quite an animated conversation; that
is to say, I did. His part of it was confined mostly to questions, which I
was no way loth to answer. I told him about myself and my plans;
about the old school, and about my father, whom I took it for granted
he knew; for was he not the oldest teacher in the school, and the wisest,
as all Ribe could testify? He listened to it all with a curious little smile,
and nodded in a very pleasant and sympathetic way which I liked to see.
I told him so, and that I liked the people of Copenhagen well; they
seemed so kind to a stranger, and he put his hand on my arm and patted
it in a friendly manner that was altogether nice. So we arrived together
at the door where the red lackey stood.
He bowed very deep as we entered, and I bowed back, and told my

friend that there