FANTASTICAL ADVENTURES – L. Frank Baum Edition (Childhood Essentials Library). Лаймен Фрэнк Баум
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know,” said the insect, rather humbled. “But I’ll give you seven ninety-three for her. That’s all she’s worth, you know; for I saw it marked on the tag.”
The man gave a roar of rage and jumped into the air with the intention of falling on the WoggleBug and hurting him with the knife and pistol. But the WoggleBug was suddenly in a hurry, and didn’t wait to be jumped on. Indeed, he ran so very fast that the man was content to let him go, especially as the pistol wasn’t loaded and the carvingknife was as dull as such knives usually are.
But his wife had conceived a great dislike for the Wagnerian check costume that had won for her the WoggleBug’s admiration. “I’ll never wear it again!” she said to her husband, when he came in and told her that the WoggleBug was gone.
“Then,” he replied, “you’d better give it to Bridget; for she’s been bothering me about her wages lately, and the present will keep her quite for a month longer.”
So she called Bridget and presented her with the dress, and the delighted servant decided to wear it that night to Mickey Schwartz’s ball.
Now the poor WoggleBug, finding his affection scorned, was feeling very blue and unhappy that evening, When he walked out, dressed (among other things) in a purple-striped shirt, with a yellow necktie and pea-green gloves, he looked a great deal more cheerful than he really was. He had put on another hat, for the WoggleBug had a superstition that to change his hat was to change his luck, and luck seemed to have overlooked the fact that he was in existence.
The hat may really have altered his fortunes, as the Insect shortly met Ikey Swanson, who gave him a ticket to Mickey Schwartz’s ball; for Ikey’s clean dickey had not come home from the laundry, and so he could not go himself.
The WoggleBug, thinking to distract his mind from his dreams of love, attended the hall, and the first thing he saw as he entered the room was Bridget clothed in that same gorgeous gown of Wagnerian plaid that had so fascinated his bugly heart.
The dear Bridget had added to her charms by putting seven full-blown imitation roses and three second-hand ostrich-plumes in her red hair; so that her entire person glowed like a sunset in June.
The Wogglebug was enraptured; and, although the divine Bridget was waltzing with Fritzie Casey, the Insect rushed to her side and, seizing her with all his four arms at once, cried out in his truly educated Bostonian way:
“Oh, my superlative conglomeration of beauty! I have found you at last!”
Bridget uttered a shriek, and Fritzie Casey doubled two fists that looked like tombstones, and advanced upon the intruder.
Still embracing the plaid costume with two arms, the WoggleBug tipped Mr. Casey over with the other two. But Bridget made a bound and landed with her broad heel, which supported 180 pounds, firmly upon the Insect’s toes. He gave a yelp of pain and promptly released the lady, and a moment later he found himself flat upon the floor with a dozen of the dancers piled upon him—all of whom were pummeling each other with much pleasure and a firm conviction that the diversion had been planned for their special amusement.
But the WoggleBug had the strength of many men, and when he flopped the big wings that were concealed by the tails of his coat, the gentlemen resting upon him were scattered like autumn leaves in a gust of wind.
The Insect stood up, rearranged his dress, and looked about him. Bridget had run away and gone home, and the others were still fighting amongst themselves with exceeding cheerfulness. So the WoggleBug selected a hat which fit him (his own having been crushed out of shape) and walked sorrowfully back to his lodgings.
“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