The Statesmen Snowbound | Page 8

knew I might be Seymour myself! I was strangely befuddled by the adventures of the past twenty-four hours, and it was not long before I began to seriously argue with myself that I was Seymour,--undoubtedly Seymour,--indeed, why should I not be Seymour as well as any one else? This masterly line of reason settled it. I was Seymour, and as an instructor and guide of youth I felt that I ought to be thoroughly ashamed of myself for flocking with the dissipated crowd I had just left. Acting upon this elevating thought, I braced up considerably, assumed an air of virtue, and not knowing exactly what to do next, joined a throng of people who were jostling one another in their efforts to get on a steamboat. A sail, I fancied, would do me no end of good, and as the ticket seller assured me with a smile that the boat was perfectly safe and would return in a few hours, I went aboard with the rest of the fools, children, and old folks. This I accomplished after barely escaping a plunge into the river from what struck me as being an exceedingly narrow gang-plank.
"The band struck up one of Sousa's lively marches, a hoarse whistle sounded, the boat trembled all over, and we were off. As the Charles Auchester glided out into the stream, two young women with camp stools in their hands pushed through the crowd at the entrance to the hurricane deck--an elevation I had succeeded in attaining--and took their seats near a life-raft upon which I reclined, Cleopatra-like.
"'Oh, aren't these excursions perfectly lovely, Ruby?' said the taller of the pair, taking off her hat and dropping it in her lap.
"'Yes, and so cheap. All the way to Indian Head and back for a quarter. It's a godsend for us poor tired folks who have to stay in town all summer. And you know what that means, don't you, Pearl?'
"'Oh, yes, but don't let's talk about it,' said the other fretfully. 'I try not even to think of what we will have to go through. What good does it do to fuss over things we can't help?'
"'That's right, dear,' said her companion, 'and it doesn't pay to look far ahead, either, if one wants to be happy. I never do.'
"They were pretty and quite well dressed, these two maidens. As to their being without a male escort, I rather admired their sturdy independence. Everything about them bespoke refinement, and yet the very next remark from the girl called Ruby sent a shiver through my sensitive frame, and caused my hastily formed but favorable opinion of the pair to change color.
"'I'd give anything, Pearl, if Will and the other fellows were here. They always buy, and I've got an awful thirst on me.'
"'We might have some beer, anyway,' mildly suggested Pearl, and a flying waiter took the order.
"'I guess we can pick up something on the boat,' remarked Ruby; who, by the way, was good to look at--a black-eyed lass with regular features and lots of pink and white complexion. Pearl, languidly sipping her beer, nodded in the affirmative. This person, evidently the younger of the two, had a babyish face, big innocent blue eyes, and a profusion of fluffy yellow hair. She did not appeal as much to my sense of the beautiful as the dark one did; but I have always been partial to brunettes. She told me later that she was twenty--which figure was enough for me to know, I suppose. Oh, I understand women. They are an open book to me.
"About eight o'clock the moon, immense and crimson, came up from behind the Maryland hills, and cast a lurid path upon the wavelets. The girls, or rather the 'Jewels,' as I have since learned to think of them, huddled closer together, with a not too capacious shawl around them, for the wind was freshening considerably. For a while I stopped looking at them, being interested in the little stunts that are done on the boat as it passes Mount Vernon. The tolling of the bell and the dirge by the band absorbed all my attention.
"It was not long, though, before I began to feel that I was the object of very earnest scrutiny on the part of an individual or individuals nearby. Turning suddenly, I met the basilisk gaze of Pearl and Ruby. Their dreadful remark came to me with crushing force. They had begun, as they coarsely put it, 'to pick up something.' Lobster-like, finding myself in hot water, I turned several beautiful shades of red immediately. I became terror-stricken--I, the dignified Professor of Applied Science at Jay College, Kentucky! All my innate modesty began to assert itself; and is not this the surest protection of the innocent? I arose and fled.
"Unfortunately, while