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diff --git a/3427.txt b/3427.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..094dc68 --- /dev/null +++ b/3427.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6850 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kilo, by Ellis Parker Butler + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost +no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use +it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this +eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Kilo + Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent + +Author: Ellis Parker Butler + +Release Date: February 9, 2009 [EBook #3427] +Last Updated: October 20, 2014 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KILO *** + + + + +Produced by Linda P. Kemper-Holzman, and David Widger + + + + + + + + + +KILO + +Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent + + +By Ellis Parker Butler + + + + + +Contents + +KILO + + CHAPTER I. Eliph' Hewlitt + CHAPTER II. Susan + CHAPTER III. "How to Win the Affections" + CHAPTER IV. Kilo + CHAPTER V. Sammy Mills + CHAPTER VI. The Castaway + CHAPTER VII. The Colonel + CHAPTER VIII. The Medium-Sized Box + CHAPTER IX. The Witness + CHAPTER X. The Boss Grafter + CHAPTER XI. The False Gods of Doc Weaver + CHAPTER XII. Getting Acquainted + CHAPTER XIII. "Second: A Small Present" + CHAPTER XIV. Something Turns Up + CHAPTER XV. Difficulties + CHAPTER XVI. Two Lovers, and a Third + CHAPTER XVII. According to Jarby's + CHAPTER XVIII. Another Trial + CHAPTER XIX. Pap Briggs' Hen Food + + + + + + +KILO + + + + +CHAPTER I. Eliph' Hewlitt + +Eliph' Hewlitt, book agent, seated in his weather-beaten top buggy, +drove his horse, Irontail, carefully along the rough Iowa hill road that +leads from Jefferson to Clarence. The Horse, a rusty gray, tottered in +a loose-jointed manner from side to side of the road, half asleep in +the sun, and was indolent in every muscle of his body, except his tail, +which thrashed violently at the flies. Eliph' Hewlitt drove with his +hands held high, almost on a level with his sandy whiskers, for he was +well acquainted with Irontail. + +The road seemed to pass through a region of large farms, offering few +opportunities for selling books, the houses being so far apart, but +Eliph' knew the small settlement of Clarence was a few miles farther +on, and he was carrying enlightenment to the benighted. He glowed with +missionary zeal. In his eagerness he thoughtlessly slapped the reins on +the back of Irontail. + +Instantly the plump, gray tail of the horse flashed over the rein and +clamped it fast. Eliph' Hewlitt leaned over the dashboard of his buggy +and grasped the hair of the tail firmly. He pulled it upward with all +his strength, but the tail did not yield. Instead, Irontail kicked +vigorously. Eliph' Hewlitt, knowing his horse as well as he knew human +nature, climbed out of the buggy, and taking the rein close by the bit +led Irontail to the side of the road. Then he took from beneath the +buggy seat a bulky, oil-cloth-wrapped parcel and seated himself near the +horse's head. There was no safety for a timid driver when Irontail had +thus assumed command of the rein. There was no way to get a rein from +beneath that tail but to ignore it. In an hour or so Irontail would +grow forgetful, carelessly begin flapping flies, and release the rein +himself. + +Eliph' Hewlitt unwrapped the oilcloth from the object it enfolded. It +was a book. It was Jarby's 'Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of +Literature, Science, Art, Comprising Useful Information on One Thousand +and One Subjects, Including A History of the World, the Lives of all +Famous Men, Quotations From the World's Great Authors, One Thousand and +One Recipes, Et Cetera'. One Volume, five dollars bound in cloth; seven +fifty in morocco. Eliph' Hewlitt passed his hand affectionately over the +gilt-stamped cover, and then opened it at random and read. + +For years he had been reading Jarby's Encyclopedia, and among its ten +thousand and one subjects he always found something new. It opened now +at "Courtship--How to Make Love--How to Win the Affections--How to Hold +Them When Won," and although he had read the pages often before, he +found in all parts of the book, whenever he read it, a new meaning. +It occurred to him that even a book agent might have reason to use the +helpful words set for in clear type in the chapter on "Courtship--How to +Make Love," and he realized that sometime he must reach the age when he +would need a home of his own. For years he had thought of woman only as +a possible customer for Jarby's Encyclopedia. Every woman, not already +married, he now saw, might be a possible Mrs. Eliph' Hewlitt. + +Suddenly he raised his head. On the breeze there was borne to him the +sound of voices--many voices. He closed the book with a bang. His small +body became tense; his eyes glittered. He scented prey. He wrapped the +book in its oilcloth, laid it upon the buggy seat, and taking Irontail +by the bridle, started in the direction of the voices. + +Half a mile down the road he came upon a scene of merriment. In a +cleared grove men, women and children were gathered; it was a church +picnic. Eliph' Hewlitt took his hitching strap from beneath the buggy +seat and secured Irontail to a tree. + +"Church picnic," he said to himself; "one, two, sixteen, twenty-four, +AND the minister. Good for twelve copies of Jarby's Encyclopedia or +I'm no good myself. I love church picnics. What so lovely as to see the +pastor and his flock gathered together in a bunch, as I may say, like +ten-pins, ready to be scooped in, all at one shot?" + +He walked up to the rail fence and leaned against it so that he might be +seen and invited in. It was better policy than pushing himself forward, +and it gave him time to study the faces. He did not find them hopeful +subjects. They were not the faces of readers. They were not even the +faces of buyers. Even in their holiday finery, the women were shabby +and the men were careworn. The minister himself, white-bearded and +gray-haired, showed more signs of spiritual grace than intellectual +strength. + +One woman, fresh and bright as a butterfly, appeared among them, and +Eliph' Hewlitt knew her at once as a city dweller, who had somehow got +into this dull and hard-working community. Almost at the same moment +she noticed him, and approached him. She smiled kindly and extended her +hand. + +"Won't you come in?" she asked. "I don't seem to remember your face, but +we would be glad to have you join us." + +Eliph' Hewlitt shook his head. + +"No'm," he said sadly. "I'd better not come in. Not that I don't want +to, but I wouldn't be welcome. There ain't anything I like so much +as church picnics, and when I was a boy I used to cry for them, but I +wouldn't dare join you. I'm a"--he looked around cautiously, and said in +a whisper--"I'm a book agent." + +The lady laughed. + +"Of course," she said, "that DOES make a difference; but you needn't be +a book agent to-day. You can forget it for a while and join us." + +Eliph' Hewlitt shook his head again. + +"That's it," he said. "That's just the reason. I CAN'T forget it. I try +to, but I can't. Just when I don't want to, I break out, and before I +know it I've sold everybody a book, and then I feel like I'd imposed on +good nature. They take me in as a friend and then I sell 'em a copy of +Jarby's 'Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science +and Art,' ten thousand and one subjects, from A to Z, including recipes +for every known use, quotations from famous authors, lives of famous +men, and, in one word, all the world's wisdom condensed into one volume, +five dollars, neatly bound in cloth, one dollar down and one dollar a +month until paid." + +He paused, and the lady looked at him with an amused smile. + +"Or seven fifty, handsomely bound in morocco," he added. "So you see I +don't feel like I ought to impose. I know how I am. You take my mother +now. She hadn't seen me for eight years. I'd been traveling all over +these United States, carrying knowledge and culture into the homes +of the people at five dollars, easy payments, per home, and I got a +telegram saying, 'Come home. Mother very ill.'" He nodded his head +slowly. "Wonderful invention, the telegraph," he said. "It tells +all about it on page 562 of Jarby's 'Encyclopedia of Knowledge and +Compendium of Literature, Science and Art,'--who invented; when first +used; name of every city, town, village and station in the U.S. that +has a telegraph office; complete explanation of the telegraph system, +telling how words are carried over a slender wire, et cetery, et cetery. +This and ten thousand other useful facts in one volume, only five +dollars, bound in cloth. So when I got that telegram I took the train +for home. Look in the index under T. 'Train, Railway--see Railway.' +'Railway; when first operated; inventor of the locomotive engine; +railway accidents from 1892 to 1904, giving number of fatal accidents +per year, per month, per week, per day, and per miles; et cetery, et +cetery. Every subject known to man fully and interestingly treated, WITH +illustrations." + +"I don't believe I care for a copy to-day," said the lady. + +"No," said Eliph' Hewlitt, meekly. "I know it. Nor I don't want to sell +you one. I just mentioned it to show you that when you have a copy of +Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge you have an entire library in one +book, arranged and indexed by the greatest minds of the nineteenth and +twentieth centuries. One dollar down and one dollar a month until paid. +But--when I got home I found mother low--very low. When I went in she +was just able to look up and whisper, 'Eliph'?' 'Yes, mother,' I says. +'Is it really you at last?' she says. 'Yes, mother,' I says, 'it's me +at last, mother, and I couldn't get here sooner. I was out in Ohio, +carrying joy to countless homes and introducing to them Jarby's +Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art. +It is a book, mother,' I says, 'suited for rich or poor, young or old. +No family is complete without it. Ten thousand and one subjects, all +indexed from A to Z, including an appendix of the Spanish War brought +down to the last moment, and maps of Europe, Asia, Africa, North and +South America and Australia. This book, mother,' I says, 'is a gold mine +of information for the young, and a solace for the old. Pages 201 to 263 +filled with quotations from the world's great poets, making select and +helpful reading for the fireside lamp. Pages 463 to 468, dying sayings +of famous men and women. A book,' I says, 'that teaches us how to live +and how to die. All the wisdom of the world in one volume, five dollars, +neatly bound in cloth, one dollar down and one dollar a month until +paid.' Mother looked up at me and says, 'Eliph', put me down for one +copy.' So I did. I hope I may do the same for you." + +The lady was about to speak, but Eliph' Hewlitt held up his hand +warningly. + +"No," he said. "I beg your pardon. I didn't MEAN to say that. I couldn't +think of taking your order. I didn't mean to ask it any more than I +meant to ask mother. It's habit, and that's what I'm afraid of. I'd +better not intrude." + +The lady evidently did not agree with him. He amused her because he was +what she called a "type," and she was always on the lookout for "types." +She urged him to join the picnic, and said he could try not to talk +books, and reminded him that no one could do more than try. He climbed +the fence with a reluctance that was the more noticeable because his +climbing was retarded by the oilcloth-covered parcel he held beneath +his arm. The lady smiled as she noticed that he had not feared his +soliciting habits sufficiently to leave the book in the buggy, and she +made a mental note of this to be used in the story she meant to write +about this book-agent type. + +"My name is Smith," she told him, as she tripped lightly toward the +group about the lunch baskets. + +Eliph' Hewlitt was a small man and his movements were short and jerky. +He drew his hand over his red whiskers and coughed gently when she +mentioned her name, and as she hurried on before him he looked at her +tall, straight figure; noticed the stylish mode of her simple summer +gown, and caught a glimpse of low, white shoes and neat ankles covered +by delicately woven silk. + +"Courtship--How to Make Love--How to Win the Affections--How to Hold +Them When Won," he meditated. "Lovely, but she will not suit. She is an +encyclopedia of knowledge and compendium of literature, science and art, +but she is not the edition I can afford. She is gilt-edged and morocco +bound, and an ornament to any parlor, but I can't afford her. My style +is cloth, good substantial cloth, one dollar down and one dollar a month +until paid. As I might say." + + + + + + +CHAPTER II. Susan + +Mrs. Tarbro-Smith had arranged the picnic herself, hoping to bring a +little pleasure into the dullness of the summer, enliven the interest in +the little church, and make a pleasant day for the people of Clarence, +and she had succeeded in this as in everything she had undertaken during +her summer in Iowa. As the leader of her own little circle of bright +people in New York, she was accustomed to doing things successfully, and +perhaps she was too sure of always having things her own way. As sister +of the world-famous author, Marriott Nolan Tarbro, she was always +received with consideration in New York, even by editors, but in seeking +out a dead eddy in middle Iowa she had been in search of the two things +that the woman author most desires, and best handles: local color and +types. The editor of MURRAY'S MAGAZINE had told her that his native +ground--middle Iowa--offered fresh material for her pen, and, intent +on opening this new mine of local color, she had stolen away without +letting even her most intimate friends know where she was going. To have +her coming heralded would have put her "types" on their guard, and for +that reason she had assumed as an impenetrable incognito one-half her +name. No rays of reflected fame glittered on plain Mrs. Smith. + +While her literary side had found some pleasure in studying the people +she had fallen among, she was not able to recognize the distinctness +of type in them that the editor of MURRAY'S had led her to believe she +should find. She had hoped to discover in Clarence a type as sharply +defined as the New England Yankee or the York County Dutch of +Pennsylvania, but she could not see that the middle Iowan was anything +but the average country person such as is found anywhere in Illinois, +Indiana, and Ohio, a type that is hard to portray with fidelity, except +with rather more skill than she felt she had, since it is composed of +innumerable ingredients drawn not only from New England, but from nearly +every State, and from all the nations of Europe. However, her kindness +of heart had been able to exert itself bountifully, and she had had +enough experience in her sundry searches for local color to know that +a lapse of time and of distance would emphasize the types she was now +seeing, and that by the middle of the winter, when once more in her New +York apartment, her present experiences and observations would have +the right perspective, and their salient features would stand out more +plainly. So she won the hearts of her hostess, and of the dozen or more +children of the house, with small gifts, and overjoyed with this she set +about making the whole community happier. Little presents, smiles, and +kind words meant so much to the overworked, hopeless women, and her +cheery manner was so pleasant to men and children, that all worshipped +her--clumsily and mutely, but whole-heartedly. She was a fairy lady to +them. + +The truth was that, in her eagerness to secure the most vivid kind of +local color, she had gone a step too far. Clarence, with its decayed +sidewalks and rotting buildings, was not typical of middle Iowa any more +than a stagnant pool left by a receded river after a flood is typical +of the river itself. Before the days of railroads Clarence had been +a lively little town, but it was on the top of a hill, and, when the +engineer of the Jefferson Western Railroad had laid his ruler on the map +and had drawn a straight line across Iowa to represent the course of the +road, Clarence had been left