"Won't have you! I'm worth as much as Squire Marigold any day." "I know it, father; but I took her down to supper last night, and I was so confused, with all the married ladies looking on, I made a mess of it. I put two teaspoonfuls of sugar in her oyster stew, salted her coffee, and insisted on her taking pickles with her ice-cream. She didn't mind that so much, but when I stuffed my saucer into my pocket, and conducted her into the coal-cellar instead of the hall, she got out of patience. Father, I think I'd better go to Arizona in the spring. I'm--" "Go to grass! if you want to," was the unfeeling reply; "but don't you ever go to another fair, unless I go along to take care of you." But I think the bonfire made him feel better. CHAPTER V. HE COMMITS SUICIDE. Two days after the fair (one day after the bonfire), some time during the afternoon, I found myself alone in the store. Business was so dull that father, with a yawn, said he guessed he'd go to the post-office and have a chat with the men. "Be sure you don't leave the store a moment alone, John," was his parting admonition. Of course I wouldn't think of such a thing--he need not have mentioned it. I was a good business fellow for my age; the only blunders I ever made were those caused by my failing--the unhappy failing to which I have hitherto alluded. I sat mournfully on the counter after father left me, my head reclining pensively against a pile of ten-cent calicoes; I was thinking of my grandmother's legacy gone up in smoke--of how Belle looked when she found I had conducted her into the coal-cellar--of those tidies, cradle-quilts, bib-aprons, dolls' and ladies' fixings, which had been nefariously foisted upon me, a base advantage taken of my diffidence!--and I felt sad. I felt more than melancholy--I felt mad. I resented the tricks of the fair ones. And I made a mighty resolution! "Never--never--never," said I, between my clenched teeth, "will I again be guilty of the crime of bashfulness--_never_!" I felt that I could face a female regiment--all Babbletown! I was indignant; and there's nothing like honest, genuine indignation to give courage. Oh, I'd show 'em. I wouldn't give a cent when the deacon passed the plate on Sundays; I wouldn't subscribe to the char---- In the midst of my dark and vengeful resolutions I heard merry voices on the pavement outside. Hastily raising my head from the pile of calicoes, I saw at least five girls making for the store door--a whole bevy of them coming in upon me at once. They were the same rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed, deceitful, shameless creatures who had persuaded me into such folly at the fair. There was Hetty Slocum, the girl who coaxed me into buying the doll; and Maggie Markham, who sold me the quilt; and Belle, and two others, and they were chatting and giggling over some joke, and had to stop on the steps until they could straighten their faces. I grew fire-red--with indignation.