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Words: 28871 in 8 pages
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Momentarily the articles that filled my arms and hung on my shoulders and back grew more cumbersome and burdensome Frontispiece
PAGE May I ask whether you are going to a fancy dress party somewhere? 42
Until he loomed almost above my kneeling form 94
"I," she said, "am Major Jones" 132
From its depths I extracted the parting gifts bestowed upon me by my Great-Aunt Paulina 176
"Say coo-coo clearly and distinctly and keep on saying it until I call out 'Enough'" 234
To be exact, I kissed at her 268
IT is with a feeling of the utmost reluctance, amounting--if I may use so strong a word--to distress, that I take my pen in hand to indite the exceedingly painful account which follows; yet I feel I owe it not only to myself and the parishioners of St. Barnabas', but to the community at large, to explain in amplified detail why I have withdrawn suddenly, automatically as it were, from the organisation of youthful forest rangers of which I was, during its brief existence, the actuating spirit, and simultaneously have resigned my charge to seek a field of congenial endeavour elsewhere.
My first inclination was to remain silent; to treat with dignified silence the grossly exaggerated statements that lately obtained circulation, and, I fear me, credence, in some quarters, regarding the circumstances which have inspired me in taking the above steps. Inasmuch, however, as there has crept into the public prints hereabout a so-called item or article purporting to describe divers of my recent lamentable experiences--an item which I am constrained to believe the author thereof regarded as being of a humorous character, but in which no right-minded person could possibly see aught to provoke mirth--I have abandoned my original resolution and shall now lay bare the true facts.
In part my motive for so doing is based on personal grounds, for I have indeed endured grievously both laceration of the tenderest sensibilities and anguish of the corporeal body; but I feel also that I have a public duty to perform. If this unhappy recital but serves to put others on their guard against a too-ready acceptance of certain specious literature dealing with the fancied delights--I say fancied advisedly and for greater emphasis repeat the whole phrase--against the fancied delights of life in the greenwood, then in such case my own poignant pangs shall not have entirely been in vain.
With these introductory remarks, I shall now proceed to a calm, temperate and dispassionate narration of the various occurrences leading up to a climax that left me for a measurable space prone on the bed of affliction, and from which I have but newly risen, though still much shaken.
When I came to St. Barnabas' as assistant to the Reverend Doctor Tubley my personal inclination, I own, was for parish work among our female members. I felt that, both by natural leanings and by training, I was especially equipped to be of aid and comfort here. Instinctively, as it were, I have ever been drawn toward the other and gentler sex; but my superior felt that my best opportunities for service lay with the males of a tender and susceptible age.
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