ten or twelve miles to one side, and, as +the town was not important enough to justify spoiling the beauty of the +straight line by putting a curve in it, a station was marked on the +road at the point nearest Clarence, and called Kilo. For a while the new +station was merely a sidetrack on the level prairie, a convenience for +the men of Clarence, but before Clarence knew how it had happened Kilo +was a flourishing town, and the older town on the hill had begun to +decay. Even while Clarence was still sneering at Kilo as a sidetrack +village, Kilo had begun to sneer at Clarence as a played-out crossroads +settlement. Clarence, when Mrs. Tarbro-Smith visited it, was no more +typical of middle Iowa than a sunfish really resembles the sun. + +In Clarence Mrs. Smith's best loved and best loving admirer was Susan, +daughter of her hostess, and, to Mrs. Smith, Susan was the long sought +and impossible--a good maid. From the first Susan had attached herself +to Mrs. Smith, and, for love and two dollars a week, she learned all +that a lady's maid should know. When Mrs. Smith asked her if she would +like to go to New York, Susan jumped up and down and clapped her hands. +Susan was as sweet and lovable as she was useful, and under Mrs. Smith's +care she had been transformed into such a thing of beauty that Clarence +could hardly recognize her. Instead of tow-colored hair, crowded back by +means of a black rubber comb, Susan had been taught a neat arrangement +of her blonde locks--so great is the magic of a few deft touches. +Instead of being a gawky girl of seventeen, in a faded blue calico +wrapper, Susan, as transformed by one of Mrs. Smith's simple white +gowns, was a young lady. She so worshipped Mrs. Smith that she imitated +her in everything, even to the lesser things, like motions of the hand, +and tossings of the head. + +When Mrs. Smith broached the matter of taking Susan to New York, she +received a shock from Mr. and Mrs. Bell. She had not for one moment +doubted that they would be delighted to find that Susan could have a +good home, good wages, and a city life, instead of the existence in such +a town as Clarence. + +"Well, now," Mr. Bell said, "we gotter sort o' talk it over, me an' ma, +'fore we decide that. Susan's a'most our baby, she is. T'hain't but four +of 'em younger than what she is in our fambly. We'll let you know, hey?" + +Ma and Pa Bell talked it over carefully and came to a decision. +The decision was that they had better talk it over with some of the +neighbors. The neighbors met at Bell's and talked it over openly in the +presence of Mrs. Smith. + +They agreed that it would be a great chance for Susan, and they said +that no one could want a nicer, kinder lady for boss than what Mrs. +Smith was--"but 'tain't noways right to take no risks." + +"You see, ma'am," said Ma Bell, "WE don't know who you are no more than +nothin', do we? And we do know how as them big towns is ungodly to beat +the band, don't we? I remember my grandma tellin' me when I was a little +girl about the awful goin's on she heard tell of one time when she +was down to Pittsburg, and I reckon New York must be twice the size of +Pittsburg was them days, so it must be twice as wicked. So we tell you +plain, without meanin' no harm, that WE don't know who you are, nor what +you'd do with Susan, once you got her to New York." + +"Oh, I now what you want," said Mrs. Smith; "you want references." + +"Them's it," said Mrs. Bell, with great relief. + +"Well," said Mrs. Smith, "that is easy. I know EVERYBODY in New York." + +She thought a moment. + +"There's Mr. Murray, of MURRAY'S MAGAZINE," she suggested, mentioning +her friend of the great monthly magazine. + +"Guess we never heard of that," said Mrs. Bell doubtfully. + +"Then do you know the AEON MAGAZINE? I know the editor of AEON." + +The neighbors and Mrs. Bell looked at each other blankly, and shook +their heads. + +Mrs. Smith named ALL the magazines. She had contributed stories to most +of them, but not one was known, even by name, to her inquisitors. One +shy old lady asked faintly if she had ever heard of Mr. Tweed. She +thought she had heard of a Mister Tweed of New York, once. + +Then, quite suddenly, Mrs. Smith remembered her own brother, the great +Marriott Nolan Tarbro, whose romances sold in editions of hundreds of +thousands, and who was, beyond all doubt, the greatest living novelist. +Kings had been glad to meet him, and newsboys and gamins ran shouting at +his heels when he walked the streets. + +"How silly of me," she said. "You must have heard of my brother, +Marriott Nolan Tarbro, you know, who wrote 'The Marquis of Glenmore' and +'The Train Wreckers'?" + +Mrs. Bell coughed apologetically behind her hand. + +"I'm not very littery, Mrs. Smith," she said kindly, "but mebby Mrs. +Stein knows of him. Mrs. Stein reads a lot." + +Mrs. Stein, whose sole reading was the Bible and such advertising +booklets as came by mail, or as she could pick up on the counter of the +drugstore, when she went to Kilo, moved uneasily. For years she had had +the reputation of being a great reader, and brought face to face with +the sister of an author she feared her reputation was about to fall. + +"What say his name was?" she asked. + +"Tarbro," said Mrs. Smith, as one would mention Shakespeare or Napoleon. +"Tarbro. Marriott Nolan Tarbro." + +"Well," said Mrs. Stein slowly, turning her head on one side and looking +at the spot on the ceiling from which the plaster had fallen, "I won't +say I haven't. And I won't say I have. When a person reads as much as +what I do, she reads so many names they slip out of memory. Just this +minute I don't quite call him to mind. Mighty near, though; I mind a +feller once that peddled notions through here name of Tarbox. Might you +know him?" + +"No," said Mrs. Smith, "I haven't the honor." + +"I thought mebby you might know him," said Mrs. Stein. "His business +took him 'round considerable, and I thought mebby it might have took him +to New York, and that mebby you might have met him." + +Mrs. Bell sighed audibly. + +"It's goin' to be an awful trial to Susan if she can't go," she said; +"but I dunno WHAT to say. Seems like I oughtn't to say 'go,' an' yet I +can't abear to say 'stay.'" + +"I MUST have Susan," said Mrs. Smith, putting her arm about the girl. "I +know you can trust her with me." + +"Clementina," said Mr. Bell suddenly, "why don't you leave it to the +minister? He'd settle it for the best. Why don't you leave it to him? +Hey?" + +"Well, bless my stars," said Mrs. Bell, brightening with relief, "I'd +ought to have thought of that long ago. He WOULD know what was for the +best. I'll ask him to-morrow." + +To-morrow was the picnic day. + +As Mrs. Smith led the way for Eliph' Hewlitt, the minister left the +group of women who had clustered about him, and walked toward her. + +"Sister Smith," he said, in his grave, kind way, "Sister Bell tells +me you want to carry off our little Susan. You know we must be wise as +serpents and gentle as doves I deciding, and"--he laid his hand on her +arm--"though I doubt not all will be well, I must think over the matter +a while. Welcome, brother," he added, offering his hand to Eliph' +Hewlitt. + +The little book agent shook it warmly. + +"'I was a stranger and ye took me in,'" he said glibly. "Fine weather +for a picnic." + +His eyes glowed. To meet the minister first of all! This was good, +indeed. Years of experience had taught him to seek the minister first. +To start the round of a small community with the prestige of having +sold the minister himself a copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia made success a +certainty. + +He took the oilcloth-covered parcel from beneath his arm, and handed it +to the minister gently, lovingly. + +"Keep it until the picnic is over," he said. "I'm a book agent. I sell +books. THIS is the book I sell. Take it away and hide it, so I can +forget it and be happy. Don't let me have it until the picnic is over. +PLEASE don't!" + +He stretched out his arms in freedom, and the minister smiled and led +the way toward the place where a buggy cushion had been laid on the +grass as his seat of honor. + +"I will retain the book," said the minister, with a smile, "although I +don't think you can sell the book here. My brethren in Clarence are not +readers. I read little myself. We are poor; we have no time to read. +Except the Bible, I know of but one book in this entire community. +Sister Dawson has a copy of Bunyan's sublime work, 'Pilgrim's Progress.' +It was an heirloom. Be seated," he said, and Eliph' Hewlitt seated +himself Turk-fashion, on the sod. + +The minister took the book carefully on his knees. Even to feel a new +book was a pleasure he did not often have, and his fingers itched upon +it. + +In three minutes Eliph' Hewlitt knew the entire story of Mrs. Smith and +Susan, so far as it was known to the minister, and he leaned over and +tapped with his forefinger the book on the minister's knee. + +"Open it," he said. + +The minister removed the wrapper. + +"Page 6, Index," said Eliph' Hewlitt, turning the pages. He ran his +finger down the page, and up and down page 7, stopped at a line on page +8, and hastily turned over the pages of the book. At page 974 he laid +the book open, and the minister adjusted his spectacles and read where +the book agent pointed. Then he pushed his spectacles up on his +forehead and looked carefully at the picnickers. He singled out Mrs. +Tarbro-Smith, and waved her toward him with his hand. She came and stood +before him. + +The minister wiped his spectacles on his handkerchief, readjusted them +on his nose, and bent over the book. + +"What is your brother's name?" he asked kindly, but with solemnity. + +"Marriott Nolan Tarbro," she answered. + +He traced the lines carefully with his finger. + +"Born?" he asked. + +"June 4, 1864, at Tarrytown-on-the-Hudson." + +"And he is married?" + +"Married Amanda Rogers Long, at Newport, Rhode Island, June 14, 1895." + +"Where is he living now?" he asked. + +"Last year he was living in New York--I am a widow, as you know--but +last fall he went to Algiers." + +"The book says Algiers. What-er-clubs is he a member of?" + +"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Smith; "The Authors and The Century." + +"I have no doubt," said the minister, "from what the book says, and what +you say, that you are indeed the sister of this--ah--celebrated"--he +looked at the book--"celebrated novelist, who is a man of such standing +that he received--ah--several more lines in this work than the average, +more, in fact, than Talmage, more than Beecher, and more than the +present governor of the State of Iowa. I think I may safely advise Mrs. +Bell to let Susan go with you." + +"One!" said Eliph' Hewlitt quickly. "That's just ONE question that came +up flaring, and was mashed flat by Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge +and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, a book in which are +ten thousand and one subjects, fully treated by the best minds of the +nineteenth and twentieth centuries. One subject for every day in the +year for twenty-seven years, and some left over. Religion, politics, +literature, every subject under the sun, gathered in one grand colossal +encyclopedia with an index so simple that a child can understand it. +See page 768, 'Texts, Biblical; Hints for Sermons; The Art of Pulpit +Eloquence.' No minister should be without it. See page 1046, 'Pulpit +Orators--Golden Words of the Greatest, comprising selections from +Spurgeon, Robertson, Talmage, Beecher, Parkhurst,' et cetery. A book +that should be in every home. Look at 'P': Poets, Great. Poison, +Antidotes for. Poker, Rules of. Poland, History and Geography of, with +Map. Pomeroy, Brick. Pomatum, How to Make. Ponce de Leon, Voyages and +Life of. Pop, Ginger,' et cetery, et cetery. The whole for the small sum +of five dollars, bound in cloth, one dollar down and one dollar a month +until paid." + +The minister turned the pages slowly. + +"It seems a worthy book," he said hesitatingly. + +Eliph' Hewlitt looked at Mrs. Smith, with a question in his eyes. + +She nodded. + +"Ah!" he said. "Mrs. Smith, sister of the well-known novelist, Marriott +Nolan Tarbro, takes two copies of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and +Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, bound in full morocco, one of +which she begs to present to the worthy pastor of this happy flock, with +her compliments and good wishes." + +"I can't thank you," stammered the minister; "it is so kind. I have so +few books, and so few opportunities of securing them." + +Eliph' Hewlitt held out his hand for the sample volume. + +"When you have this book," he declared, "you NEED no others. It makes a +Carnegie library of the humblest home." + +The entire picnic had gradually gathered around him. + +"Ladies and gents," he said, "I have come to bring knowledge and power +where ignorance and darkness have lurked. This volume----" + +He stopped and handed his sample to the minister. + +"Introduce me to the lady in the blue dress," he said to Mrs. Smith, and +she stepped forward and made them acquainted. + +"Miss Briggs, this is Mr----" + +"Hewlitt," he said quickly, "Eliph' Hewlitt." + +"Mr. Hewlitt," said Mrs. Smith. "Miss Sally Briggs of Kilo." + +"I'm glad to know you, Miss Briggs," said Eliph' Hewlitt. "I hope we +may become well acquainted. As I was sayin' to Mrs. Smith, I'm a book +agent." + +For the chapter on Jarby's Encyclopedia that dealt with "Courtship--How +to Win the Affections," said that the first step necessary was to become +well acquainted with the one whose affections it was desired to win. It +was not Eliph' Hewlitt way to waste time when making a sale of Jarby's, +and he felt that no more delay was necessary in disposing of his heart. + + + + + + +CHAPTER III. "How to Win the Affections" + +Miss Sally glanced hurriedly around, seeking some retreat to which she +could fly. Mrs. Smith, having introduced Eliph' Hewlitt, had turned +away, and the other picnickers were gathered around the minister, +looking over his shoulders at the copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia. Although +she could have no idea, as yet, that Eliph' Hewlitt had decided to marry +her, Miss Sally was afraid of him. She was a dainty little woman, with +just a few gray hairs tucked out of sight under the brown ones, but +although she was ordinarily able to hold her own, each year that was +added to her life made her more afraid of book agents. + +Time after time she had succumbed to the wiles of book agents. It made +no difference how she received them, nor how she steeled her heart +against their plausible words, she always ended buying whatever they had +to sell, and after that it was a fight to get the money from her father +with which to pay the installments. Pap Briggs objected to paying out +money for anything, but he considered that about the most useless thing +he could spend money for was a book. Whenever he heard there was a book +agent in Kilo he acted like a hen when she sees a hawk in the sky, ready +to pounce down upon her brood, and he pottered around and scolded and +complained and warned Miss Sally to beware, and then in the end the book +agent always made the sale, and Miss Sally felt as if she had committed +seven or eight deadly sins, and it made her life miserable. Only a few +months before she had fallen prey to a man who had sold her a set of Sir +Walter Scott's Complete Works, two dollars down, and one dollar a month, +and she felt that the work of urging the monthly dollar out of her +father's pocket was all she could stand. + +Why and how she bought books always remained a mystery to her; it is a +mystery to many book buyers how they happen to buy books. Book agents +seemed to have a mesmerizing effect on Miss Sally, as serpents daze +birds before they devour them. The process applied between the time when +she stated with the utmost positiveness that she did not want, and would +not buy, a book, and the time, a few minutes later, when she signed her +name to the agent's list of subscribers, was something she could not +fathom. + +And now she had been left face to face with a book agent, actually +introduced to him, and her father still under monthly miseries on +account of Sir Walter Scott's Complete Works. + +"I don't want any books to-day," said Miss Sally nervously, when she saw +that