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American Sunday Monthly Magazine Section
Jimmy was confronted with a vision in white, who rushed up to him
and kissed him
AMES TROTTIXGHAM MIX-
TON had a cousin who lived in
St. Louis. “Cousin Mary,” Lucy
Putnam discovered by a process
of elimination, was the one topic
on which the reticent Mr. Minton
could become talkative. Mary
was his ideal, almost. Let a girl
broach the weather, he grew halt of speech; should
she bring up literature, his replies were almost inane;
let her seek to show that she kept abreast of the
times, and talk of politics—then Jimmy seemed to
harbor a great fear in his own soul. But give him
the chance to make a few remarks about his cousin
Mary and he approached eloquence. For this rea
son Lucy Putnam was wise enough to ask him some
thing about Mary ever so often.
Now the question arises, Why should Lucy Put
nam, or any other girl, take any interest in a man
who was so thoroughly bashful that his trembling
efforts to converse made the light quivering aspen
look like a ten-ton obelisk for calmness? The rea
son was, and is, that woman has the same eye for
babies and men. The more helpless these objects,
the more interested are the women. The man who
makes the highest appeal to a woman is he whose
tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth and who does
not know what to do with his hands in her presence.
She must be a princess, he a slave. Each knows
this premise is unsupported by facts, yet it is a joy
ous fiction while it lasts. James Trottingham Min
ton was not a whit bashful when with men. No.
He called on Mr. Putnam at his office, and with the
calmness of an agent collecting rent asked him for
the hand of his daughter.
“Why, Jimmy,” Mr. Putnam said good-naturedly,
“of course I haven’t any objections to make. Seems
to me that’s a matter to be settled between you
and Lucy.”
Jimmy smiled confidently.
“I suppose you’re right, Mr. Putnam. But, you
see, I’ve never had the nerve to say anything about
it to her.”
“Tut, tut. Nothing to be scared of. Nothing at
% Wilbur D. iVesbit
all. What’s the matter with you, young man? In
my day, if a fellow wanted to marry a girl he
wouldn’t go and tell her father. He’d marry her
first anil then ask the old man where they should
live.”
Mr. Putnam chuckled heavily. Mr. Put
nam was possessed of a striking fund of
reminiscences of how young men
used to do.
“Of course, Mr. Putnam,”
Jimmy said. “But the girls now
adays are different, and a fel ”
“Not a bit of it. X T o, sir.
Women haven’t changed since
Eve’s time. You mustn’t get
women mixed up with dry-goods
stores, Jimmy. Don’t you know
there’s lots of fellows nowadays
that fall in love with the fall styles?
Ha, ha!”
It was not all clear to Min
ton, but he laughed dutifully.
His was a diplomatic errand,
and the half of diplomacy is making
the victim think you are in agree
ment with him.
“Yes, sir,” Putnam chuckled on,
“I’ll bet that silk ruffles and pink
shades over the lamp have caused
more proposals than all the dim
ples and bright eyes in the world.
Eh, Jimmy? But you haven’t pro
posed yet? ”
“I did. You gave your consent.”
“But you’re not going to marry
me. You want Lucy. You’ll have
to speak to her about it.”
“Now, look, Mr. Putnam, I can
come to you aniLask for her, and
it’s the same thing.”
“Not by a hundred miles, my boy. If I told
Lucy you had said that, she wouldn’t be at home the
next time you called. The trouble with you is that
you don’t understand women. You’ve got to talk
direct to them.”
Jimmy looked hopelessly out of the window.
“No; what you say to me and what 1 say to you
hasn’t any more to do with you and Lucy than if
you were selling me a bill of goods. I like you,
Jimmy, and I’ve watched your career so far with
interest, and I look for great things from you in the
future, and that’s why I say to you to go ahead and
get Lucy, and good luck to you both.”
Mr. Putnam took up some papers from his desk
and pretended to be studying them, but from the
tail of his eye he gathered the gloom that was set
tling over Jimmy’s face. The elder man enjoyed the
situation.
“Well, Mr. Putnam,” Jimmy asked, “why can’t
you just tell Lucy for me that 1 have asked you, and
that you say it’s all right? Then when 1 go to see
her next time it’ll all be arranged and understood.”
