A Kiss in the Dark.

Otago Witness, Issue 1240, 4 September 1875, Page 20

A Kiss in the Dark.

By W. W. T.

" Will you be at home to-night, Annie?' The person who asked this question, a tall, muscular, good-looking young farmer, was leaning upon Squire Moore's front gate, talking to the Squire's pretty daughter, who stood inside it. As the simple words passed his lips he reddened suddenly to the very roots of his hair, as if he had just been guilty of some great impropriety.

He was bashful — extremely baslif ul was David Winthrop — at least in the presence of the girl he loved. No young man in all Wilkes Co\mty owned a better-kept farm, or talked with more confidence among his cronies of crops and stock and such like. But the sight of a pretty foot or face affected him queerly. On such occasions he never knew what to do with his hands and eyes, and seemed always to feel like screwing himself into the nearest mouse-hole until the danger — that is to say, the young lady — was past. This state of things being considered, no one ever understood how he contrived to muster up courage enough to enlighten

Aunie Moore on the subjeot of his preference for herself. The matter probably remains to this day as much a mystery to h : m as it is to others.

Miss Annie, however, had a fair share of tact ancl womanly cleverness stowed safely away somewhere in the recesses of hep pretty little head, although it was carried jauntily upon the unexperienced and rounded shoulders of fresh eighteen. She did not need to be reminded that David was worth, in a worldly way, much more than any of her other suitors, and that he was good-looking, good-hearted, and intelligent enough to~ satisfy any but an over fastidious person of her class. He was unexceptionable, in short, barring his unconquerable and excessive bashfulness, which, indeed, was a never-failing source of merriment to the young people of their little circle.

And so, when David in his awkward, blundering, half-frightened manner began shyly to exhibit his preference for her in various little ways, such as waiting on her to and from singing school, constituting himself her escort when she went Sundays on horseback to the lonely little church in the woods, and singling her out as the recipient of whatever attentions he could find the nerve to pay at the frequent quilting parties in the neighbourhood, Annie did not frighten him out of his budding passion by any show, either by surprise or marked preference, but took it all in the easiest, pleasantest, most unconscious manner possible. The girls tittered and banged each other's elbows, and the young men cracked furtive jokes at the expense of her timid suitor, but she stood up for him like a real kindhearted, independent Western lass, as she was, and tried to encourage him out of his shyness as far as she consistently could. She never ventured to notice any of his unfortunate blunders, and very likely helped him along considerably when his feelings reached the culminating point, one moon-lighted August evening, as they were walking home together from a cornhusking. That had been just one week ago. Annie had said "Yes," and had agreed to take the responsibility of bringing father and mother "around" on the subject. David had not been to the house since. Probably he felt very much like a dog who fears to venture upon the premises of a person whose sheepfold he has just plundered. Thus it happened that as yet the powers that were knew nothing of the momentous secret which they kept between them, fearing to divulge. And now Annie, who wished to put off the ordeal of avowal as long as possible — at any rate to gain time for one more confidential talk with David on the subject — said hastily, in reply to that stammered query of his with which we have prefaced this narration :—: — " Mother is going over to Aunt Ruth's with father to spend the evening, and she wants me to go too, but I guess I won't. I've been working on father's new shirts aIL day, besides doing the dairy work yesterday, and I'm about tired out." Then she added before he could reply: — " Don't come until 8 o'clock, I shall be about through putting things to rights by that time. " Of course, David was not too obtuse to understand that he was specially favoured by this arrangement, and he so far forgot his bashfulness as to petition awkwardty for a parting kiss, which was at once refused in the most inexorable manner possible. " No, you shan't ! There now ! Do take yourself off, will you ? D'ye think I didn't see you fidgeting round Em. Smith at Deacon Anderson's social last night ? I've not forgotten that, sir ! ): " Oh, now, Annie ! just one ! " But further appeal was broke off by a tantalising little laugh, and when, rendered desperate by this, he tried to revenge himself, at that very moment when he thought he was secure of the coveted bliss, and stooped triumphantly over his struggling prisoner, the rosy, laughing face vanished suddenly from under his arm and was off up the garden path leading to the house almost before he could realise what had happened. For one moment David, who stood gazing ruefully after her, thought of pursuit and a recapture. But before he had time to put his plan into execution, his tormentress, after stopping to give one mocking farewell wave of her hand from the front porch, vanished inside the hall door. So there was nothing left but to turn reluctantly from the gate and taking the road homeward. If you could have looked into the family sitting-room at Squire Moore's shortly before 8 o'clock on that same evening, you would have had a cheery picture before you. The after supper clearing away was over, for the sitting-room was also the raom where the daily meals of the family were eaten. The leaves of the oldfashioned dinner-table had been let down, and the table itself covered with a bright oil-cloth, set back against the wall. The crumbs had been carefully brushed with a turkey-wing from the neat home-made carpet, and Annie's workstand was drawn up in front of the ample and blazing fire of hickory logs, which crackled cheerfully in the old-fashiomed fire-place. A bountifully piled tray of red- cheeked apples and a plate full of cracked walnuts were on it, in close proximity to Annie's coquettish work-basket, made of pine cones by her own deft little hands, and daintily lined with blue silk.