she could not run away. + +"And I'm not going to sell you any," said Eliph' Hewlitt cheerfully. He +had studied Miss Sally thoroughly, with the quick eye of the experienced +book agent who has learned to read character at sight, and he had +decided that no more suitable Mrs. Hewlitt was he apt to find. "And I'm +not going to SELL you any," he repeated. "This is picnic day, and I'm +not selling books, although I may say there is no day in the whole year +when Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, +Science and Art is not needed. It is a book that contains a noble +thought or useful hint for every hour of every day from the cradle to +the grave, comprising ten thousand and one subjects, neatly bound." + +"I don't want one," said Miss Sally, backing away. "I don't live here, +and you might do better selling it to someone who does." + +Eliph' Hewlitt's eyes beamed kindly through his spectacles. + +"It is just as useful to them that is traveling as to them that is +home," he said, "if not more so. If you ever took a copy along with +you on your travels you would never travel again without it. Take the +chapter on 'Traveling,' for instance, page 46." He looked around, as if +he would have liked to get his sample copy, but it was in such a number +of eager hands that he turned back to Miss Sally. "Take the directions +on Sleeping Cars," he said. "For that one thing alone the book is worth +its price to anyone going to travel by rail. It gives full instructions +how much to give the porter, how to choose a berth, how to undress in an +upper berth without damage to the traveler or the car, et cetery. And, +when you consider that that is but one of the ten thousand and one +things mentioned in this volume, you can see that it is really giving it +away when I sell it, neatly bound in cloth, for five dollars." + +"I don't think I want one," said Miss Sally doubtfully, for she was +beginning to fall under the spell. + +"No!" said Eliph' firmly. "No! You don't. And I don't want to SELL you +one. Nothing ain't farther from my mind than wanting to sell you a copy +of that book. Just rest perfectly easy about THAT, Miss Briggs. We'll +put 'Literature, Science, and Art' to one side and enjoy the delights +of the open air, and, if I happen to say anything that sounds like book, +just you excuse me, for I don't mean it. Mebby I DO get to talking about +that book when I don't mean to, for it is a book that a man that knows +it as well as I do just can't HELP talking about. It's a wonderful +book. It is a book that has all the wisdom and knowledge of the world +condensed into one volume, including five hundred ennobling thoughts +form the world's great authors, inclusive of the prose and poetical gems +of all ages, beginning on page 201, sixty-two solid pages of them, +with vingetty portraits of the authors, this being but one of the many +features that make the book helpful to all people of refinement and +mind. Now, when you take a book like that and bind it in a neat cloth +cover, making it an ornament to any center table in the country, and +sell it for the small price of five dollars, it is not selling it; it +is giving it away. Five dollars, neatly bound in cloth, one dollar down, +and one dollar a month until paid." + +Miss Sally looked hopelessly toward the sample copy, which the minister +was still exhibiting to the picnickers with real pleasure. She was +enthralled, but she was puzzled. Never had she bought a book that +she had not first looked through. Invariably the agent had begun his +dissertation on the book's merits by an explanation of the illuminated +frontispiece--if it had one--and ended by turning the last page to show +the sheet where she must sign her name, underneath those of "the other +leading citizens of this town." There was something wrong, but she was +not quite sure what it was. She glanced back at the eager face of Eliph' +Hewlitt, and mistook the glow of "Affection, How to Hold it When Won," +for the intense glance of the predatory book seller. + +"I'll take a copy," she said recklessly. + +Eliph' Hewlitt's face clouded, and he put out his hand as if to ward off +a blow. + +"No, you won't!" he said, with distress. "You don't want one, and I +won't sell you one." + +He cast his mind quickly over the chapter on "Courtship--How to Win the +Affections," and recalled its directions. He wished he had the book in +his hands, so that he could turn to the chapter and freshen his memory, +but the first direction was, certainly, to become well acquainted. + +"I don't want to sell you one," he said more gently. "I want to sit down +on this nice grass and get acquainted. You and me are both strangers +here, and I guess we ought to talk to each other." + +He seated himself as he said the word, and crossed his legs, +Turk-fashion, and looked up at Miss Sally, with an invitation in his +eyes. For a minute she stood looking down at him doubtfully. She was +unable to understand the actions of this new variety of book agent that +refused to sell books after talking up to the selling point, and she +suddenly remembered that she was away from home, and that the book was +sold on installments. She flushed. Did his refusal to sell imply that +she might not be able to pay the installments? + +"I'll take a copy of that book, IF you please," she said haughtily. +"I guess there ain't no question but that I'm able to PAY for it. I've +bought books before, and paid for them; and I guess I'm just as able +to pay as most folks you sell to. If you've any doubt about it, there's +references I can give right here in Clarence that will satisfy you." + +Eliph' Hewlitt coughed gently behind his hand, and stroked his whiskers, +as he looked up at the indignant Miss Briggs. He did not want to sell +her a book' it would place him in her mind once, and, probably, for all, +as one of the tribe of book agents, and nothing more. Yet he could not +offend her. He might compromise by giving her a copy, but the chapter +on "Courtship--How to Win the Affections," distinctly advised this as a +later act. First it was necessary to become well acquainted; then it was +advisable to proceed to give small presents, books or flowers or sweets +being particularly mentioned, and Eliph' Hewlitt would never have +thought of doing first the thing Jarby's Encyclopedia advised doing +second. He had been selling Jarby's for many years. He had seen the +"talking feature" of the colored plates of the Civil War pass, and had +seen them succeeded by colored plates of the Franco-Prussian War, and +had seen these make way for colored plates of one war after another +until the present plates of the Spanish War appeared, and through all +these changes in the last chapter he had studied the book until he knew +its contents as well as he knew his "two--times--two." He could recite +the book forward or backward, read it upside down--as a book agent has +to read a book when it is in a customer's lap--or sideways, and could +turn promptly to nearly any word in it without hesitation. The more he +studied it the more he loved it and admired it and believed in it. It +was his whole literature, and he found it to be sufficient. If he saw a +thing in Jarby's he knew it was so, and if it was not in Jarby's it was +not worth knowing. Under such circumstances he could not make Miss Sally +a present of the book until he and she had first become well acquainted. +Jarby's said so. He scrambled hurriedly to his feet. + +"Miss Briggs," he said earnestly, "You ain't near guessing the reason +why I don't want to sell you a copy of the world-famous volume. You +ain't nowhere near it at all. If I was to tell you what the reason was +I guess you'd be surprised. But I ain't going to tell you. It ain't +because you can't pay for it, for if it was a library of one thousand +volumes at ten dollars a volume, ten dollars down and ten dollars a +month, I'd be glad to take your order. And it ain't because I ain't +going to sell any more copies here, because I am, and I'm going to sell +all I can, right here at this picnic, just to show you what I can do +when I try. But I ain't going to sell you one. I've got a good reason." + +Miss Sally was not fully pacified by this, for now she was sure she had +guessed the reason Eliph' Hewlitt did not want to sell her a copy. She +imagined now that some book agent had told him of her father's aversion +to books--when they had to be paid for--and that Eliph' Hewlitt was +willing to forego a sale rather than lead her into new trouble with her +father. Possibly he had met the Walter Scott man. She turned away. + +"I guess I'll go and help Mrs. Smith lay out the lunch," she said, as +the easiest way to be rid of the annoyance. + +"I guess I'll go, too," said Eliph' Hewlitt promptly and cheerfully. +"I'm a good hand at that. It tells all about it in Jarby's Encyclopedia. +Look under 'P':'Picnic Lunches. Picnic, How to Organize and Conduct. +Picnic, Origin of,' et cetery, et cetery. A book that contains all the +knowledge in the world condensed into one volume, with lives of all the +world's great men, from Adam to Roosevelt, and the dying words of them +that is dead." + +Miss Sally turned on him sharply. + +"Goodness sakes!" she exclaimed, "I wish you would either sell me a copy +of that book or keep still about it. Ain't I going to have no peace at +all?" + +"I didn't mention it, did I?" asked Eliph' Hewlitt innocently, and he +did not know that he had. "I was speaking of this happy gathering. Ain't +it pretty to see all kinds of folks gathered together this way to make +each other happier? It's like a living Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge +and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, a little of everything +in one volume, and all of it good. All the good things from parson to +pickles. I suppose you put up your own pickles, don't you?" + +"Yes, I do," said Miss Sally, who was now walking toward where the +ladies were unpacking the lunch. "Why do you ask it?" + +"It called to my mind the recipe for making pickles that is in Jarby's +Encyclopedia," said Eliph', unmindful of the look of anger that flushed +Miss Sally's face at the mention of that book. "Them that has tried +it says it is the best they have ever used. That and seven hundred and +ninety-nine other tested recipes, all contained in the chapter called +'The Complete Kitchen Guide,' see page 100, including roasts, fries, +pastry, cakes, bread, puddings, entrees, soups, how to make candy, how +to clean brass, copper, silver, tin, et cetery, et cetery. Them that +uses Jarby's tested recipes as given in this volume, uses no other." + +There was a stiffening of Miss Sally's back as she walked ahead of him, +and even Eliph' Hewlitt could not fail to observe it. It told plainly +that if he could have seen her lips he would have seen them close +firmly, and he made haste to reassure her. + +"I ain't trying to sell you a book," he said, taking a quicker step to +reach her side, but she hurried the more as he did so, and crowded in +among the other women so that he could not follow. He stood a moment +watching her, but she began talking rapidly to one of the women, +ignoring him conspicuously, and he coughed gently behind his hand, as if +to apologize for her affront, and then walked away. + +He could not account for his poor success in getting well acquainted +with Miss Sally, and he began to fear that he had not fully understood +the directions given by Jarby's Encyclopedia in the chapter on +"Courtship--How to Win the Affections." He realized that he had used +that chapter less often in talking up a sale than he had used any other, +and that for that reason he had studied it less closely, and he saw +now, more than ever, that there was no chapter in the whole book that a +possessor could afford to neglect. He walked over to where the minister +was still holding the book, but now holding it closed in his lap, and +he asked politely if he might have it for a few minutes. The minister +handed it to him, and Eliph', walking to where one of the smaller trees +of the grove made a spot of shade, seated himself, and fixed his eyes on +the chapter on "Courtship--How to Win the Affections." + +For the first time in his life he was unable to fix his attention firmly +on the pages of Jarby's Encyclopedia. His eyes insisted on turning +to where Miss Sally moved about the cloth spread on the grass; the +tablecloth on which green bugs and black bugs and brown bugs were +already parading, as bugs always do at a picnic. Occasionally he +stroked his sandy-gray whiskers, and whenever she turned her face in his +direction he cast his eyes upon his book, but he could not read. + +He hoped he would have the good fortune to be seated next to Miss Sally +when the lunch time came, and he had little doubt that he would be near +her, for it was likely that he and she, being strangers, would be put +near the minister. He closed the book, seeing at length that it was +impossible for him to read it, and, as the men began to bring the +cushions from the buggies and place them around the cloth, he arose and +went to bring his own to add to the supply. As he reached the fence, a +barefoot boy, mounted on a horse with no other saddle than a blanket, +came galloping down the road, and stopped before him. + +"Say," said the boy, wide-eyed with importance, "is Sally Briggs in +there?" + +Eliph' said she was. + +"Well, say," said the boy, "she's got to go home to Kilo, right away. +Her dad telephoned up, and he don't know whether he's dying or not, and +she's got to go right home." + +Eliph' turned and hurried to where Miss Sally was standing. + +"I hope it ain't nothing serious, Miss Briggs," he said, "but that boy +has come to give you a message that come by telephone. I think your +father ain't well." + +Miss Sally dropped the cake she was holding, and ran to the fence. + +"What is it?" she gasped. + +"Well," said the boy, "my dad was in the post office just now, and the +telephone bell rang, and he looked around to see where Julius was, +and Julius he had gone outside to see what Mr. Fogarty, from up to the +Corners, wanted. I don't know what he wanted. Pa didn't tell me. I don't +know as pa knew, anyway, but I guess he wanted something, or else he +wouldn't have motioned Julius to go out, unless he just wanted to talk +to Julium. Mebby he just wanted to ask Julius if there was any mail for +him. So pa answered the telephone." + +"Well, what did it say?" asked Miss Sally impatiently. + +"You've got a pa, haven't you?" asked the boy. + +"Yes," said Miss Sally. + +"Well, has he got false teeth?" asked the boy. + +"Yes," said Miss Sally more impatiently. + +"Well, that's all right, then," said the boy. "Pa couldn't tell exactly +whether it was false teeth or not, the telephone at the post office +works so poor, and pa ain't no hand at it, anyhow. He said it sounded +like false teeth. So you pa wants you to come right home to Kilo. Mebby +he's dying." + +"Dying!" cried Miss Sally, as white as a sheet. + +"Yes, mebby he is," continued the boy. "He ain't right sure, but he says +you'd better come right home, so if he IS dying you'll be on hand. And, +if he ain't, you can help him hunt for them. He says he went to bed last +night, same as always, but he don't recall whether he took out his false +set of teeth or left them in, and he ain't sure whether he swallowed +them last night, or put them down somewheres and lost them. He says he's +got a pain like he swallowed them, but he ain't sure but what it's some +of the cooking he's been doing that give him that, and anyway he wants +you to come right home." + +"Goodness sakes!" exclaimed Miss Sally, "why don't he go see Doc +Weaver?" + +The boy shook his head. + +"I don't know," he said. "I guess pa didn't think to ask him that. I'll +have to ask him when I git back." + +The departure of Miss Sally made a break in the orderly progress of the +picnic, for it not only terminated her part of the day's pleasures, but +also cut short her visit in Clarence, and she had to say farewell to all +the picnickers before she could go. + +Eliph' Hewlitt offered to drive her to Clarence, but she refused him, +and arranged to have one of the young boys, who had a faster horse, +drive her to Kilo. The whole picnic leaned over the rail fence and +watched until she was out of sight, and then went on with the lunch, +which was just ready when her summons came. + +It was a severe