“Le’ me see. Didn’t I read a poem or something
at school about some one who hadn’t sand enough
to propose to a girl and who got another man to
ask her? But it wasn’t her own father. Why,
Jimmy, if you haven’t courage enough to propose to
a girl, what do you suppose will be your finish if she
marries you? A married man has to have spunk.”
“I’ve got the spunk, all right, but you understand
how I feel.”
“Sure! Let me give you some advice. When '
you propose to a girl, you don’t have to come right
out and ask her to marry you.”
Jimmy caught at the straw.
“You don’t?” he asked.
“Certainly not. There’s half a dozen ways of
letting her know that you want her. Usually—
always, I may say—she knows it anyway, and un
less she wants you she’ll not let you tell her so. But
if 1 wanted a short, sharp ‘No’ from a girl, I’d get
her father to ask her to marry me.”
“Then you mean that I’ve got to ask her myself? ”
‘To be sure.”
‘1 can’t do it, Mr. Putnam; I can’t.”
“Write it.”
“Why, I’d feel as if the postman and everybody
else knew it.”
“Telephone.”
“Worse yet.”
“Jim Minton, I’m disgusted with you. I thought
you were a young man with some enterprise, but if
you lose your courage over such an every-day affair
as proposing to a girl ”
“But men don’t propose every day.”
“ Somebody is proposing to somebody every day.
It goes on all the time. No, sir; I wash my hands
of it. I’ll not withdraw my consent, and you have
my moral support and encouragement, but getting
married is the same as getting into trouble—you
have to handle your own case.”
“But, Mr. Putnam ”
“You’ll only go over the same ground again.
Good morning. I don’t want to hear any more of
this until it’s settled one way or the other. I’ll not
help and I’ll not hinder. It—it’s up to you.”
With this colloquial farewell, Mr. Putnam waved
his hand and turned to his papers. Jimmy accumu
lated his hat and stick, and left, barren of hope.
That night he took Lucy to see “Romeo and
Juliet.” The confidence and enthusiasm of Romeo
merely threw him into a deeper despair of his own
ability as a suitor, and made him even more taciturn
and stumbling of speech than ever. His silence
grew heavier and heavier, until at last Lucy threw
out her never-failing life-line. She asked him about
his cousin Mary.
“By the way,” he said, brightening up, “Cousin
Mary is going through here one day next week.”
“ Is she? How I should like to know her. If she
is anything like you she must be very agreeable.”
“She isn’t like me, but she is agreeable. Won’t
you let me try to bring you two together—at lunch
downtown or something like that?”
“ It would be fine.”
“I’ll do it. I'll arrange it just as soon as I see
her.”
Then silence, pall-like, fell again upon them.
Jimmy thought of Romeo, and Lucy thought of -
Romeo, let us say. When a young man and a
young woman who are the least bit inclined one
to another witness Shakespeare’s great educative
effort, the young woman cannot help imagining
herself leaning over the balcony watching the at
tempts of the young man to clamber up the rope-
ladder.
After he had gone that night, Lucy sat down for a
soul communion with herself. Pity the woman
who does not have soul communions. She who can
sit side by side with herself and make herself believe
that she is perfectly right and proper in thinking and
believing as she does is happy. The first question
Lucy Putnam put to her subliminal self was: “Do
I love Jimmy?” Subliminal self, true to sex,
equivocated. It said: “I am not sure?” Where
upon Lucy asked: “Why do I love him?” Then
ensued the debate. Subliminal self said it was be
cause he was a clean, good-hearted, manly fellow.
Lucy responded that he was too bashful. “He is
handsome,” retorted subliminal self. “But there
are times when he grows so abashed that he is awk
ward.” Subliminal self said he would outgrow that.
“But there are other men who are just as nice, just
as handsome, and just as clever, who are not so
overwhelmingly shy,” argued Lucy. Whereat sub
liminal self drew itself up proudly and demanded:
“Name one!” And Lucy was like the person who
can remember faces, but has no memory at all for
names.
II
Cousin Mary came to town as she had promised,
and she made Cousin Jimmy drop his work and fol
low her through the shops half the morning. Cousin
(Continued on page vj)