University of Virginia Library

2. II.
MR. THORNTON.

That afternoon, having dressed, dined, and finished my
cigar, I sallied forth from the “Shoemake Hotel” to call
on my future bride.

I found the cottage; a neat little cream-colored house
on a bank of the river; doors and windows festooned with
prairie roses; an orchard behind, and maple-trees in front;
and an atmosphere of rural beauty and quietude over all.

I opened the little wooden gate. It clicked cheerily behind
me, and the sound summoned from the orchard a
laboring man in rolled-up shirt-sleeves, who approached
as I was lifting the brass knocker under the festoons
of roses.

“How de do, sir? Want anything o' Mr. Thornton's
folks?”

I looked at him. He might have been a porter (at

least, he was a brown stout fellow); not above five feet
five, and rather familiar for such a short acquaintance.

“I should like to see Mr. Thornton,” I said, talking
down at him from my six-foot dignity on the doorstep.

“O, wal! walk right in! We 're all in the orchard jest
now, gitting a hive of bees.”

“Be so kind then, my good fellow,” said I, producing
Jones's letter, “as to hand this to Mr. Thornton.”

He received the letter in his great, brown, horny hands,
stared at the superscription, stared at me, said, “Oh!
Jones!” and opened it. “I am Mr. Thornton,” he informed
me, before beginning to read.

When the letter was read he looked up again, smilingly.

“This is Mr. Blazay, then!” he said.

“Delighted to meet you, Mr. Thornton,” I said.

He reached up, I reached down. He got hold of my
hand as if it had been a bell-rope, and wrung it cordially.
I knew he was glad to see me, as well as if he had told me.

“Will you step into the house or into the orchard?”
said Mr. Thornton.

House or orchard, I felt my foot was in it, and it made
little difference which way I stepped.

“Wal,” said he, as he was taking me to see the bees;
“so you 've come up here, thinking mabby you 'd like to
marry our Susie?”

I stopped aghast.

“I — I was n't aware, sir, that Jones had written anything
to that effect!”

“A private letter I got from him yis'd'y,” said Mr. Thornton;
“he seemed to think 's best to kinder explain things
'fore you got along. I think about so myself. He gives
you a tolerable fair character, and, fur 's I 'm concerned,
if you and Susie can make a bargain, I sha' n't raise no
objections.”

“Have you,” I gasped, “mentioned it to Susie?”

“O, sartin!” said Mr. Thornton. “Mother and I
thought best to talk the matter over with her, so 's to
have everything open and aboveboard, and save misunderstandings
in the futur'.”

“And, may I ask, how did Susie regard a — such a —
very singular arrangement?”

“Singular? How so? Mother and I looked upon it as
very sensible. You come and git acquainted and marry
her, if agreeable; or if not, not. That 's what I call
straightfor'a'd.”

“Straightfor'a'd? O yes, to be sure!' I said, and essayed
to laugh, with very indifferent, if not with quite
ghastly, success.

A little too straightforward, was n't it? It was well
enough, of course, for a couple of hardened wretches like
Jones and myself to talk over a matrimonial project in
business fashion, and for me to come up and look at the
article of a bride he recommended, to see if she suited;
but to know that the affair had been coolly discussed by
the other party to the proposed bargain made it as awkward
and unromantic as possible. I even suspected that
I was the victim of a hoax, and that Jones was at that
moment chuckling over my stupendous gullibility.