Clothing and dress -- Juvenile fiction; Fantasy literature; Humorous stories; Insects -- Juvenile fiction
Sick and discouraged, he returned home, where his first act was to
smash the luckless hat and replace it with another. But it was some
time before he recovered from the horrors of that near approach to
extermination, and he passed a very wakeful and unhappy night, indeed.
Meantime the widow had traded with a friend of hers (who had once been
a wash-lady for General Funston) the Wagnerian costume for a crazy
quilt and a corset that was nearly as good as new and a pair of silk
stockings that were not mates. It was a good bargain for both of them,
and the wash-lady being colored--that is, she had a deep mahogany
complexion--was delighted with her gorgeous gown and put it on the very
next morning when she went to deliver the wash to the brick-layer's
wife.
Surely it must have been Fate that directed the Woggle-Bug's steps;
for, as he walked disconsolately along, an intuition caused him to
raise his eyes, and he saw just ahead of him his affinity--carrying a
large clothes-basket.
"Stop!" he called our, anxiously; "stop, my fair Grenadine, I implore
you!"
The colored lady cast one glance behind her and imagined that Satan had
at last arrived to claim her. For she had never before seen the
Woggle-Bug, and was horrified by his sudden and unusual appearance.
"Go 'way, Mars' Debbil! Go 'way an' lemme 'lone!" she screeched, and
the next minute she dropped her empty basket and sped up the street
with a swiftness that only fear could have lent her flat-bottomed feet.
Nevertheless, the Woggle-Bug might have overtaken her had he not
stepped into the clothes-basket and fallen headlong, becoming so
tangled up in the thing that he rolled over and over several times
before he could free himself. Then, when he had picked up his hat,
which was utterly ruined, and found his cane, which had flown across
the street, his mahogany charmer in the Wagnerian Plaids had
disappeared from view.
With a sigh at his latest misfortune he returned home for another hat,
and the agitated wash-lady, imagining that the devil had doubtless been
lured by her beautiful gown, made haste to sell it to a Chinaman who
lived next door.
Its bright colors pleased the Chink, who ripped it up and made it over
into a Chinese robe, with flowing draperies falling to his heels. He
dressed himself in his new costume and, being proud of possessing such
finery, sat down on a bench outside his door so that everyone passing
by could see how magnificent he looked.
It was here the wandering Woggle-Bug espied him; and, recognizing at
once the pattern and colors of his infatuating idol, he ran up and sat
beside the Chinaman, saying in agitated but educated tones:
"Oh my prismatic personification of gigantic gorgeousness!--again I
have found you!"
"Sure tling," said the Chink with composure.
"Be mine! Only be mine!" continued the enraptured Woggle-Bug.
The Chinaman did not quite understand.
"Two dlolla a day," he answered, cautiously.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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