blow to Eliph' Hewlitt. He had hoped to have carried his +courtship so far during the day that it would have been at least to +the third paragraph of the first page of "Courtship--How to Win the +Affections," and now Miss Sally had left, and he had not progressed at +all. It reminded him of the quotation in the Alphabet of Quotations, in +Jarby's Encyclopedia, "The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth." + +Miss Sally's departure, however, and the strange circumstance of it, +allowed him to ask questions about her and about Kilo that he could not +otherwise have asked. He learned how far she would have to travel to +reach Kilo, who her father was, and all that he wished to know. He +decided that the only course for him to follow was to omit his canvass +of the interlying farms and of the town of Clarence for the present, and +follow Miss Sally to Kilo. + +When the picnic ended, Irontail had released the rein, and Eliph' +Hewlitt drove off, well pleased with his day's work. He had not only +secured a wife--for he had no doubt that it only needed an application +of the rules set forth in Jarby's Encyclopedia in order to "Win the +Affections" of Miss Sally, and "Hold Them When Won," but he took +with him subscriptions for sixteen volumes of Jarby's Encyclopedia of +Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, bound in cloth, +five dollars, and two bound in morocco, at seven fifty. + + + + + + +CHAPTER IV. Kilo + +The next evening Jim Wilkins, landlord of the Kilo House and proprietor +of the Kilo Livery, Feed and Sale Stable, was sitting in front of his +hotel, with his chair tipped back against the wall, trading bits of +indolent gossip with Pap Briggs, when Eliph' Hewlitt drove his horse +Irontail down Main Street, and pulled up before the hotel. Pap Briggs +had not swallowed his store teeth; he had not even worn them to bed, and +Miss Sally found them on top of the pump in the back yard, where Pap had +doubtless put them when he went to pump himself a drink. He often lost +them, as he wore them more for ornament than for use, and commonly +removed them when he wished to talk, eat, or laugh. It was Sally who +made him buy them, and he wore them more for her sake than for any +other reason, and he was always uncomfortable with them, for they were +a plain, unmistakable misfit, and felt, as he said, "like I got my +mouth full o' tenpenny nails." When out of Sally's sight he avoided +this feeling by carrying them in his hand, hidden in his red bandana +handkerchief. About town he used to show them with a great deal of +pride, and openly boasted of their cost and beauty. On Sunday he wore +them all day. + +Whenever Eliph' Hewlitt drove into a town he looked about with a seeing +eye, for he had learned to judge the capacity of a place for Jarby's +Encyclopedia by the appearance of the town, but as he drove into Kilo +he was more than usually interested. If this was the home of Miss Sally +Briggs, it followed that when he had completed his courtship, and had +won her affections and held them, it would be his home, also, and he was +curious to see whether it was a town he would like or not like. He liked +it. It was a real American town, and it looked like a good business +town, because there could be no possible reason for people building a +town on that particular situation unless it was for business. + +The town was built on a flat space, and the country was flat on all +sides of it. It was on no river, brook, or creek. It was as unbeautiful +in location as it was in architecture. It was just a homely, common, +busy little Iowa village, and even so late in the evening it was as hot +as Sahara; but Eliph' Hewlitt knew it at once for a good town, for +the street was knee deep in dust, which meant much trade, and the four +buildings at the corners of Main and Cross Streets were of brick, which +meant profitable business. There were a couple of other brick buildings +on Main Street, and one or two with "tin" fronts, and of the other +business places only one or two were so ramshackle that they looked +as if their firmer neighbors were holding them up, letting the weaker +structures lean against them as a strong man might support an invalid. + +Eliph' Hewlitt liked the town; it was just his idea of what a town +should be, not much as to style, but business-like. There were two full +blocks of Main Street devoted to business, and nearly half a block of +Cross Street was given over to the same purpose, and the dwellings were +well scattered over the surrounding level tract. Three or four of the +dwellings "out Main Street" had conspicuous lawns that had felt the +blades of a lawn mower, but most of the yards were merely grass, with +flower beds filled with the more hardy kinds of flowers, such as would +grow tall and show over the top of the surrounding grass. The plank +walks, which on Main and Cross Streets were made of boards laid +crossways, tapered down into narrow walks with the boards--two of +them--laid lengthways very soon after the stores were passed, and a +little farther out became dirt paths along the fences, and beyond that +pedestrians were supposed to walk on the road. But most of the houses +were painted, either freshly, or at least not anciently. + +The corner of Main and Cross Streets, the business center of Kilo, was +like the business centers of other small country towns. A long hitching +rail extended at the side of the street before the buildings on each +corner, and the dirt beneath was worn away by the scraping of the feet +of the many horses that had been tied to the rails. Just below the +corner, on Cross Street, were other holes worn by tossing horseshoes at +pegs, which, if America was composed of small towns only, would be our +national game. + +It was a good little town, and Eliph' Hewlitt was pleased. + +On one of the corners of Main Street stood the Kilo Hotel, and before it +Eliph' checked the slow gait of Irontail. + +Jim Wilkins, the landlord, tipped his chair forward, and got out of it +with a grunt of laziness. + +"Hotel running?" asked Eliph' Hewlitt briskly. + +"You might call it runnin' if you wasn't dictionary--particular what you +called it," said the landlord. "If you had to keep it you'd more likely +say it was tryin' to learn to walk. But it's open for business. Want +your rig put up?" + +"Yes," admitted Eliph'. "I've had my supper." + +"That's all right," said the landlord cheerfully. "I'm sort of glad of +it; save the old lady gittin' up a meal. I was just tellin' Pap Briggs +here that I figgered Kilo had the hottest mean summer temperature, and +the meanest hot summer temperature on earth, and it's hotter over a +kitchen stove than anywheres else. We generally have cold suppers in +this here hotel, unless some guest happens in. Hey, S. Potts! Come here +and git this feller's horse!" + +The livery stable was convenient, just around the corner on Cross +Street, and S. Potts came lankly and lazily around the corner. He stood +and looked at Irontail a minute critically, and then felt the horse's +hocks and shook his head at the result of his investigation. Then he +opened Irontail's mouth and looked at his teeth. + +"Well, I'll be hanged!" he said, and he called around the corner, "Hey, +Daniel!" and from the livery stable came a very old man. + +"Look at this," said S. Potts, opening Irontail's mouth again, and +Daniel looked and shook his head, as S. Potts had done. + +"And feel this," said S. Potts, putting his hand on Irontail's hock +again. Daniel felt as he was told, and again shook his head. + +"Now, what do you make of that?" asked S. Potts triumphantly. + +"I dunno what to make of it, S. Potts," said the old man, shaking his +head. "What do you make of it?" + +The landlord broke in upon the conversation with sudden energy. + +"Look here," he said, "you git that horse around to the stable, and shut +up," and S. Potts and Daniel hastily clambered into the buggy and drove +around the corner. + +"I wonder if anything's the matter with my horse?" said Eliph'. + +"Matter?" laughed Jim Wilkins. "That's just S. Potts tryin' to show off +before strangers, like he always does. He don't mean no harm, but he +can't be satisfied to just come around and git a horse and lead it to +the stable. He's got to draw attention to hisself or he ain't happy. +He's harmless, but he's just naturally one of the know-it-all-kind, and +he's got to show off." + +There is no man in a small town who can give such a satisfying and +official welcome to a stranger as that given by the liveryman, and +when the landlord of the hotel and the owner of the livery stable are +combined in one man he is better than a reception committee composed of +the mayor and the leading citizens. He is glad to see the stranger, and +he lets him know it. He has a gruff, hearty, and not too servile manner, +and a way of speaking of the men of the town and the farmers of the +surrounding country as if he owned them. Having bought horses of many of +them, he knows their bad traits, and he has an air of knowing much more +than he would willingly tell regarding them. He is not inquisitive +about the stranger's business, and is willing to give him information. +Probably it is his trade of buying and selling and renting horses that +gives him such a flavor of his own, for he knows that the horses he +lets out on livery are often as intelligent as the men who hire them. +He comes as near the chivalric model of the old Southern planter as a +Northern business man can, but his slaves are horses, and his overseer +the hostler. He is a man in authority, even though is authority is over +horses. + +Modern civilization has few finer sights and sounds than the liveryman +when he is asked if he has a horse he can let out for a ten-mile drive +into the country. He looks at the supplicant doubtfully; "Well, I +dunno," he says, "where was it you wanted to drive to?" He receives the +answer with a non-committal air. "That's nearer fourteen mile than ten," +he says and then turns to the hostler. "Say, Potts, Billy's out, ain't +he?" Potts growls out the answer, "Doc Weaver's got him out. Won't be +back till seven." The liveryman pulls slowly at his cigar, and runs his +hand over his hair. "How's the bay mare's hoof today?" he asks. Potts +shakes his head. "That's right," says the liveryman, "it don't do to +take no chances with a hoof like that. And we haven't got a thing else +in the barn except that black horse, have we, Potts?" "Everything else +out," says Potts. The liveryman walks away a few steps, and then turns +suddenly. "Hitch up the black, Potts," he says, with an air of sudden +recklessness. "Put him in that light, side-bar buggy of Doc Weaver's. +Want a hitching strap? Put in a hitching strap, Potts. AND that new +whip." + +The result is that you get the horse and buggy the liveryman intended +you to have from the minute he saw you coming toward him down the +street, but you get it with a fine touch of style that is worth much in +this dollar and cent world. Potts drives the rig around to where you +are standing, and the liveryman sends Potts back to get a clean laprobe +instead of the one that is in the buggy. He pats the horse on the neck +as you climb in, and as you pick up the reins he says, as if conferring +a parting favor that money could not repay, "Keep a fair tight rein on +him; it's the first time he has been out of the stable to-day." + +Eliph' Hewlitt, in his travels, had learned the value of the liveryman. +He used him as friend and directory. None else could tell him so well +where the prosperous farmers lived, nor who was most likely to fall a +victim to Jarby's Encyclopedia in the town itself. From the liveryman +he could learn which minister, if there were more than one, would be the +best to have head his list of subscribers, which lady was head of the +Society, and what society she was head of. He took one of the chairs +that were ranged along the side of the hotel, and laid his sample across +his knees. He chose the chair that was next to Pap Briggs, for he was +ready to become acquainted with the man he intended soon to have for a +father-in-law. + +"Nice town you got here," he said. + +"She's purty good," agreed Pap, "except for taxes. Taxes is eternal +high, and it's all us propputy owners can do to keep 'em from goin' +clean out o' sight. City council don't seem to care a dumb how high they +git. I wish't I'd stayed on my farm." + +"Taxes ain't so high here as what they are in Jefferson, Pap," suggested +the landlord. "If you lived down there they'd make you holler, all +right." + +"Well, Jim," said Pap, "they ain't much choice. If these here young +fellers git their way taxes will go right up. What do they want to +decorate this here town all up for, anyhow? What you think young Toole +was sayin' to me to-day? He was sayin' it was a disgrace to Kilo to have +the public square rented out an' a crop o' buckwheat growin' in it. He +says we ought to plant it in grass an' stick a fountain in the middle. +But that's the way she goes; anything to raise up the taxes. All I says +to him was, 'All right, who'll pump water to make the fountain squirt? +Suppose the taxpayers 'll take turns, hey?'" + +"Well," said the landlord, "I ain't in favor of a fountain, myself. I +reckon a nice piece of statuary would look better, so long as we ain't +got water works to make the fountain fount out water. But it don't look +right to have a public square rented out to grow buckwheat in. It ain't +city-like." + +"It brings in seven dollars a year to the town," said Pap, "an' that's +better than payin' out good money for statuary. I'm agin high taxes +every time. It costs too much to live, anyhow, especially when you've +got a daughter to support, and no money comin' in, to speak of. And just +when some does come in, along comes a pesky book agent or somethin' +and fools the women out of the money. They ought to be a law agin book +agent. City council ought to put a license on 'em, and keep 'em out of +town." + +"Some towns," he said softly, "do have licenses against book agents. +One of the relics of the dark ages, but abolished wherever the light +o' culture is loved and esteemed. What so helpful as the book? What so +comforting? What so uplifting? And who but the book agent carries help +and comfort and uplift, and leaves it scattered around, one dollar down +and one dollar a month until paid; who but the humble but useful book +agent? To mention but one book, Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and +Compendium of Literature, Science and Art has carried wisdom into a +million homes, making each better and brighter. It is a book that makes +the toil of the day easy, by giving one thousand and one hints and +helps, and that sweetens rest after toil, by quotations from all the +world's great authors. In this one book----" + +Pap Briggs had put his hands on the arm of his chair, preparing to run +away, but the landlord leaned forward and looked in Eliph' Hewlitt's +face. + +"Say," he said, "is your name Mills?" + +"Hewlitt," said the book agent, "Eliph' Hewlitt." + +He turned to the landlord and looked him fairly in the face, and as +he looked the air of suspicion that had suddenly shone in his eyes +vanished. + +"Jim Wilkins!" he exclaimed. "Isn't it Jim Wilkins?" + +"Ain't it!" cried the landlord. "Well, I should say it is! And to think, +you little, sawed-off propagator of human knowledge didn't recognize +your old side pardner in the field of sellin' improvin' and +intellectooal works of genius! Don't say you don't remember the 'Wage of +Sin,' Sammy! Don't say you don't remember Kitty!" + +"Kitty?" asked Eliph' doubtfully. + +"Well, if the little red-head ain't forgot Kitty!" exclaimed Wilkins. +"Why, I MARRIED Kitty, Sammy. For an actual, truthful fact I did. And to +think I should run across Sammy Mills after all these years." + +"Hewlitt," said Eliph'. "Eliph' Hewlitt is that name I'm known by." + +"And to think you stuck by that name all these years!" said Wilkins. +"And still sellin' works of literatoor, are you? Pap, this is my old +boyhood's chum come meanderin' backwards out of the past. And still +sellin' books! Well, I don't want to discourage your ambitiousness, but +I guess you've struck Kilo about the worst time in the century. Ever +hear of a literary writer called Sir Walter Scott? Well, sir, Kilo is +chuck full of Sir Walter; full as a goat. She ain't begun to near git +through with