The Youths Companion | Page 5

CUSPADORES.
There is probably no human weakness that awakens more derisive contempt than a false assumption of superior knowledge. The vanity of young people frequently leads them into ludicrous positions, and sometimes even into serious difficulties, through a pretence of knowing things of which they are really ignorant. The experience of one of my young friends is a case in point.
Silvia Morden is a girl of sixteen. She is both bright and pretty. Her worst fault was the one I have mentioned,--a most ridiculous mania for wishing to appear well acquainted with all subjects.
The flattery of her companions at Miss Hall's "Young Ladies' Academy" no doubt had something to do with this folly; for she was generous, end a great favorite with her schoolmates. It often led her into difficulties, as falsehood in any form always does, and Silvia was really becoming a confirmed liar when the little episode I am about to relate, checked her on the very brink of the precipice.
The craze for "high art decorations" had spread from the great city centres to the country town of Atwood, where Silvia's parents lived. Of course every one understands that "high art" becomes very much diluted in its country progress, and when it appears in out-of-the-way places, where the people are neither wealthy nor well read, it is apt to degenerate into very low art, indeed.
But the Atwood girls did what they could to follow the fashions. Old ginger-jars were dragged down, covered with paint, and pasted over with beetles, and birds, and flowers, in utter disregard of the unities. Here Egyptian scarabaei were perched on an Alpine mountain; there a clay amphora, of the shape of the Greeks or Romans, was adorned with gaudy plates cut out of fashion magazines.
The merchants in Atwood, taking advantage of this furore, sent for all shapes of pottery, but they could not import the taste to decorate it. Atwood, however, was satisfied with its own style of art, and that was sufficient.
Silvia's decorations were rather better than those of her acquaintances. She read everything she could on the subject, but, with her usual self-conceit, refused to ask any questions of those who might have enlightened her, and in fact, set herself up as an oracle on art decorations.
One day, she saw in a city paper a list of articles for decoration, among which were "cuspadores."
"What on earth is a 'cuspadore'?" she asked herself.
Of course, something lovely, she judged, from the name. It was high-sounding, and seemed classical. She concluded it must be one of those lovely vases she had read descriptions of, and she determined to buy one that very evening, for of course Morris had them among his new lot of potteries.
She went to school that morning with her head full of cuspadores. She missed all her lessons, and got a bad mark for inattention, but the thought of a cuspadore kept her from worrying over her misfortunes.
"I do hope Miss Hall isn't going to keep us all the afternoon bothering over that rhetoric," she said to her friend Anna Lee. "I want to go up town this evening, and must go, if it's dark when I get home."
"What are you so crazy to go up town for?" asked Anna.
"Oh, I want to go to Morris's store to get a cuspadore."
"Cuspa---what?" inquired her amazed companion. "What on earth is that?"
"You'll see when I get it," was the evasive answer.
"Oh, bother your mysteries! You needn't make a secret of it, Just tell me what it is and what it's for."
With all her heart, Silvia wished that she could answer that question. Thinking she could not be very far wrong, she ventured to say,--
"It's a lovely antique vase. I'm going to put a running border of roses and pansies on it,--the sweetest pictures you ever saw,--and I'll put it on the mantel for flowers."
"I never heard of them before," persisted Anna. "Where did you see them, Sil?"
Another falsehood was required.
"I saw a great many pretty things when I was in the city last March, and cuspadores were among them."
"Well, I'll wait and see yours," answered unsuspicious Anna. "If I like it, I'll get one too. Now mind you show it to me first when you've finished it."
As soon as school was dismissed, Silvia hurried through Atwood to the store of Mr. Morris.
The clerk who came bowing to her was a young man for whom she had a special dislike,--"a conceited idiot," she called him to her companions, "with an offensive familiarity of manner." In reality, Tom Jordan was a well-meaning young man, though rather silly, but his vanity and conceit happened to jar upon the same marked characteristics in Miss Silvia.
"What shall I show you this evening, Miss Silvia?" rubbing his hands and smiling blandly.
"Are none of the other clerks disengaged?" she asked, loftily.
The