13 - Being a Boy by Charles Dudley Warner

Dive into Warners engaging and humor-filled memoir as he shares his experiences growing up on a farm in Charlemont, Massachusetts. Narrated by Mark Penfold, this podcast will transport you back to a simpler time and place.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter thirteen of Being a Boy by Charles Dudley Warner.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
Mark Penfold, Chapter thirteen, John's first Party. It turned out
that John did not go after all to Cynthia Rudd's party,

(00:22):
having broken through the ice on the river when he
was skating that day, and as the boy who pulled
him out said, come within an inch of his life.
But he took care not to tumble into anything that
should keep him from the next party, which was given
with due formality by Melinda Mayhew. John had been many
a time to the house of Deacon Mayhew, and never
with any hesitation, even if he knew that both the

(00:44):
deacon's daughters, Melinda and Sophronia, were at home. The only
fear he had felt was of the Deacon's big dog,
who always surlily watched him as he came up the
tan bark walk and made a rush at him if
he showed the least sign of wavering. But upon the
night of the his courage vanished, and he thought he
would rather face all the dogs in town than knock

(01:04):
at the front door. The parlor was lighted up, and
as John stood on the broad, flagging before the front
door by the lilac bush, he could hear the sound
of voices, girl's voices, which set his heart in a flutter.
He could face the whole district school of girls without flinching.
He didn't mind him in the meeting house in their
Sunday best. But he began to be conscious that now

(01:26):
he was passing to a new sphere where the girls
are supreme and superior, and he began to feel for
the first time that he was an awkward boy. The
girl takes to society as naturally as a duckling does
to the placid pond, but with a semblance of shy timidity.
The boy plunges in with a great splash and hides
his shy awkwardness in noise and commotion. When John entered,

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the company had nearly all come. He knew them, every one,
and yet there was something about them strange and unfamiliar.
They were all a little afraid of each other, as
people are apt to be when they are well dressed
in met together for social purposes in the country. To
be at a real party was a novel thing for
most of them, and put a constraint upon them which
they could not at once overcome. Perhaps it was because

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they were in the awful parlor, that carpeted room of
haircloth furniture, which was so seldom opened. Upon the wall
hung two certificates framed in black, one certifying that, by
the payment of fifty dollars, Deacon Mayhew was a life
member of the American Tract Society, and the other that,
by a like outlay of bread cast upon the waters,

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his wife was a life member of the A, B, C, F, M,
a portion of the alphabet which has an awful significance
to all New England childhood. These certificates are a sort
of receipt in full for charity, and are a constant
in consoling reminder to the farmer that he has discharged
his religious duties. There was a fire on the broad hearth,

(02:52):
and that, with the tallow candles on the mantelpiece, made
quite an illumination in the room, and enabled the boys,
who were mostly on one side of the room, to
see the girls who were on the other. Quite plainly,
how sweet and demure the girls looked. To be sure,
every boy was thinking if his hair was slick, and
feeling the full embarrassment of his entrance into fashionable life.

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It was queer that these children, who were so free
everywhere else, should be so constrained now and not know
what to do with themselves. The shooting of a spark
out upon the carpet was a great relief, and was
accompanied by a deal of scrambling to throw it back
into the fire, and caused much giggling. It was only
gradually that the formality was at all broken, and the
young people got together and found their tongues. John at

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length found himself with Cynthia Rudd, to his great delight
and considerable embarrassment. For Cynthia, who was older than John,
never looked so pretty. To his surprise, he had nothing
to say to her. They have always found plenty to
talk about before, but now nothing that he could think
of seemed worth saying at a party. It is a
pleasant evening, said John, It is quite so, replied Cynthia.

(04:02):
Did you come in a cutter, asked John anxiously. No.
I walked on the crust, and it was perfectly lovely walking,
said Cynthia, in a burst of confidence. Was it slippery,
continued John? Not very. John hoped it would be slippery
very When he walked home with Cynthia, as he determined
to do, but he did not dare to say so,

(04:23):
and the conversation ran aground again. John thought about his
dog and his sledge and his yoke of steers, but
he didn't see any way to bring them into conversation.
Had she read the Swiss family Robinson only a little ways?
John said it was splendid and he would lend it
to her, for which she thanked him and said with
such a sweet expression she should be so glad to

(04:44):
have it from him. That was encouraging. And then John
asked Cynthia if she had seen Sally hawks since the
husking at their house when Sally found so many red ears,
And didn't she think she was a real pretty girl? Yes,
she was right pretty. Cynthia guessed that Sallie knew it
pretty well. But did John like the color of her eyes? No,

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John didn't like the color of her eyes exactly. Her
mouth would be well enough if she didn't laugh so
much and show her teeth. John said her mouth was
her worst feature. Oh, no, said Cynthia warmly. Her mouth
is better than her nose. John didn't know, but it
was better than her nose, and he should like her
looks better if her hair wasn't so dreadful black. But Cynthia,

