“Evidently that was not a lucky hat I wore to the ball,” he reflected; “but perhaps this one I now have will bring about a change in my fortunes.”
Bridget needed money; and as she had worn her brilliant costume once and allowed her friends to see how becoming it was, she carried it the next morning to a second-hand dealer and sold it for three dollars in cash.
Scarcely had she left the shop when a lady of Swedish extraction—a widow with four small children in her train—entered and asked to look at a gown. The dealer showed her the one he had just bought from Bridget, and its gay coloring so pleased the widow that she immediately purchased it for $3.65.
“Ay tank ets a good deal money, by sure,” she said to herself; “but das leedle children mus’ have new fadder to mak mind un tak care dere mudder like, by yimminy! An’ Ay tank no man look may way in das ole dress I been wearing.”
She took the gown and the four children to her home, where she lost no time in trying on the costume, which fitted her as perfectly as a flour-sack does a peck of potatoes.
“Das beau—tiful!” she exclaimed, in rapture, as she tried to see herself in a cracked mirror. “Ay go das very afternoon to valk in da park, for das man-folks go crazy-like ven he sees may fine frocks!”
Then she took her green parasol and a hand-bag stuffed with papers (to make it look prosperous and aristocratic) and sallied forth to the park, followed by all her interesting flock.
The men didn’t fail to look at her, as you may guess; but none looked with yearning until the WoggleBug, sauntering gloomily along a path, happened to raise his eyes and see before him his heart’s delight the very identical Wagnerian plaids which had filled him with such unbounded affection.
“Aha, my excruciatingly lovely creation!” he cried, running up and kneeling before the widow; “I have found you once again. Do not, I beg of you, treat me with coldness!”
For he had learned from experience not to unduly startle his charmer at their first moment of meeting; so he made a firm attempt to control himself, that the wearer of the checked gown might not scorn him.
The widow had no great affection for bugs, having wrestled with the species for many years; but this one was such a big-bug and so handsomely dressed that she saw no harm in encouraging him—especially as the men she had sought to captivate were proving exceedingly shy.
“So you tank Ay I ban loavely?” she asked, with a coy glance at the Insect.
“I do! With all my heart I do!” protested the WoggleBug, placing all four hands, one after another, over that beating organ.
“Das mak plenty trouble by you. I don’d could be yours!” sighed the widow, indeed regretting her admirer was not an ordinary man.
“Why not?” asked the WoggleBug. “I have still the seven ninety-three; and as that was the original price, and you are now slightly worn and second-handed, I do not see why I need despair of calling you my own.”
It is very queer, when we think of it, that the WoggleBug could not separate the wearer of his lovely gown from the gown itself. Indeed, he always made love directly to the costume that had so enchanted him, without any regard whatsoever to the person inside it; and the only way we can explain this remarkable fact is to recollect that the WoggleBug was only a wogglebug, and nothing more could be expected of him. The widow did not, of course, understand his speech in the least; but she gathered the fact that the WoggleBug had id money, so she sighed and hinted that she was very hungry, and that there was a good short-order restaurant just outside the park.
The WoggleBug became thoughtful at this. He hated to squander his money, which he had come to regard a sort of purchase price with which to secure his divinity. But neither could he allow those darling checks to go hungry; so he said:
“If you will come with me to the restaurant, I will gladly supply you with food.”
The widow accepted the invitation at once, and the WoggleBug walked proudly beside her, leading all of the four children at once with his four hands.
Two such gay costumes as those worn by the widow and the WoggleBug are seldom found together, and the restaurant man was so impressed by the sight that he demanded his money in advance.
The four children, jabbering delightedly in their broken English, clambered upon four stools, and the widow sat upon another. And the WoggleBug, who was not hungry (being engaged in feasting his eyes upon the checks), laid down a silver dollar as a guarantee of good faith.
It was wonderful to see so much pie and cake and bread-and-butter and pickles and doughnuts and sandwiches disappear into the mouths of the four innocents and their comparatively innocent mother. The WoggleBug had to add another quarter to the vanished dollar before the score was finally settled; and no sooner had the tribe trooped out of the restaurant than they turned into the open portals of an Ice-Cream Parlor, where they all attacked huge stacks of pale ice-cream and consumed several plates of lady-fingers and cream-puffs.
Again the WoggleBug reluctantly abandoned a dollar; but the end was not yet. The dear children wanted candy and nuts; and then they warned pink lemonade; and then popcorn and chewing-gum; and always the WoggleBug, after a glance at the entrancing costume, found himself unable to resist paying for the treat.
It was nearly evening when the widow pleaded fatigue and asked to be taken home. For none of them was able to eat another morsel, and the WoggleBug wearied her with his protestations of boundless admiration.
“Will you permit me to call upon you this evening?” asked the Insect, pleadingly, as he bade the wearer of the gown goodbye on her doorstep.
“Sure like!” she replied, not caring to dismiss him harshly; and the happy WoggleBug went home with a light heart, murmuring to himself:
“At last the lovely plaids are to be my own! The new hat I found at the ball has certainly brought me luck.”
I am glad our friend the WoggleBug had those few happy moments, for he was destined to endure severe disappointments in the near future.
That evening he carefully brushed his coat, put on a green satin necktie and a purple embroidered waistcoat, and walked briskly towards the house of the widow. But, alas! as he drew near to the dwelling a most horrible stench greeted his nostrils, a sense of great depression came over him, and upon pausing before the house his body began to tremble and his eyes rolled wildly in their sockets.
For the wily widow, wishing to escape her admirer, had sprinkled the doorstep and the front walk with insect Exterminator, and not even the WoggleBug’s love for the enchanting checked gown could induce him to linger longer in that vicinity.
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 WoggleBug’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 WoggleBug, and was horrified by his sudden and unusual appearance.
“Go