American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1879-05-10

1
thinking of something else. By the case
they will cost you eight cents"
"And when," she asked, "can yor
have them for usP"
"Now," he said, Immediately, "a
your feet; 1 will lay them"
But she looked as though he wa.
crazy or drunken, and he again amend
ed his declaration by saying he WAS
thinking of something else, and that
the eggs would be sent up sometime in.
side of two or three weeks or so. Then
she asked him to send the bill with them
and she would pay him for them when
they were delivered, and he was just on
the point of bursting out with the i'm
FASHIONED declaration that only with
the heart that was all the world to him
could she pay him for the life of devo-
ton he wanted to deliver with those
eggs, when a woman from West Hill
came in and asked for some grated
horse-radish and two punches of onions,
and when she had been waited upon, the
fair enslever was gone.
ton was packing those eggs, he Matched
more day dreams out of them than ever
came out of eggs before. He Matched
pleasant home out of them, with him.
self and somebody wonderfully like
Squire Bailey's daughter in the fore
ground, and all sorts of comfortable ac-
cessories in the background and no end
of domestic sunshine to fill in the high
light and soften the middle tint and
mellow the distance. Every thing would
look bright enough to dazzle midday
itself, until he would begin to think
how he was to inform Miss Bailey about
all this, when every thing would sudden
ly be plunged into the profoundest
gloom, and his heart would turn so cold
it made his feet ache.
Well, he hit on a plan at last. He
knew that the Squire's daughter kept
house for the old man. In all human
probability her own fair hands would
take out all those eggs. He selected an
egg and wrote upon it in fair round
hand:
Tenderly break the fair white she'll,
Closed in its fragile frame,
Throbbeth the heart that loves thee well,
And cherfsheth thy name.
See. on this egg my love 1 lay,
Oh. hear my plant. and set the day.
Crubbleton thought this was pretty
neat. He signed his full name to it,
headed it with the name of his charmer,
laid it in the case so that the inscription
would be visible When the egg was ex-
posed to view, and then he finished
packing the case and sent the bill along
with it, not that he cared for the money
in this instance, but business is business.
How anxiously he waited through the
slow, tedious weeks that followed. How
he noted the expression of Miss Bailey's
face whenever he met her, sometimes
he was confident that she had read the
egg and was going to accept him, and
he would walk around in heaven for the
next day or two. Then the next time
he met her, he would feel positive that
she had found that egg and in q con-
vulsion of wrath had hurled it
out of the kitchen door and mashed
it against the barn. And so he
would go moping around with q bottle
of poison in one pocket and an accident
insurance policy in the other. But be-
fore he could bring himself to the point
of using one and FORGETTING the other, he
would meet the Squire's daughter again
and casual inquiry about the eggs
would reveal the fact that she hadn't
noticed any thing remarkable striking
or pungent about either the yelk or the
shell. And SO, in fluctuations of misery
and happiness, he lived and hoped and
dreamed. In his waking moments, he
was apt to be fondly distracted. One
day, South Hill woman, with one eye
and q knot on the end of her nose, came
into the store and asked if he had any
homeless Goldfish, and he said:
Z" Yes, DEAR"
And when she said she would take
for family of seven boarders,
he did up the package and handed it to
her saying:
"It is yours and yours only, and
never heart more fondly and devotedly
throbbed for you than"
And the woman blushed and giggled
and said:
"Why, Mr.. Crubbleton, and right
here in the store, too. How could youP''
And she hurried ont, leaving the
Pond Street woman who wanted three
bars of Irish soap, staring at him in
mute amazement.
"Well," interrupted the Professor,
I" when did the gazello-I mean, the
egg, come IMP"
Fright away" said the Bishop.
" The case was opened one day when
the Squire was taking his afternoon nap
and his daughter was out calling. Boy
ish hands opened the case, boyish hands
lifted the egg of all eggs, boyish hands
and boyish pockets hastily and secretly
conveyed the egg of all eggs, in COM
pany with eggs of common mold and
voiceless shells, to the barn. And there
in the hallowed quiet and undisturbed
seclusion of the hay NOW, Miss Bailey's
young brother Tom, in rapid success
sion, performed the popular boyish feat
Of "suckin' six "aigs." When he
reached the seventh, he suddenly paused
and gazed upon it with startled air,
as though it had suddenly reproached
him for his wickedness and accused him
Of theft. In second, however, the
boys faced cleared and he drew q breath
IS - L.