I will buy some more." "John," said my father, weeping, "arouse yourself! You shall leave this place, if you desire it--only live! I will get you the position of weather-gauger on top of Mount Washington, if you say so, but don't commit any more suicide, my son!" I was affected, and promised that I wouldn't, provided that I was found a situation somewhere by myself.

So the excitement subsided.
Father slept with me that night, keeping one eye open; the doctor got the credit of saving my life, and the girls of Babbletown were scared out of laughing at me for a whole month.
When we came to talk the matter over seriously--father and I--it was found to be too late in the season to procure me the Mount Washington appointment for the winter; besides, the effect of my attempt to "shuffle off this mortal coil" was to literally overrun our store with customers.

People came from the country for fifteen miles around, in ox teams, on horse-back, in sleighs and cutters, and bob-sleds, and crockery-crates, to buy something, in hopes of getting a glimpse of the bashful young man who swallowed the pizen.

Now, father was too cute a Yankee not to take advantage of the mob.

He forgot his promises, and made me stay in the store from morning till night, so that women could say: "I bought this 'ere shirting from the young man who committed suicide; he did it up with his own hands." "I'll give you a fair share o' the profits, John," father would say, slyly.
Well, things went on as it greased; the girls mostly stayed away--the Babbletown girls, for they had guilty consciences, I suspect; and in February there came a thaw.