On one side of the fire-place sat Mrs Moore, fat, fair, more than forty, and at peace with all the world. She sat swaying backward and forward at intervals in her low rocking-chair, knitting as ahe rocked,

and refreshing herself now and then with a mouthful from a half-eaten apple which lay within easy reach, just upon the corner of the table ; or touching in a caressing manner with the tip of her foot a sleek, lazy-looking grey cat that lay purring and blinking on the hearth-rucr before her. "

Annie sat on the other side of the table deftly drawing her needle in and out of a long piece of white cambric, and with her head as busy as her hands with trying t» 3ontrive some clever way of incidentally mentioning thp visit, which she was now momentarily expecting, to her mother, without exciting the suspicion of its being a pre-arranged affair. She would have given a good deal to have been able to say in an off-hand style that she wouldn't wonder if Mr Winthrop would drop in* aa he was in the habit of calling occasionally on Sunday evening at about this time. But she recollected with a twinge of conscience how hard she had tried to persuadjg 1 the old lady to accompany her husbarß? on t'-ie promised visit to Aunt Ruth's, in j j spite of her forewarnings of a coming spell of "neuralgy," which had intimidated her fiom venturing out into the damp night air ; and how she had pleaded headache as an excuse for not going herself. She knew that her mother was quite sharp enough to draw her own inference from these two facts and the additional one of her being dressed with more than usual care to spend an evening at home. " I shall not dare to tell her now," she said to herself. " She'd be sure to think that I wanted to get her out of the way so that I might have David all to myself." So like a wise little puss, she was silent I'll venture my word on it, you would i.ot have wondered at our bashful young farmer's desperate enthralment if he could have seen Annie Moore as she sat sewing by the fire that frosty night in November. She had, just before supper, indulged in what a Western girl would call "a fixing up." A neat-fitting cla'rk chintz dres3, looking as fresh as when it had first come out of the village store, a dainty white linen collar and cuffs, a coquettish frilled apron of white muslin, and a blue neck-ribbon tied in a cunning bow, were the chief items of Annie's toilette. But she looked as sweet and pretty as if hours had been spent in donning satin, lace, and jewels. Her rick, wavy, golden-brown hair was carried in shining folds away from her warm i;ed cheek, and caught up in the meshes of a silken net at the back. Eight o'clock and past ! Worthy Mrs Moore was dozing over her knitting. Her shadow on the opposite wall bobbed about in grotesque mimicry as she nodded to and fro — now crushing the voluminous' white satin bows on her spruce cap against the back of her chair — now almost falling forward, while her fat hands at length dropped listlessly in her lap, and her ball of yarn rolled down iipon the hearth. Pussy, espying it, was soon busy in unwinding and converting it into 'all' sorts of Gordian, All at once a double rap at the door— an audacious double rap — which said " Let me in ! " so loudly and impatiently, and in such a self-assured manner, that Annie, rendered nervous by suspense, started up with a little scream and set hep feet on Madam Puss's tail, who in turn i gave vent still more loudly to her amaze- ' ment and displeasure. All these three combined, or, rather, rapidly successive noises, aroused Mrs Moore, and she started wildly into an erect posture, rubbing her eyes, setting her cap border, and exclaiming. - " Bless my soul, Annie ! What wa»U that 1 Somebody at the door ? Whatfphe is it, anyhow, and who can it be ? SoWate as this, too ] " It's not very late, mother. Only a little after eight ; I'll go and see who it is," said Annie, demurely, at the same time taking the one candle from the table. "No ! Here, Annie, you wind up my ball and brush up the hearth while Igo to the door. Drat that cat." For the old lady's feet were all this while struggling in the perplexing meshes ' of the ravelled yarn. , In her hurry, Mrs Moore forgot to take the candle with her ; and as she stepped out into the small, unlighted "front entry, she unwittingly closed behind her the door of the room she had just left. Almost at the same moment she put her hand on the latch of the outer door, and opened" it she suddenly found herself in the ardent embrace of a pair of stout arms. A whiskered face was brought in close proximity with her own, and before she could fully realise her position, she received a prolonged kiss — a hearty smack, given with a significant gusto which indicated that the unknown r was taking his revenge for some past slight — paying off some old score ; for it said as plainly as words could have done, "There, take that ! " And all this fell upon her unoffending, virtuous matron lips ! " Oh, murder, murder ! 'Taint Joshua, - neither ! " , For she had by this time divested herself of the impression that it was her usually sober spouse returned home in a strangely exalted condition, thus to indulge in such unwonted demonstrations of conjugal affection. " Git out ! git out, T say ! murder ! fire ! thieves ! Annie ! i Annie! do come here! here's a mankissin* < me like mad ! " '