Sir Walter yet, and I don't figger she'll take in no more +libraries just now. Sir Walter hit her pretty hard." + +"Ten volumes, fifteen dollars cloth, twenty dollars half morocco?" +inquired Eliph' Hewlitt. + +"The identical same," said the landlord. "I purchased a group of Sir +Walters in red leather myself. So did everybody in Kilo; at least I +ain't found anybody that's been missed yet. Paper here got some." + +"My daughter Sally----" began the old man. + +"Same thing," said Wilkins; "you pay just the same if you bought the +books. Why, Sammy, there's enough Sir Walter right here in Kilo now to +start up a book business. Kilo's light on literatoor generally, but when +she goes in, she goes in heavy. There ain't many towns where you'll find +every livin' soul ready to swaller down fifteen dollars worth of Sir +Walter Scott, two dollars down and one dollar a month until paid; but +I calculate them ten volumes will last Kilo quite a spell, and if worst +comes to worst she won't buy no more literatoor till she gits paid up on +Sir Walter. I figger from my own sense of feelin's that about the worst +time to sell a feller books is when he is still payin' once a month on +the old lot. About the second time the collector drops in to collect on +a set of works of literatoor, a man feels like he had been foolish, but +he grins cheerful, and pays up, but if another man drops in about then +to sell another set of the world's great masterpieces it is pretty near +an insult to human intelligence." + +Eliph' Hewlitt drew his hand across his whiskers and coughed gently. + +"They told me in Jefferson," he said softly, "that Kilo was the most +intellectual town in central Iowa." + +"Everybody says the same," said Wilkins with a touch of pride. "The Sir +Walter Scott man said it, and I guess it's so. But there's other things +besides books. Kilo may be strong and willin' on books, but she's strong +other ways, too, and just now she is lookin' at another kind of horse, +and that's why I say you've miscalculated your comin'. If I was you I'd +go elsewhere and come back later. Kilo has got more books now than she +can handle without straining something, and just now her mind's off on +another tack. We struck a big missionary revival here last week, and +you can bet a wager that every dollar that goes out of Kilo these days, +except what goes for dues on Sir Walter, is goin' for the brethren. The +women folks is havin' a sale this very evenin' to raise cash to help the +heathen." + +Eliph' Hewlitt arose from his chair and tucked the oilcloth-covered +parcel that had been lying on his knees under his left arm. He was a +small man, and his movements were apt to be short and jerky. + +"Missionary sale?" he said briskly. "I guess I'll go around and look +in on it. Strangers welcome, I suppose? I'm rather fond of missionary +sales, and I think the world and all of the heathen. Think the ladies +would like to see a stranger?" + +Wilkins grinned. + +"Pap," he said, "what you think? Think they'll fall on his neck if he +has any money? From what I have experienced of them sales I figger to +calculate that anybody that is anxious to buy gingham aprons an' sofa +pillows is sure to be took by the hand and given a front seat. I'd go +around with you, but I've got my taxes to pay, like Pap here, and +I don't actually need any pink tidies. It ain't far; just up to Doc +Weaver's; two blocks up, and you can't miss the house. It's the yeller +mansion, this side the road, an' the gate's off the hinges and laid up +alongside the fence. But I guess if them's your samples in that there +package, you might as well leave them here." + +But Eliph' Hewlitt did not leave them there; he tucked them under his +arm, and hurried away with brisk little steps. + + + + + + +CHAPTER V. Sammy Mills + + "There ought to be a license agin book agents," said Pap Briggs spitefully, when Eliph' Hewlitt had hurried away. + +"It wouldn't harm that feller," said Wilkins. "He's a red hot one at +book-agenting, he is, an' he'd find out some way to git round it. I +hear lot of book agents that come round this way tell of him. He's got a +record of sellin' more copies of that encyclopedia book of his than +any one man ever sold of any one book, an' he's a sort of hero of the +book-agenting business. It makes me proud to call to remembrance that +him an' me was kids together down at Franklin, years ago. Him an' me +took to the book-agentin' biz the same day, we did. I needed cash, like +I always do, and he had literatoor in the family. So we went an' did +it. We did it to Gallops Junction first, and after that Eliph' sowed +literatoor pretty general all over Iowa, an' next I heard of him all +over the United States. Iowa is now a grand State, an as full of culture +as a Swiss cheese is full of holes, an' I don't take all the credit +for it; I give Eliph' his share. Hotels help to scatter the seed, but +literatoor scatters more. + +"One day, down there at Franklin, Eliph' says to me, 'Jim, you know that +book pa wrote?' That's what Eliph' remarked to me on the aforesaid day, +but I wish to state his name wasn't Eliph' on that date, an' it wasn't +Hewlitt, neither. It was plain Sammy; Sammy Mills. Eliph' Hewlitt was a +sort of fancy name my pa had give to a horse he had that he thought was +a racer, but wasn't. It was a good enough horse to enter in a race, but +not good enough to win. It was the kind of race horse that kept pa poor, +but hopeful. + +"'Why, yes, Sammy,' I says, 'I've heard tell of that grand literary +effort of your dad.' + +"'Well,' he says--we was sittin' on the porch of his pa's house--'Pa he +had a thousand of them printed.' + +"'Dickens he did!' I remarked, supposin' it was us to me to do some +remarkin'. + +"'And,' says Sammy, 'he's got eight hundred an' sixty-four of them +highly improvin' an' intellectooal volumes stored in the barn right +now.' + +"'Quite a lib'ry,' I says, off-hand like. + +"'Numerous, but monotonous,' says Sam. 'As a lib'ry them books don't +give the variety of topics they oughter. They all cling to the same +subject too faithful. Eight hundred an' sixty-four volumes of the +"Wage of Sin," all bound alike, don't make what I call a rightly +differentiated lib'ry. When you've read one you've read all.' + +"'Alas!' I says, or somthin' like that, sympathetic an' attentive. + +"'Likewise,' says Sam, 'they clutter up the barn. They ought to be got +out to make room for more hay.' + +"'This was indeed true. I saw it was all good sense. Horses don't take +to literatoor like they does to hay. + +"'Well,' says Sammy, 'what's the matter with chuckin' them eight hundred +an' sixty-four "Wages of Sin" into the rustic communities of this +commonwealth of Iowa, U.S.A.? Here we've got a barnful of high-class, +intellectooal poem, an' yon we have a State full of yearnin' minds, +clamorous for mental improvement at one fifty per volume. It's our duty +to chuck them poems into them minds, an' to intellectooally subside them +clamors.' + +"I shook my head quite strenuous. + +"'Nix for me!' I remarked; 'no book-agenting for me.' + +"'Who said book-agenting?" asked Sammy, deeply offended. 'Do you +calculate that the son of a high-class author of a famous an' helpful +book would turn book agent? Never!' + +"'What then?' I asks him. + +"'Just a little salubrious an' entertainin' canvassin' for a work of +genius,' he says. 'A few heart-to-heart talks with the educated ladies +of Gallops Junction an' Tomville on the beauties of the "Wage of Sin." +That ain't no book-agenting,' says he, 'that's pickin' money off the +trees. It's pie ready cut an' handed to us on a plate with a gilt edge. +All we've got to do is to bite it.' + +"No, let me tell you right here, Pap, that the 'Wage of Sin' was a +thoroughbred treat to read. It was a moral book. Next to the Bible it +was the morallest book I ever tackled, an' when W. P. Mills wrote that +book he gave the literatoor of the U.S.A. a boost in the right direction +that it hasn't recovered from yet. It was the champion long distance +poem of the nineteenth century. That book showed what a chunky an' +nervous mind old W. P Mills had. There was ten thousand verses to that +book of poem, partitioned off into various an' sundry parts so the read +thereof could sit up an' draw breath about every thousand verses, an' +get his full wind ready for the run through the next slice. + +"That 'Wage of Sin' book was surely for to admire, any way you looked at +it. Take the subject; it wasn't any of your little, sawed-off, one-year +sprints. No siree! W. P. Mills started away back in the front vestibule +of time. He said, right in the preface--an' that was all poetry, too-- + +Now, reader, go along with me Away back to eternity, A hundred thousand +years, and still Keep backing backwards if you will. + +"An' when he got away back there he sort of expectorated on his hands +an' started in at Genesis, Chapter One, Verse One, an' went right along +down through the Bible like a cross-cut saw through a cottonwood log. He +never missed a single event that was important, if true. He got all them +old fellers rhymed right into that book--Jereboam, Rehoboam, Meschach, +Schadrach, an' Abednego, an' all the whole caboodle, from Adam with an A +to Zaccheus with a Z. + +"That certain was a moral tome, an' no prevarication. It was plumb +drippin' with moral from start to finish. You see Eve she set the ball +a-rollin' when she swiped them apples. That was where she done dead +wrong, and that was the 'Sin' as mentioned in the name of the book, an' +old W. P. Mills he showed in that literary volume how everybody has had +to pay the 'Wages' ever since. It was great. I never read anything else +moral that I could say I really hankered for, but I sure did enjoy that +book. Old W. P. Mills was a wonder at poetry. + +"It beat all how vivid he made all them Old Testament people, an' the +things they did. Why, I never cared two cents for Shadrach, Meshach, an' +Abednego before I read that book, but after I read it I never could git +them lines of W. P.'s out of my head-- + +'The King perhaps that moment saw A thing that filled his soul with +awe-Shadrach and Meshach, to and fro, Walked and talked with Abednego.' + +"I tell you, you can't obliterate them three men out of your mind when +you read that verse once. You see them walkin' in that fiery furnace, +even when you're in your little bed; walkin' an' carryin' on a +conversation, which, when you come to think of it, was the most natural +thing for them to be doin'. You wouldn't look to see them sit down on +a hot log, or to stand still sayin' nothin'. Walk an' talk, that's what +they did, an' it's what anybody would do in similar circumstances. I +guess fiery furnaces has that effect all the world over, but it took W. +P. Mills to see it with his mind's eye, an' put it into verses. + +"So, when Sammy gently intimated to me that it was his pa's book we was +to canvass, the job looked different. I might shy at an encyclopedia, or +at a life of Stephen A. Douglas, but to handle a moral volume like +the 'Wage of Sin' sort of appealed to the financial morality of my +conscience. So I asked Sammy what the gentlemanly canvassers would get +out of it. + +"'Pa had a lot of faith in that lyric poem,' says Sammy to me, 'an' no +one had a better right to, for he wrote it himself, but the publishing +game was dull an' depressed about the time he got ready to issue it +forth, an' he was necessitated to compensate the cost of printing it +himself. And,' he says, 'the rush an' hurry of the public to buy that +book is such it reminds me of the eagerness of a kid to get spanked. So +I figger we can get several wagon-loads of "Wage of Sin" at fifty cents +per volume.' + +"'That's a cheap price,' I says, 'That's two hundred verses for one +cent, an' the cover free.' + +"Sammy was one of the confidential kind that gets close up to your ear +and whispers, even if he is only tellin' you that it looks like rain, so +he looks all around and whispers to me: + +"'We'll make our initiative beginnin' first off at Gallops Junction,' +he says, 'where we ain't known, an' where pa ain't known, an' where the +book ain't known. I've a premonition,' he says, 'that 'twould be better +so. If we was to start in here we would get discouraged, for the folks +ain't used to buyin' "Wage of Sin." They've been given it so bountiful +an' free that pa can't give away another copy to the poorest man in +town. They've got so that they run when they see pa comin'.' + +"'You've got sense in that red head of your'n,' I says. + +"'For me,' he says, 'it will be merely a voluptuous excursion. It will +be pie to sell that book, because I am the son of its author. Filial +relationship to genius,' he says, 'will make them overawed, an' grateful +to be allowed to buy of me, but you will have it harder. You can't claim +nearer kin to genius than that you helped the son of it chop wood at +various and sundry times.' + +"'And gave him a handsome black eye one time,' I says reminiscently. +'I'll make the most of that. The public likes anecdotes.' + +"'No,' says Sammy, 'you can omit to mention that black-eye business. +That kind of an anecdote would be harrowing to the minds of literary +inclined gentlefolks. You can reminisce about how you helped me carry +wood while I recited passages of poem out of that book at you.' + +"What I would have spoke next don't matter, because I omitted to speak +it. I was gettin' a glimmer of an idea into my head, and I wanted to get +it clear in and settled down to stay before I lost it. It got in, an' +I had a realization that it was an O.K. idea, an' that it beat Sammy's +son-of-his-father idea quite scandalous. + +"When me an' Sammy got down to Gallops Junction we found that as +a municipality of art an' beauty it was a red-hot fizzle, but as a +red-hot, sizzling sandheap it was the leader of the world. As near as +we could judge from a premature look at the depot platform the principal +occupations of the grizzly inhabitants was pickin' sand burrs from +the inside rim of their pants-leg. It was a dreary village, but Sammy +restrained my unconscious impulse to get right aboard the train again. +He had that joyful light of combat in them blue eyes of his, an' he +looked at that bunch of paintless houses that was dumped around the +Gallops Junction Hotel like Columbus must have looked at Plymouth Rock +when he landed there. + +"I had an immediate notion that the thing for me to do was to go over +to the hotel, an' sit in the shade there, an' study the inhabitants a +while, an' get the gauge of 'em, an' learn their manners an' customs, +before harshly thrustin' myself into their bosoms, so I went an' did +it; but Sammy proceeded immediate to visit their homes with the 'Wage of +Sin' in one hand an' the torch of culture in the other. + +"The more I set under the board awning of that hotel the less I +felt like goin' for the to uplift the populace, so I went calmly an' +respectfully to sleep, like everybody else in sight, an' the gentle +hours sizzled past like rows of hot griddles. + +"It was contiguous to five o'clock when I woke up, an' I had put three +hours of blissful ignorance into the past, an' I seen it was too late to +begin my labors of helpfulness that day. I crossed my legs the other +way from what they had been crossed, an' I was about to extend my +ruminations to other thoughts, when I noticed a young female exit out of +a grocery store across the road. She had a basket of et ceterys on her +arm, an' a face that was as beautiful as a ham sandwich looks to a man +after a forty days' fast. I recognized her right away as the prettiest +girl of my life's experience, an' as she stepped out I slid out of my +chair an' made up my mind to make a disposal of one copy of that book as +soon as she struck home. + +"She went into her house at the back door, as most folks do, an' before +she slid the basket off her plump but modest arm, she looked up in +surprise to see what gentlemanly visitor was knockin' the paint off the +screen door with his knuckles. The glad object that her eyes beheld was +me, smilin' an' amiable, with one hand shyly feeling if my necktie was +loose, while the other concealed behind my back the interesting volume +entitled the 'Wage of Sin.' + +"I won't circumlocute about how I got in and got set down on a chair +alongside of the kitchen stove. Approaching the female species promptly +and slick was my hard card always. So there I set, face to face with +that beautiful specimen of female bric-a-brac, and about two inches from +a ten-horse-power cook stove in full blossom. It was a warm day, and +extry warm on the side of me next that stove. The night side of me +felt like sudden fever aggravated by applications of breaths from the +orthodox bit of brimstone, and even my off side was perspirating some. + +"Thus situated before that young female lady, I was baked but joyous, +and I set right in to sell her a 'Wage of Sin.' + +"'Ma genully buys books when we buy any, but we never do,' she says. + +"'Your ma in now?' I asks, respectful, but in a way to show that her +eyes and hair wasn't being wasted on no desert hermit. + +"'Yes, she's in,' she says. 