Then the chosen 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 word she threw
it down, not before John, but in front of Ephraim Leggett. And they
two kneeled, and so forth. John was astounded. He had never
conceived of such perfidy in the female heart. He felt like wiping
Ephraim off the face of the earth, only Ephraim was older and bigger
than he. When it came his turn at length,--thanks to a plain little
girl for whose admiration he did n'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 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 as he was--that she had
better ask Ephraim.
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