University of Virginia Library

4. IV.
HOW I WAS ENTERTAINED.

The first thing I heard, on recovering my faculties and
sitting up, was laughter. George Washington and Andrew
Jackson were rolling and keeling over with laughter. Mrs.
Thornton was eating her calico apron. Mr. Thornton
was suffering from an excruciating attack of colic, while
Susie indulged without restraint her very ill-timed merriment.

As I got upon my feet the whole family came forward
to see if I was hurt.

“Children! Susie!” I could hear Mr. Thornton saying;
“hush! don't ye know no better 'n to laugh? Did you,
sir, git stung?”

“I — I thought the bees were coming rather near” I
remarked, cheerfully, pressing my hat into shape, “so I
concluded to stand back a little.”

“Sartin, sartin!” said Mr. Thornton.

“Susie!” giggled George Washington, “he thought
he 'd stan' back a little! he, he, he!”

“Did n't his arms and legs fly for about a minute,
though!” snickered Andrew Jackson.

“Shall we go and examine the operations of the bees?
I feel a lively interest in bees.” And I put on my hat,
pulling it gayly over the aching eyebrow.

“I 'm afraid,” said Mr. Thornton, “the bees have been
so kind o' shook up 't won't be very safe to go near 'em
right away.”

“Ah! you think so? A sting is nothing — a — nothing
dangerous, is it?”

“O no; but it 's sometimes plaguy uncomf'table,” said
Mr. Thornton, “that 's all.”

“That all?” said I, glad to hear it. “I 'm sure that 's
nothing so very dreadful. However, if you think we 'd
better wait until the bees get a little quiet, I can restrain
my curiosity.”

Susie had found an excuse to go back to the hive. I
should have been glad of any excuse to return at the same
instant to the hotel. I had seen enough of her, and certainly
had heard enough. My interest in the Thorntons
was satiated. I had made up my mind that I did n't want
to marry. The country was not so charming as I had anticipated.
I very much preferred the town.

“Wal, may as well go into the house, I guess,” said
Mr. Thornton, leading the way.

So we went in. The door of a close, gloomy little parlor
was thrown open, and I was requested to enter and
make myself at home.

“You must go in and entertain him while I help Susie
slick up a little,” I heard Mrs. Thornton whisper at the door.

So Mr. Thornton came in, sat down in his rolled-up
shirt-sleeves, put one leg over the other, hung his hat on
his knee, and entertained me.

Of the entertainment, however, the most I remember is,

that I not only experienced an ever-increasing anguish in
the part which had been stung, but discovered, to my consternation,
that it was swelling rapidly.

“I knowed a man once got stung on the head,” remarked
Mr. Thornton, bees being the topic of conversation,
“and he was blind for three days arter it, and his head
swelled up as big as half a barrel.”

Having entertained me with this extraordinary fact, the
worthy man withdrew. I sprang to my feet and looked in
the glass over the mantel-piece. Appalling spectacle!
My organ of locality was growing, — it had already attained
the size of a walnut, — and was fast swelling to the
dimensions of an egg. I caught up my hat and pitched it
recklessly on my forehead. As I was drawing on my
gloves I heard whispers.

“I can't go in! I shall laugh, I know I shall!” followed
by a suppressed giggle.

“Why, Susie, don't be so foolish!” said Mrs. Thornton.
“Come! I 'll go in with you!”

More whispers, a little fluttering, and in came Mrs. and
Miss Thornton, catching me with my hat and one glove
on. Retreat being thus cut off, I sat down again in the
obscurest corner, with the unstung hemisphere of my
phrenology in the light and the other in shadow.

Susie seated herself opposite, with her eyes downcast,
looking rigid, red, and as utterly unattractive as possible.
She never once opened her mouth to speak, but now and
then appeared seized by an almost ungovernable impulse
to giggle, after which she became more astonishingly rigid
and red than before.

Mrs. Thornton and I were discussing the weather, with
now and then an awful interval of silence, when Susie,
who, to conceal her embarrassment, had turned her eyes
out of the window, suddenly started back.

“Mother, there comes Peleg!”

And almost immediately I saw standing in the door a
young man in light summer clothes, with ruddy-brown
cheeks, a long nose, and a droll expression of countenance,
nodding and winking like a harlequin.