'Looks like it's guna rain.' + +"'Its some few warm,' I says, shifting my most cooked side a little. +'Can I converse with your ma?' + +"'Only in spirit,' she says. 'Otherwise she's engaged.' + +"'Dead?' I asks, her words seeming to imply her ma's having departed +hence. + +"'Oh, no,' she says, smiling. 'She's in the front room, talking. She has +a very previous engagement with a gent, and can't break away.' + +"'You'll do just as well,' I says, 'if not better. You have that +intellectual look that I always spot on the genooine lover of reading +matter.' + +"'If you are gun to talk book, you better git right down to business and +talk book' she says, 'because when I whoop up that stove to git supper, +as I'm gun to soon, it's liable to git warm in this kitchen.' + +"I took a look at the cooking apparatus, and decided that she knew what +she was conversing about. I liked the way she jumped right into the +fact that I had a few things to say about books, too. She was an +up-and-coming sort, and that's my sort. It's up-and-comingness that has +made the Kilo Hotel what it is. + +"'All right, sister,' I says, 'this book is the famous "Wage of Sin."' + +"'No?" she exlamates. 'Not the "Wage of Sin"? The celebrated volume by +our fellow Iowan, Mr. What's-his-name?' + +"'The same book!' I says, glad to know its knowledge had passed far down +the State. 'Price one-dollar-fifty per each. A gem of purest razorene. +A rhymed compendium of wit, information, and highly moral so-forths. Ten +thousand verses, printed on a new style rotating duplex press, and bound +up in pale-gray calico. Let me quote you that sweet couplet about the +flood: + +"I hear the mother in her grief Imploring heaven for relief As up the +mountain-side she drags Herself by mountain peaks and crags." + +"'When I wrote that--' + +"'When you wrote that!' she cries joyous, stopping to gaze at me. 'What! +Do I see before me a real, genooine author? Do I see in our humble but +not chilly kitchen a reely trooly author?' + +"'Yes'm,' I says, modest, like G. W. when is papa caught him executing +the cherry tree. 'I wrote it. I am the author. Here, as you see me now, +in tropical but dripping diffidence, I am the author of that tome. It's +a warm day.' + +"She stood in my proximity and explored me with her eyes. + +"'An author!' she says, stunned but pleased. 'A real live author! My! +But it is hard for me to grasp a realization of that fact. So you wrote +it?' + +"'Yes'm,' I says again. 'I done it.' + +"'So young, too,' she says. 'Genius is cert'nly a wonderful phenomenus.' + +"'It's easy when you know how,' I says off-hand like. 'Book-writing is +born in us. When we get warmed up to it it's no trick at all. An author +can't no more help authorizing than a stray pup can help scratching.' + +"'But,' she says, 'it must be true what I've heard about authorizing +being a poor paying job.' + +"'Why?' I asks, being suspicious. + +"'Because,' she says, 'if it wasn't you wouldn't be touring around to +sell your own books after you've wrote them. That is hard work. Now, I +have to stay in this kitchen and perspire because I have to, but if +you was rich off your books you wouldn't sit on that chair and get all +stewed up. I can see that.' + +"'What you can't see,' I says, 'is that I came here just because I was +the writer of this here composition. Money I don't desire to wish for. +Being a rich man and a philanthropist, I give all I make off of +this book to the poor. But it ain't everybody can experience the +satisfiedness of seeing a reely genooine author. So I travel around +exhibiting myself for the good of the public. And as a special and +extraordinary thing--a sort of guarantee to one and all that they have +seen a genooine living author--I write my autograph in each and every +volume of this book that I sell at the small sum of one-fifty per. +Think of it! Ten thousand verses; moral, intellectooal, and witty; +cloth cover, and the author's own autograph written by himself, all for +one-fifty. The autograph of the famous boy author.' + +"'That's a big bargain,' she says, thoughtful. + +"'Jigantic,' I says + +"'Genius is cert'nly a wonderful phenomenus,' she repeats again, dreamy. + +"'Ain't it!' I responds, sniffing to see if it was my pants that was +scorching. 'Will you have one volume?' + +"She hesitated, and then she says, 'No. No, I don't dast to. Not yet. +Not till I see how ma comes out. Mebby she'll purchase one before she +gits through being talked to.' + +"I set straight upward on my hotly warmed chair. 'Being talked to!' I +says, astonished. + +"'Yes,' says the sweet sample of girl. 'Your son, you know, Mister +Samuel Mills; he's in the front room interviewing ma.' + +"'My son!' I ejaculates weakly, the thermometer in my spinal backbone +going up ten thousand degrees hotter. + +"'Such an oldish son, too,' she says, sinfully joyous, 'for such a +youngish father. He must have been two years old the day you were born. +Genius is cert'nly a wonderful phenomenus!' + +"I set there a minute, wilted, but nervous. Then I got hot, and arose in +anger. + +"'My son!' I says, scornful. 'So that's what he says, it is? Disgracing +his father in that way! All right for him! I disown him out of my +family. And I furthermore remark that he ain't my son, nor never was.' + +"'Well,' she says, 'you needn't get so hot about it. He's a hard worker. +He's been here all day.' + +"'I ain't hot,' I says, forgetting that my temperature was torrid plus +glowing, 'but I'm mad to think that that boy which I hired to sell my +book should pass himself off as my son, and then stay talking all day +in one place, instead of selling books throughout the promiscuous +neighborhood.' + +"'Then,' she says, as if for the first time seeing light, 'that young +man in their ain't no son of the author of this "Sin" book?' + +"'Never; subsequent nor previous, nor wasn't, nor will be,' I solemnly +made prevarication. + +"'Well,' she says, 'he said he was when he come in; and me and ma didn't +think it likely an author person would have his son out book-peddling, +so we asservated back that he wasn't; and him and ma has been having a +high-grade talking match all day in the front parlor to convince each +other otherwise than what they are convinced of.' + +"'Him,' continued the lovely girl, 'says he'll sell ma a book BECAUSE +he's the son of the author thereof, and ma says she'll buy a book if he +owns up truthful that he ain't the son of the author thereof. She says +that if she buys a book off of him when he's making false witness of +having a talented dad she'll be encouraging lying, which she can't do, +being a full-blood Baptist. So they've got a deadlock, and the jury is +hung, and the plurality is equal and unbiased on both sides, and up to +date nobody wins.' + +"'Then,' I says, 'I don't sell no "Wage of Sin" do I?' + +"'Not as no author if it,' she says. 'If you want to tackle us as a +common book agent, you'll find us right in the market.' + +"'Katie,' I says, 'call your ma out here a minute. If I can sell a copy +of this volume I am willing to sell my birthmark for a mess of potash +any day of the week.' + +"'That,' she says, cheerful, 'is spoke like a financier and a +gentleman.' + +"With that she started for the front room, but just then the door swung +open, and out came her ma and Sammy, tired with fatigue, but satisfied. + +"'What!' says the young daughter, 'is the tie untied? Is the jawfest +concluded?' + +"'It is,' says the maternal ancestor of that girl, weak but happy. 'We +talked seven miles and six furloughs, but I won. He has renounced his +sin. He ain't no son of no author. I've boughten his book.' + +"I gazed at Sammy with a moist, reproachful eye. + +"'Sammy! Sammy!' I says, shaking my head, 'to think----' + +"'Hush!' he says, 'don't say it. I ain't no Sammy. I ain't no Mills. +Them is not my name.' + +"'Alas!' I says, mournful, 'am I then deceived since childhood's happy +hours?' + +"I see the respectable old lady pricking up her ears and getting +ready for another season of conversation. Sammy likewise made the same +observation, and he fended off the deadly blow. + +"'Yes,' he says, 'I have deceived you. My name is----' + +"He stopped and looked doubtful and perplexed, and scratched his ear +with his forepaw. + +"'My name is----' he says, and stops, and then he turns to the elderly +female, and asks desperate: 'What in tunket did I say my name was?' + +"'Hewlitt,' she says, 'Eliph' Hewlitt.' + +"'Oh, yes!' says Sammy, 'that's it. I guess I'll just write that down, +so as to have it handy. You know,' he says, looking at me, 'my memory's +awful bad since I had the scarlet fever. It's terrible. Why, when I come +in here I knowed I had SOMETHING to say about this book, and I tried to +remember, and I seemed to remember that I was the son of the author who +authored it. I never come so near lying in my life. I'm all in a tremble +over it to think how near to lying I was! An' I got the notion Eliph' +Hewlitt was the name of a horse.' + +"'Ma,' says Katie, giving me a wicked smile, 'this here other young +man has got a bad scarlet fever memory, too. HE'S come near to lying, +likewise. You'd ought to speak a few words of helpfulness with him, +too!' + +"'Now, here,' I says, 'you pass that by, Katie. All that that I said was +a novel I was thinking of writing out when I got my full growth, which +I told you to pass the time away whiles this What's-his-name was busy. I +never wrote nothing!' + +"'Well,' she says, 'you don't look as if you had the sense to, so I +guess you ain't lying now.' + +"But ma lit into me, and spent two hours, steady talk, convincing me +I wasn't W. P. Mills, although every time she said I wasn't I said so, +too. The more I agreed that I wasn't the more she would fire up and take +a fresh hold, and try to bear it home to me that I wasn't. There was +never in the world such a long fight, with both sides saying the same +thing. Ordinary persons couldn't have done it, but hat lady mother +could, an' did, an' every now an' then she would dig into Sammy again. +An' all of it was right near to that enthusiastical stove. So at last +she laid a couple of extra hard words against us an' we keeled over, +as you might say, an' toppled out of the kitchen. We was dazed with +language that was all words, an' when we come to the gate we was so +stupefied that we climbed right over it, an' so weak that we fell down +off the other side of it, an' Sammy all the time repeatin' 'Eliph' +Hewlitt,' like a man in a dream. By next day he was able to leave the +hotel, an' he took the train, an' I ain't seen him until this day, so +I guess he stuck right to that name, for fear he might meet the talkin' +lady again. I don't see how he could get the name out of his system when +once Katie's ma had talked it in, anyway, for she was a great talker. I +ought to know, for I went back an' chinned with Katie as soon as I +got the daze out of my head, an' the long-come short-come of it was I +married Katie. + +"When Sammy comes back I want to ask him if he sold out all them 'Wage +of Sin' books. I never sold but one, an' I didn't sell that--I gave it +to Katie for a wedding present." + +"You done right when you gave up the book agent business, Jim," said Pap +Briggs. "There ought to be a license agin all of 'em." + + + + + + +CHAPTER VI. The Castaway + +Eliph' Hewlitt, when he reached the large, yellow house, found the door +open. The sale was well over. The gingham aprons and the cat-stitched +dusting cloths were all sold, and only a few crocheted slipper-bags +and similar luxuries remained, and these were being offered at greatly +reduced prices, much to the chagrin of the ladies who had contributed +them. The cashiers were counting the results of the evening's business, +and the other ladies were grouped about the minister, who stood in +the middle of the parlor, laughingly explaining the merits of a +plush-covered rolling-pin he had purchased in a moment of folly. + +Eliph' Hewlitt tapped on the door to call attention to his presence, +and walked into the parlor. Mrs. Doctor Weaver came forward, a shade of +anxiety on her face. + +"Mrs. Doctor Weaver, I suppose," said Eliph' Hewlitt. "Well, my name +is Hewlitt, Eliph' Hewlitt, and I heard of this sale at the hotel. The +landlord said strangers were welcome----" + +"Of course they are!" exclaimed Mrs. Doctor Weaver. "I'm afraid all the +best things are gone, they went off so quickly to-night; but you're just +as welcome, I'm sure, an' mebby you'll find something you'd like, though +I suppose you're a travelin' man, an' I don't see what you'd do with a +knit tidy, or a rickrack pin cushion, unless you've got a sister or a +wife to send it to. But mebby you ain't a drummer after all?" + +"Well, yes, I'm a sort of a drummer," said Eliph', tapping his parcel. +"Book agent, you know. That the minister?" + +Mrs. Weaver drew back when Eliph' mentioned his occupation. She did not +consider a book agent any less worthy than another man, but she had been +obliged to miss the last payment on Sir Walter Scott, and she had an +ill-defined feeling of guilt. To miss a payment was almost as hideous +in her eyes as to neglect to put a dime in the contribution plate each +Sunday would have been. Her first thought was that Eliph' had come to +rudely bear away the ten volumes of Sir Walter before the eyes of all +the women of Kilo, and she gladly grasped at his last words. + +"Yes," she said quickly, "that's him. Let me introduce you. He--he likes +books." + +"I'm not selling books to-night," explained Eliph' Hewlitt, for her +words seemed one form of the usual reception of a book agent, and to +indicate a desire to be rid of him as quickly as possible; "but I don't +mind meeting him." + +As Mrs. Weaver led the way to the center of the group, Eliph' Hewlitt +followed her, but his eyes quickly made a circle of the room, and rested +a moment on Sally Briggs, who was one of the cashiers. + +She saw him and caught her breath, as if the sight had frightened her, +but when he nodded she could not refuse to return the salutation. She +nodded as coldly as she knew how, and hurried to the most distant corner +of the room. Eliph' was well enough pleased with this reception, for he +would hardly have known what to do with a warmer one; in many years he +had received only the book agent's usual greeting, which is far from +cordial. She had nodded to him, at any rate, and he felt a glow of +satisfaction. + +When Mrs. Weaver introduced him to the minister she added that he was a +book agent. She may have done this as an explanation, for Kilo, and even +Kilo's minister, craved details, or she may have done it to give fair +warning to all concerned. The effect was instantaneous, and the smiles +of welcome faded. The minister shook hands gravely, and the ladies who +had run forward with shoe bags and tidies turned and walked coldly away. + +Eliph' Hewlitt smiled. + +"Funny how that name makes a man unpopular, ain't it?" he said, +addressing the minister. "But I ain't going to talk books in Kilo. The +landlord down at the hotel told me it was a bad time, so I'm going to +pass it by. Well, I guess we deserve all the blame we get. Some of us do +pester the life out of people--don't know when to stop. Now, when I see +a man don't want my book, or when I see a town ain't ready for it, I +drop books and go off, and leave them alone. I could have stayed down +there at the hotel and bothered the landlord into taking my book. He'd +have too it, because everybody that sees this book, and understands it, +does take it; but I said, 'Why bullyrag the life out of the poor man +when there's a missionary sale going on in town, and he don't want a +book, and I do want to