I thought it _was_ smart, sure enough, by the sensation in my eyes. But I have drawn a veil over that bit of my history. I know my eyesight was injured for all that summer. I could not tell a piece of silk from a piece of calico, except by the feeling; so I was excused from clerking in the store, and sat round the house with green goggles on, and wished I were different from what I was. By fall my eyesight got better. One day father came in the parlor where I was sitting moping, having just seen Tom Todd drive by in a new buggy with his bride, and said to me: "John, I am disappointed in you." "I know it," I answered him meekly. "You look well enough, and you have talent enough," he went on; "but you are too ridiculously bashful for an ostrich." "I know it," I again replied. "Oh, father, father, why did they take that caul from my face?" "That--what?" inquired my puzzled sire. "That caul--wasn't I born with a caul, father?" "Now that I recall it, I believe you were," responded father, while his stern face relaxed into a smile, "and I wish to goodness they had left it on you, John; but they didn't, and that's an end of it. What I was going to say was this. Convinced that you will never succeed as my successor--that your unconquerable diffidence unfits you for the dry-goods trade--I have been looking around for some such situation as I have often heard you sigh for. The old light-house keeper on Buncombe Island is dead, and I have caused you to be appointed his successor. You will not see a human being except when supplies are brought to you, which, in the winter, will be only once in two months. Even then your peace will not be disturbed by any sight of one of the other sex. You will not need a caul there! Go, my son, and remain until you can outgrow your absurd infirmity." I felt dismayed at the prospect, now that it was so near at hand. I had often--in the distance--yearned for the security of a light-house. Yet I now looked about on our comfortable parlor with a longing eye. I recalled the pleasant tea-hour when there were no visitors; I thought of the fun the boys and girls would have this coming winter, and I wished father had not been so precipitate in securing that vacant place. Just then Miss Gabble came up our steps, and shortly after entered the parlor. She was one of those dreaded beings, who always filled me with the direst confusion. She sat right down by my side and squeezed my hand. "My poor, dear fellow-mortal!" said she, getting her sharp face so close to mine I thought she was going to kiss me, "how do you do? Wearing them goggles yet? It is too bad. And yet, after all, they are sort of becoming to you. In fact, you're so good-looking you can wear anything. And how your mustache does grow, to be sure!" I saw father was getting up to leave the room, and I flung her hand away, saying quickly to him: "I'll get the glass of water, father."