These mortuary emblems furnished me with congenial food for reflection.I used to lie in the long grass, and speculate on the advantages anddisadvantages of being a cherub.
I forget what I thought the advantages were, but I remember distinctlyof getting into an inextricable tangle on two points: How could acherub, being all head and wings, manage to sit down when he was tired?To have to sit down on the back of his head struck me as an awkwardalternative. Again: Where did a cherub carry those indispensablearticles (such as jack-knives, marbles, and pieces of twine) whichboys in an earthly state of existence usually stow away in theirtrousers-pockets?
These were knotty questions, and I was never able to dispose of themsatisfactorily.
Meanwhile Pepper Whitcomb would scour the whole town in search of me.He finally discovered my retreat, and dropped in on me abruptly oneafternoon, while I was deep in the cherub problem.
"Look here, Tom Bailey!" said Pepper, shying a piece of clam-shellindignantly at the file jacet on a neighboring gravestone. "You are justgoing to the dogs! Can't you tell a fellow what in thunder ails you,instead of prowling round among the tombs like a jolly old vampire?"
"Pepper," I replied, solemnly, "don't ask me. All is not wellhere"--touching my breast mysteriously. If I had touched my head instead,I should have been nearer the mark.
Pepper stared at me.
"Earthly happiness," I continued, "is a delusion and a snare. You willnever be happy, Pepper, until you are a cherub."
Pepper, by the by, would have made an excellent cherub, he was sochubby. Having delivered myself of these gloomy remarks, I aroselanguidly from the grass and moved away, leaving Pepper staring afterme in mute astonishment. I was Hamlet and Werter and the late Lord Byronall in one.
You will ask what my purpose was in cultivating this factitiousdespondency. None whatever. Blighted beings never have any purpose inlife excepting to be as blighted as possible.
Of course my present line of business could not long escape the eye ofCaptain Nutter. I don't know if the Captain suspected my attachment forMiss Glentworth. He never alluded to it; but he watched me. Miss Abigailwatched me, Kitty Collins watched me, and Sailor Ben watched me.
"I can't make out his signals," I overheard the Admiral remark to mygrandfather one day. "I hope he ain't got no kind of sickness aboard."
There was something singularly agreeable in being an object of so greatinterest. Sometimes I had all I could do to preserve my dejected aspect,it was so pleasant to be miserable. I incline to the opinion thatpeople who are melancholy without any particular reason, such as poets,artists, and young musicians with long hair, have rather an enviabletime of it. In a quiet way I never enjoyed myself better in my life thanwhen I was a Blighted Being.