see the sale? I am interested in missions." + +"It's a great field," said the minister, with a sigh of relief; for, +as the literary head of Kilo, he was always the first and most strongly +contested goal of the book agents. The subscription list that did not +bear his name at the head bore few others, and he appreciated the self +denial of Eliph' Hewlitt in passing such a good opportunity to talk +business. + +"Are you deeply interested in the field?" he inquired graciously. + +"Well, you se," said Eliph' Hewlitt, "I was cast away on one of those +desert islands myself once, and I know what those poor heathen must +suffer for lack of churches and civilization, and good books to read. I +can feel for them." + +Someone pushed a chair gently against Eliph's legs, in gentle invitation +for him to be seated, and he took the chair, and laid his package across +his knees. Those who had drawn away from him now gathered closer, and +all gazed at him with interest. Miss Sally alone remained at the other +end of the room. + +"Well, I never expected to live to see a man that had been shipwrecked," +said Mrs. Weaver, "let alone shipwrecked on a desert island--an' a book +agent at that!" + +Eliph' smiled indulgently. + +"I wasn't a book agent in them days," he said; "it was that made me a +book agent. If I hadn't been shipwrecked on that island I wouldn't be +here now with this book on my knees." + +Mrs. Weaver's face flushed. + +"I'm sure I ask you to excuse me," she exclaimed. "I don't know what I +was thinkin' of not to ask to take your package. Let me put it aside for +you. They ain't no use for you to be bothered with it." + +"Thank you, ma'm," said Eliph', "but I'll just keep it. No offense, but +I never let it go out of my hands, day or night. It saved my life, not +once, but many times, this book did, and I keep it handy. But for this +book that shipwreck would have been my last day." + +"Land sakes, now!" cried Mrs. Weaver, "won't you tell us about it?" + +"Well, as I said, but for this book I'd be bones at the bottom of the +sea. Yes, ladies and gents, bones, of which there is one hundred and +ninety-eight in the full grown human skeleton, composed of four-fifths +inorganic and one-fifth organic matter." + +"How dreadful!" exclaimed Mrs. Weaver, who, being a doctor's wife, had +a particular dislike for bones, as for useless things that cluttered up +the house, and were not ornamental. "But how come you to get wrecked?" + +"Five years ago," said Eliph' Hewlitt, "I was a confidence man in New +York. New York is the largest city in the Western Hemisphere; population +estimated over three million; located on the island of Manhattan, at +the mouth of the Hudson River. And, if I do say it myself, I was a good +confidence man. I was a success; I got rich. And what then? The police +got after me, and I had to run away. Yes, ladies and gents, I had to fly +from my native land. I took passage on a ship for Ceylon. Ceylon," he +added, "is an island southeast of India; population three millions; +principal town, Colombo; English rule; products, tea, coffee, spices, +and gems. + +"We had a good trip until we almost got there, and then a big storm come +up, and blew our ship about like it was a peanut shell, tossing it up +and down on the mighty waves, and round and back; and the third day we +bumped on a rock, and the ship began to sink. In the hurry I was left +behind when the crew and passengers went off in the boats. Think of it, +ladies and gents, not even a life preserver to save me, and the ship +sinking a foot a minute." + +"Goodness me!" said Mrs. Weaver, "you wasn't drowned, was you?" + +"No," said Eliph' Hewlitt, "or I wouldn't be here to tell it. I rushed +to the captain's cabin. I thought maybe I would find a life preserver +there. Alas, no! But there, ladies and gents, I found something better. +When I didn't find a life preserver I was stunned--yes, clean knocked +out. I dropped into a chair and laid my head on the captain's table. +I sat there several minutes, the ship sinking one foot per minute, +and when I come to my senses, and raised my head, my hand was lying on +this." + +Reverently he raised the volume from his knees and unwrapped it, and the +Ladies' Foreign Mission Society leaned forward with one accord to catch +a glimpse of the title. Eliph' Hewlitt opened the book and flipped over +the pages rapidly with the moistened tip of his third finger. + +"It was this book, ladies and gents, and it was open here, page 742. +Without thinking, I read the first thing that hit my eye. 'How to Make +a Life Preserver,' it said. 'Take the corks from a hundred champagne +bottles; tie them tightly in a common shirt; then fasten the arms of +the shirt about the body, with the corks resting on the chest. With this +easily improvised life preserver drowning is impossible.' I done it. The +captain of that ship was a high liver, and his room was chuck full of +champagne bottles. I put in two extry corks for good measure, and when +the ship went down, I floated off on the top of the ocean as easy as a +duck takes to a pond." + +"My sakes!" exclaimed Mrs. Weaver, "that captain must have been an awful +hard drinker!" + +"He was," said Eliph' Hewlitt--"fearful. I was really shocked. But, +there I was in the water, and not much better off for it, neither, for I +couldn't swim a stroke, and as soon as I got through bobbing up and down +like your cork when you've got a sunfish on your line, I stayed right +still, just as if I'd been some bait-can a boy had thrown into an eddy, +and I figgered like as not I'd stay there forever. Then I noticed I had +this book in my hand, and I thought, 'While I'm staying here forever, +I'll just take another peek at this book,' and I opened her. Page +781," said Eliph', turning quickly to that page, "was where she opened. +'Swimming; How to Float, Swim, Dive, and Tread Water--Plain and Fancy +Swimming, Shadow Swimming, High Diving,' et cetery. There she was, all +as plain as pie, and when I read it I could swim as easy as an old hand. +The direction all through this book is plain, practical, and easily +followed. + +"I at once swum off to the south, for there was no telling how long I'd +have to swim, and as the water was sort of cool, I thought best to go +south, because the further south you go the warmer the water gets. When +I swum two days, and was plumb tuckered out, I come to an island. The +waves was dashing on it fearful, and I knew if I tried to land I'd be +dashed to flinders. It knocked all the hope out of me, and I made up my +mind to take off my life preserver and dive to the bottom of the sea to +knock my brains out on the rocks. But, ladies and gents, before I dived +I had another look at my book, hoping to find something to comfort a +dying man. I turned to page 201." + +Eliph' Hewlitt found the page, and pointed to the heading with his +finger. + +"'Five Hundred Ennobling Thoughts from the World's Greatest Authors, +including the Prose and Poetical Gems of All ages,'" he read. "There +they were-sixty-two solid pages of them, with vingetty portraits of the +authors. I read No. 285: + +"As Thou has made Thy world without, Make Thou more fair my world +within,' et cetery." + +"Whittier, J. G., commonly called the poet of liberty, born 1807, died +1892'--with a complete sketch of his life, a list of his most popular +pieces, and a history of his work on behalf of the slave. + +"I was much comforted by this," said Eliph' Hewlitt, "and I run over +the pages this way, thinking of what I had read, when I hit on page +927: 'Geography of Land and Sea.' I skipped ten pages telling in +an interesting manner of the five great continents, their political +division, mountains, lakes, and plains, their vegetable inhabitants +and animals, their ancient and modern history, et cetery, and I come +to 'Islands, Common, Volcanic, and Coral'; and on page 940 I read that +coral islands are often surrounded by a reef on which the waves dash, +but that there is usually a quiet lagoon between the reef and the +island, with somewhere an opening from the sea into the lagoon. + +"When I read that," said Eliph', closing the book, "I shut up my book +and swum round until I come to the opening, which was there, just +like the book said it would be, and I swum across the lagoon, and fell +exhausted on the beach. I was played out, and I had swallered too much +water. I would have died right there, but I thought of my book, and +I turned to the index, where every subject known to the vast realm of +knowledge is set down alphabetically, from 'A' to 'Z', twenty thousand +references in all, dealing with every subject from the time of Adam to +the present day, including, in the new and revised edition just from +the press, a history of the war with Spain, with full page portraits +of Dewey, Sampson, Cervera, and the boy king, and colored plates of the +battles of Manila Bay and Santiago. I run my eye down the page till I +came to 'Drowned, How to Revive the,' page 96; and what I read there +saved my life." + +The ladies sighed with relief. + +"What shall I say about my four long years on that island?" said Eliph'. +"I was the only man on it. Oh, the pangs of solitude! Oh, the terrors of +being alone! But, ladies and gents, I suffered none of them. I was not +alone. He is never alone who has a copy of Jarby's 'Encyclopedia of +Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art,' published by +Jarby & Goss, New York, and sold for the trifling sum of five dollars +a volume, one dollar down and one dollar a month until paid, the book +delivered when the first payment is made. And that, my friends, was the +book I had, and the book you see before you." + +The minister put out his hand. + +"May I look at the volume?" he asked, and Eliph' passed it to him with a +nod. + +"From the first the book was my friend, philosopher, and guide. I had +no matches. Page 416, 'Fire, Its Traditions--How to Make a Fire Without +Matches--Fire-fighting, Fire-extinguishers,' et cetery, taught me to +make a fire by rubbing two sticks, as the savages do. I had no +weapons to kill the fowls of the air. Page 425, 'Weapons, Ancient and +Modern--Their History--How to Make and Use Them,' et cetery, told me +how to twist the cocoanut bark into a cord, and to shape the limb of +the gum-gum tree into a bow and arrow. Page 396, 'Birds, Tropical, +Temperate, and Arctic--Song Birds, Edible Birds, and Birds of Plumage,' +et cetery, with their Latin and common names, and over one thousand +illustrations, told me which to kill, and which to eat. Page 100, 'The +Complete Kitchen Guide,' being eight hundred tested recipes--roasts, +fries, pastry, cakes, bread, puddings, entrees, soups, how to make +candy, how to clean brass, copper, silver, tin, et cetery--told me how +to prepare and cook them. + +"Yes, my friends, I went to that island an ignorant, unbelieving man, +and I came away educated and reformed. For my idle hours there was +the 'Complete Mathematician,' showing how to figger the most difficult +problems easily, how to measure corn in the drib, water in the well, +figger interest, et cetery, by which I become posted on all kinds of +arithmetic. There was the 'Complete Letter Writer, or a Guide to Polite +and Correct Correspondence,' the 'Dictionary of Legal Terms, or +Every Man His Own Lawyer,' the 'Modern Penman,' the 'Eureka Shorthand +System'--in fact, all the knowledge in the world, condensed into one +thousand and four pages, for the small sum of five dollars. Who can +afford to be without this book, which will pay for itself twice over +every week of the year? + +"I was picked up, ladies and gents," continued Eliph' Hewlitt, "by +a passing ship, and I decided to devote my life to a great work--to +circulating this wonderful book in my native land. I wept when I thought +of the millions that had not seen it--millions that were living poor, +starved lives because they didn't have a copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia +of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, and I gave +myself to the cause." + +The minister handed the book back to Eliph' Hewlitt, and cleared his +throat. + +"It seems to be all you claim for it," he said; "but I fear the landlord +of the Kilo House was right. We are not, many of us, ready for more +books at present. If you return in a year or eight months----" + +Eliph' Hewlitt smiled, and put his hand gently no the glossy black knee +of the minister's best trousers. + +"True," he said, "true! Kilo has books. Kilo knows the civilizing and +Christianizing influence of books. But," he exclaimed, "think of +the poor heathen! Think of the poor missionaries fighting to bring +civilization to those dark-hued brothers! Shall it be said that every +home in Kilo has a set of Sir Walter Scott, ten volumes with gilt edges, +while the minds of the heathen dry up and rot for want of the vast +treasures contained in Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium +of Literature, Science and Art? Here in this book is the wisdom of the +whole world, and will you selfishly withhold it form those who need +it so badly? If I know Kilo, I think not. If what is said in Jefferson +regarding the unselfishness and liberality of Kilo is true, I think not. +I know what you will say. You will say, 'Here, take this money we have +collected this evening and give to the thirsting heathen as many volumes +of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, +Science and Art, as it will buy at five dollars a volume.'" + +He glanced around the circle of faces. + +"That is what you will say," he said; "But Eliph' Hewlitt will beg a +chance to do his little for the noble work. He will, seeing the good +cause, make the price four seventy-five per volume, and throw in one +volume from for the Kilo Sunday School library, where one and all can +have reference to its helpful and civilizing pages." + +In Eliph' Hewlitt's eyes glowed the fire of conquest that always shone +in them when he was "talking book," a glitter such as shines in the eyes +of the enthusiast, and they fell upon Miss Sally Briggs, who had been +drawn by his eloquence to the edge of the ring of ladies. As he paused, +she recognized the moment as that when the victim is supposed to utter +the words, "Well, I guess I'll take a copy," but she missed the direct +appeal, and its absence confused her, and she was still wondering +whether it was now time to say she would take a copy, or whether she had +better wait for the formal appeal, when Mrs. Doc Weaver spoke for the +Ladies' Mission Circle. + +When Eliph' Hewlitt left the house, half an hour later with his order +signed, Miss Sally had disappeared, and, although he peeked eagerly into +both the side rooms as he passed through the hall, he could see nothing +of her. He was disappointed. + +When he returned to the hotel the landlord was asleep in the chair +before the door. He arose with a yawn, rubbed his eyes, and led the +way into the office where a dingy kerosene lamp was burning dimly. He +stretched his arms as he looked at the clock that stood above the dusty +pigeon holes back of the desk. + +"'Leven o'clock!" he yawned. "I must have been asleep two hours. Guess +you'll want to get right up to bed, won't you? I reckon you found out +Kilo don't want no books this trip, Sammy; an' if you want to git an +early start from town you'll need all the sleep you can get." + +Eliph' tossed his package on the desk carelessly. + +"Why, yes, Jim, I wish you WOULD call me early," he said. "I'll be ready +for bed in half an hour or so. I done a little business up yonder, and I +want to mail my report to New York. But you needn't hitch up my horse in +the morning." + +"No?" asked the landlord sleepily. + +"No," said Eliph', "and if any feller comes this way selling books in +the next month or so, just tell him there ain't no use for a raw hand +to waste time in this town. Tell him Eliph' Hewlitt has settled down to +live here." + + + + + + +CHAPTER VII. The Colonel + +When Eliph' Hewlitt stepped out of the hotel the next morning, after he +had eaten his breakfast, and stood, with a wooden toothpick between his +lips, looking up and down the street, he felt a sense of exultation. +If he had been a victorious general, and Kilo a captured city of great +importance, he would have had a similar feeling. Already he felt that, +if he was not the captor of the town, he was one of its important +citizens, and practically the