But the intruder had by this time dia- J covered his mistake ; and it did not need the indignant pximmelling and pounding of the old lady's respectable fists to make him relinquish his hold and race off as if pursued by some avenging fury. * , Annie, nearly choked with smothered laughter, in spite of trepidation, now came to the rescue, j

" Oh, I was never so took back in all my born days ! The mean scamp ! Who could it have been ? Annie, have you any idea?" But that dutiful daughter was, to all appearance, as innocent and ignorant as the infantile dove. She tried to soothe the indignant matron by representing that it might have been (1) one of the neighbours, who, under the influence of a wee drop too much, had mistaken the house and— the housewife. She searched the entry for the missing spectacles, arranged the rumpled cap ribbons, wound up the tangled yam, stirred the fire— all ii the most amiable manner possible— and at last had the satisfaction of seeing her mother subside into her rocking-chair and her usual tranquility of spirit. But Mrs Moore was fully awake now. She had gotten a new idea into her head ; and instead of setting herself for another nap, she pursued her train of thought and her knitting, both together with wonderful rapidity. At length, stopping and looking keenly at Annie ■fc - her spectacles, she said :—: — ▼ -It miy be a queer notion of mine, Annie, but I've a fancy that man was David Winthrop." Oh ! but if Annie's face didn't catch fire then ! You might have lit any number of candles by it. These suspicious symptoms did not escape the eye of the skilful inquisitive, who calmly continued :—: — '•' 'Pears s-j to me ; cause them big whiskers put me in mind of liis'n ; and teen the awkward way he gripped me with his big paws ! " No answer. But Annie was wonderfully busy. She bent over her work and drew her needle through so quickly that the thread snapped, and then she didn't have time to talk, she was so taken up with trying to coax the thread through the eye avrain. "inflexible Mrs Moore went on :—: — "I don't believe that kiss was intended for me after all Do you, Annie I Well, of course, we know it wasn't. But then I do wonder who it was intended for I And I wonder if you don't know more aboiit it than you seem fit to te 1 1" • • "Me, mother?" " Yes, 'me mother ; ' you was mighty anxious to get Pa and me oft' to Aunt Ruth's to-night ; but I noticed you was slicked extraordinary for all you weren't going." Here Annie lost her needle, and wont down on the floor to find it. " Now, Annie," her mother went on, "I'm gettiu' old, I know that, but I haven't quite lost my eyesight yet, nor my hearin' neither. I've surmised a little somethin' about these goin's on between you an' David afore now. What are you playin' possum fur ? Out with it, I say. fair to be tryin' to come it over your old mother." Thus adjured, our small feminine Machiiuval made a clean breast of it, much relieved to find that mother hadn't "nothing agin him," and -would give father a talkiu' to about it, an' bring him around. " But, Annie," said Mrs Moore, dryly, in conclusion, " I want you to tell David I'd rather he'd not make such a mistake again. I don't like the feel of his big •wiuskers about my face, and, moreover, I don't approve of promiskus kissin' ! " David never heard the last of that kiss in the dark. Old S.juire 3looro, of course, heard of it, and used to take great delight in slyly alluding to the circumstance when all the parties concerned happened to be present. He would shake his burly sides with laughter at David's discomfiture and his wife's tart replies, while Annie would aside with her father and poke sly fun at sweetheart, and then both of them Mov&d laugh again at the other two, until the tears ran down their cheeks. " Nevermind, David," MrsMoore would sayj consolingly, to the abashed lover, II let them laugh. He'd have been only too glad to have been in your place thirty years ago. He had hard work t» get a kiss from me then. I hope the occurrence vill be a lesson to you an' Annie

agin the IM-policy of underhand doin's of all sorts, secin' as how they're liable to end, in sicli case*, as kiatin' the wrong one in the dark."