(05:27):
who could afford to be generous now, said she liked
black hair, and she wished hers was dark. Whereupon John
protested that he liked light hair, auburn hair of all things.
And Cynthia said that Sallie was a dear, good girl,
and she didn't believe one word of the story. That
she only really found one red ear at the husking
that night and hid that and kept pulling it out

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as if it were a new one. And so the conversation,
once started, went on as briskly as possible, about the
paring bee and the spelling school, and the new singing
master who was coming, and how Jack Thompson had gone
to Northampton to be a clerk in a store, and
how Elvirah Reddington, in the geography class at school was
asked what was the capital of Massachusetts and had answered Northampton,

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and all the school laughed. John enjoyed the conversation amazingly,
and he half wished that he and Cynthia were the
whole of the party. But the party had meantime got
into operation, and the formality was broken up when the
boys and girls had ventured out of the parlor into
the more comfortable living room with its easy chairs and
everyday things, and even gone so far as to penetrate

(06:30):
the kitchen in their frolic. As soon as they forgot
they were a party, they began to enjoy themselves. But
the real pleasure only began with the games. The party
was nothing without the games, and indeed it was made
for the games. Very likely it was one of the
timid girls who proposed to play something, And when the
ice was once broken, the whole company went into the

(06:50):
business enthusiastically. There was no dancing, we should hope, not
not in the deacon's house, not with the deacon's daughters,
nor anywhere in this good Puritanic societiety. Dancing was a
sin in itself, and no one could tell what it
would lead to. But there was no reason why the
boys and girls shouldn't come together and kiss each other
during a whole evening. Occasionally, kissing was a sign of peace,

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and was not at all like taking hold of hands
and skipping about to the scraping of a wicked fiddle.
In the games, there was a great deal of clasping
hands of going round in a circle, of passing under
each other's elevated arms, of singing about my true love.
And the end was kisses distributed with more or less
partiality according to the rules of the play. But thank

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heaven there was no fiddler. John liked it all and
was quite brave about paying all the forfeits imposed on him,
even to the kissing all the girls in the room.
But he thought he could have amended that by kissing
a few of them a good many times instead of
kissing them all once. But John was destined to have
a damper put upon his enjoyment. They were playing a
most fascinating game in which they all stand in a

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circle and sing a philandering song, except one who was
in the center of the ring and holds a cushion.
At a certain word in the song, the one in
the center throws the cushion at the feet of someone
in the ring, indicating thereby the choice of a mate,
And then the too sweetly kneel upon the cushion like
two meek angels, and and so forth. Then the chosen

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one takes the cushion, and the delightful play goes on.
It is very easy, as it will be seen to
learn how to play it. Cynthia was holding the cushion,
and at the fatal words, she threw it down, not
before John, but in front of Ephrium Leggett, and they
too kneeled, and so forth. John was astounded. He had
never conceived as such perfidy in the female heart. He

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felt like wiping Ephrium off the face of the earth.
Only Ephrium was older and bigger than he. When it
came his turn at length, thanks to a plain little
girl for whose admiration he didn't care a straw, he
threw the cushion down before Melinda Mayhew with all the
devotion he could muster, and a dagger look at Cynthia,
and Cynthia's perfidious smile only enraged him the more. John

(08:58):
felt wronged and worked himself up to pass a wretched evening.
When supper came, he never went near Cynthia and busied
himself in carrying different kinds of pie and cake and
red apples and cider to the girls he liked the least.
He shunned Cynthia, and when he was accidentally near her
and she asked him if he would get her a
glass of cider, he rudely told her, like a goose

(09:19):
as he was, that she had better ask Ephrium. That
seemed to him very smart, But he got more and
more miserable, and began to feel that he was making
himself ridiculous. Girls have a great deal more good sense
in such matters than boys. Cynthia went to John at
length and asked him simply what the matter was. John
blushed and said that nothing was the matter. Cynthia said

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that it wouldn't do for two people always to be
together at a party, and so they made up, and
John obtained permission to see Cynthia home. It was after
half past nine when the great festivities at the Deacons
broke up, and John walked home with Cynthia over the
shining crust and under the stars. It was mostly a
silent walk, for this was also an occasion and when

(10:00):
it is difficult to find anything fit to say, and
John was thinking all the way how he should bid
Cynthia good night, whether it would do, and whether it
wouldn't do, this not being a game, and no forfeits
attaching to it. When they reached the gate, there was
an awkward little pause. John said, the stars were uncommonly
bright Cynthia did not deny it, but waited a minute

(10:22):
and then turn abruptly away with good night John, good
night Cynthia. And the party was over, and Cynthia was gone,
and John went home in a kind of dissatisfaction with himself.
It was long before he could go to sleep, for
thinking of the new world open to him, and imagining
how he would act under a hundred different circumstances, and

(10:42):
what he would say and what Cynthia would say. But
a dream at length came and led him away to
a great city in a brilliant house. And while he
was there he heard a loud rapping on the underfloor
and saw that it was daylight. End of Chapter thirteen,
Recording by Mark Penfold.