husband of an attractive woman whose +father owned sufficient property to be one of those who grumble about +taxes. + +To a man who had been a wanderer all his life it was pleasant to feel +that he was soon to be kin to all the things he saw on Main Street, +brother to the town-pump and cousin to the flag pole, and to consider +that even the well-gnawed hitching rails were to be part of his future +years. He nodded across the street to Billings, the grocer and general +store man, as if he was an old acquaintance, and he watched Skinner, the +butcher, sweeping the walk, with a pleasant smile, for he saw in him a +future friend. He loved Kilo, and he was ready to like everything, from +the post office to the creamery. His whole future seemed destined to be +simple and pleasant, for he was resolved to do his best to make the town +like him, and there seemed little opportunity for complications in a +town that could all be seen at one glance. + +Strangers think all small towns simple. The few stores are all plainly +labeled, the streets run at right angles, and the houses are set well +apart, like big letters in a primer. A small town looks like a story +without a plot, like: "See the cat. Does the cat see me? The cat sees +the dog;" beside which a city is as unfathomable as a Henry James +paragraph. To the stranger each man and woman he meets is a complete +individual, each standing alone, like letters on an alphabet block, and +not easily to be confused, one with the other. But these letters of the +small town's alphabet are often tangled into as long and complex words +as those of the greatest city; it takes but twenty-six letters to spell +all the passions. The letter A, that looked so distinctly separate, is +soon found to be connected with C and T in Cat, and with W and R in War, +as well as cross-connected with the C and W in Caw, and with T and R in +Tar; while the houses that stood so seemingly alone are all connected +and criss-crossed by lines of love and hate, of petty policy and revenge +and pride, quite as are nations or people who live in labyrinths, or in +a metropolis. + +It was still too early in the morning for Eliph' Hewlitt to call on Miss +Sally, and there was no haste; the day was long. He even doubted whether +it would be good policy to call on her in the morning; he might find +her busy with household cares. Probably it would be best to wait for the +afternoon, when she would be at leisure. This, he decided would be +best. He would arrive in her presence at two o'clock, and four hours of +conversation would carry them to the point of being well acquainted, as +advised by Jarby's Encyclopedia. The next day he could enter the second +stage of the directions, and call with a book, present it; call after +dinner with a box of candy, present it; call after supper, and propose +a walk, visit the ice cream parlor, and on the way home offer his hand, +and be accepted. The chapter on "Courtship--How to Win the Affections" +advised against haste, and Eliph' did not wish to be hasty. To a man +of his spirit two days seemed rather long to devote to so simple a +matter--a real waste of time--but he was willing to take longer than +necessary, in order to follow the directions in spirit, as well as in +letter. + +Eliph' settled himself into one of the chairs before the hotel +and opened his copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia at the chapter on +"Courtship--How to Win the Affections." He was deep in it when the +landlord strolled around from the livery stable and sank into a chair by +his side. + +"So you made up your mind to stay here, Sammy?" he asked. "I guess the +town'll be glad enough to have you. All this town needs to be a big +place is inhabitants. What you ought to do now it to settle down for +good, an' get married. There's some purty fine women in this town that +ain't picked up yet, but they won't last long, they way they're goin'. +Somebody gets married every couple of months." + +Eliph' looked up with a smile. Jim Wilkins did not know he had advised +the very thing he meant to do. + +"I've thought some about it," said Eliph', "'most everybody's getting +married now-a-days." + +"It's the popular thing 'round here," said Jim. "Look across the street, +yonder. See that feller just goin' up to the lawyer's office? He's one +that's in the marry class, just now. That's Colonel Guthrie. He lives +out on the first farm beyond Main Street, and he's goin' to marry Sally +Briggs, daughter of old Pap Briggs, that we was talkin' to last night, +here." + +Eliph' Hewlitt stared at the Colonel, but he said nothing. He blamed +himself; he had wasted his opportunity. This was what came of being +slow! He should have completed his courtship at the picnic, or last +night at the sale. Jim Wilkins interrupted the thought. + +"Leastways," he said, "HE'LL get her if Skinner don't. It's a close run +between him an' Skinner. Skinner ain't so good lookin' as the Colonel, +but he's better fixed. It's Skinner owns our butcher-shop, an' it's +Skinner is buildin' our Opery House Block. Some say Skinner'll get Pap +Briggs' money, an' some says the Colonel will." + +"Are there any others?" asked Eliph', looking down the street to where +the raw brick of the opera house glowed in the sun. + +"After Sally?" asked Jim Wilkins. "Well, there's sev'ral would like to +get her, I dare say. Sally Briggs is a pretty fine sort of woman, an' +Pap Briggs has quite considerable money, but the Colonel an' Skinner has +the inside track. No one else has a chance." + +Eliph' stroked his whiskers softly and coughed gently behind his hand. + +"Briggs, did you say the name was?" he asked. "Seems to me I met a lady +at a picnic up Clarence way that had that name. You said the name was +Sally Briggs?" + +"That's her," said Wilkins. "Sally Ann Briggs. She's been visitin' up +there in Clarence." + +Eliph' nodded his head slowly. + +"I seem to recollect her, since you mention it," he said indifferently, +and then he added, "She spoke as if she might buy a copy of Jarby's +Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art +when I saw her at that picnic. I guess I'll drop 'round and see if she's +ready to buy. If she' goin' to be married she ought to have a copy." + + + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. The Medium-Sized Box + +As Eliph' walked briskly toward Miss Sally's house the Colonel +was having an interesting conversation with Attorney Toole, in the +attorney's office over the Kilo Savings Bank. + +Attorney Toole had been a lawyer at Franklin, and he had come down to +Kilo because he preferred a being a big toad in a small puddle, rather +than a little toad in a middle-sized one. This was one of his reasons, +but another was that he had complete and full faith in Richard Toole, +and intended to be a political power in the land. He could not be much +of anything in Franklin, for that town was hard and fast Democratic, and +Toole was a Republican. The first step to political preferment is to be +elected to something or other, it does not make much difference what, +and to rise from that to greater things, but a Republican had no +chance in Franklin; couldn't even get an appointment as dog police or +wharfmaster; couldn't get elected to any office at all. + +So Toole packed up his law books and moved to Kilo, where he was in a +Republican town, a Republican county, and a Republican congressional +district, in a Republican State that formed part of a Republican nation. +He selected Kilo, after considering other good little Republican towns, +because the Republicans of Kilo needed aid and assistance; they were out +of office; kicked out. + +Every so often the small town of the West turns the regular party out +of office and puts in a Citizens' ticket, just to show that the people +still rule, and to let the greedy officeholders, some of whom get as +much as one hundred dollars a year in salary, know that their offices +are not life positions. When Attorney Toole descended on Kilo, the +Citizens' Party was "in," and the Republicans were "out," and the +attorney saw an opportunity of making himself valuable to his party by +working to put the party "in" again. + +Never before had the Colonel climbed his stairs, and Toole smiled like +an Irish sphinx when the Colonel entered his office. He smiled most of +the time, not because he thought a smile becoming to his freckled +face, but because he found things so eternally amusing. In law a man is +considered innocent until he has been proved guilty; in Kilo Attorney +Toole considered everything amusing until it had been proved serious, +and he considered the Colonel and Skinner, and the whole Citizens' Party +they had been instrumental in organizing, as parts of the same joke. +They would stand until he was ready to lazily push out his hand and +topple them over. It was almost time to topple them, now, and he was +glad to see the Colonel; he motioned him to a seat, and smiled. + +The Colonel took his hat from his mat of coarse iron-gray hair, and laid +it carefully on the floor. Out of his small sharp eyes ignorance and +cunning peered, and the mass of beard that hid the greater part of his +face could not hide the hard line of his mouth. + +"I jest dropped up," he explained, after he had acknowledged the +attorney's cheerful greeting with a gruff "mornin'," "I jest dropped up, +sort of friendly-like, thinkin' you might have nothin' to do, an' might +like to sit an' chin a while. You don't charge nothin' for sittin' an' +chinnin' do ye?" + +Toole said he did not. + +"I didn't figger you did," said the Colonel. "If I'd thought you did I +wouldn't have dropped up, for I ain't got no money to spend on lawyers. +I'd sooner throw money away than spend it at law. But I figgered you was +young at the law yet, and didn't have much to do at it, and I sort of +run across a case I thought might amuse you, like, when you ain't got +nothin' to do. Folks don't seem to have much faith in young lawyers, and +you can't blame 'em; old ones don't know much. All any of 'em care for +is to get people into trouble so they can charge 'em fees to get 'em out +of it. So I thought mebby you'd like to hear of this case so you could +kind of mull it over in your mind whilst you're loafin' up here." + +"That was kind of you," said Toole. + +"I always like to do a good turn when I can," said the Colonel, "when +it don't cost nothin'. An' this case I was tellin' you about is a mighty +good one for a young lawyer to study over. Soon as I heard of it I says +to myself 'I'll tell this case to Attorney Toole, an' he'll be grateful +to hear of it.'" + +The country client usually begins in some such way as this, anxious to +get all the advice he can without having to pay for it, and Toole merely +smiled. + +"Mebby you know," said the Colonel, "that there was a feller took board +of Sally Briggs a while back; feller by the name of William Rossiter, +that come through here peddlin' lightnin' rods and pain killer and land +knows what all. Well, he was a rascal. He took board off of Sally Briggs +four weeks, and then he cleared out, and she nor no one else has seen +hide nor hair of him since, and he never paid her one cent. All he +ever let on was to leave this letter stickin' on the pin cushion in his +bedroom." + +The Colonel dug the letter out of his vest pocket, and Toole read it. It +was short: + +Dear Miss Briggs: I'm off. Good-by. Business in Kilo is no good. Sorry I +can't square up, but I leave you the box in my room in part payment. W. +R. + +"Prosecution's exhibit No. 1," said the attorney. + +"Jest what I was tellin' Miss Sally," said the Colonel. "I says to her +to keep that paper, and it might come handy. Mebby you heard that me and +Miss Sally was what you might call keepin' company?" + +"That's interesting," said Toole. "Been keeping it long?" + +"Quite some consid'able time," said the Colonel. "Long enough, land +knows, and we'd a-been done with it by this time and married, if that +Skinner hadn't come crowdin' in where he wasn't wanted. What right has +a man like him to come pushin' in like that? His wife ain't been dead +twelve months yet. It ain't decent of him, is it?" + +"Do you want a legal opinion?" asked Toole, reaching for a large law +book that lay on the table. + +"No, I don't!" cried the Colonel in alarm; "I don't want to run up no +charges. I don't care whether it's legal or not, it ain't friendly, +after him and me has worked together buildin' up this Citizens' Party, +and all. What does he mean, sendin' Miss Sally porterhouses, when she +only orders flank steak, like he was wrappin' up love and affection into +every steak? He's got mighty proud since he set out to build that there +Kilo Opery House of his. He's a fool to spend money on an opery house in +this town. He's a beefy, puffy old money bag, he is. He needn't tell ME +he expects to get even on what he spent on that Opery House Block out +of what he'll make on it; he just built it to make a show, so some dumb +idiot like Sally Briggs would think he amounted to more than others, and +marry him." + +The Colonel brought down his hand with a bang on the attorney's table. + +"What kind of an idiot did you call Miss Briggs?" asked Toole +pleasantly. + +"I didn't call her no kind!" declared the Colonel. "All I say is, I've +been married once already, and I know how women are. And I know Skinner. +He's lookin' for to pay for that opery house with Pap Brigg's money that +he'll git if he marries Sally. But he won't git it! I'm a-goin' to----" +He was going to say he was going to get it, but he caught himself in +time, and substituted "I'm a-goin' to see to that." + +"I see," said Toole, "and you want to retain me as your attorney in case +you have to sue for breach of promise?" + +The Colonel scowled. + +"I don't want to retain, and I don't want to sue, and I don't want no +fees to pay. You get that clear in your mind. If I did, I'd go to a +lawyer that had some experience. I jest dropped up----" + +"Well, any time you wish, you can just drop down again, Colonel," said +Toole, but not ill-naturedly. + +"Now, don't git that way," said the Colonel. "I jest dropped up to do +you a favor, and you git mad about it! I don't call that friendly. If +you was to do me a favor I wouldn't git mad." + +"Go ahead with the favor, then," said Toole, leaning back in his chair +and putting his feet on his table. + +"Miss Sally," said the Colonel, "she told me all about this feller +Rossiter, an' what he said, an' what she said, an' how he come to go to +her house for board, an' how he skipped off, an' she showed me the +note he left on the pin cushion, an' then she come down to business. +'Colonel,' she says, 'have I a right to take an' keep that box? Have I +a right to open it? Is it mine by law? If I open it can he come back an' +sue me, or anything?' + +"'Can he?' says I. 'That's the question. Can he?' + +"'It's a large box,' says Miss Sally. + +"'A large box, hey?' says I. 'Of course if it was a small box, Miss +Sally--but it is a large box! How large?' + +"'Quite large,' she says. 'About medium large. Not too large. Besides +anything very large it would be small, but beside anything very small it +would be large.' + +"I nodded my head to her, to let her see I knew what she was tryin' to +say. 'Medium large,' I says, 'yes, I know just about how big you mean, +but what I'd like to know is, is it heavy?' + +"'Medium,' she says, 'just medium heavy.' + +"Well, there she was! A medium heavy, medium-sized box. If it had been +a little bit of a light-weight box I'd 'a' told her to open it and keep +it, for there couldn't have been much in it; and if it had been a big +heavy box I'd have told her she'd better leave it alone; for there +wouldn't be any tellin' whether she had any right to open a box like +that one might have turned out to be. I didn't know how the law stood on +that kind of a box. But it was medium-sized, and I didn't know WHAT to +say. + +"'Miss Sally,' I says, 'I'd like to help you out on this. Any time I can +give you any advice on anything, I'm glad to, but I don't know what to +say about a box that is medium size and medium heavy. You'd ought to get +the law on that subject before you touch that box. Don't you touch that +box. Don't you open it unless there's a law officer standin' by to see +you do it.' + +"She seen that was good advice," continued the Colonel, "and I sat there +right in her parlor and thought it over. 'Miss Sally,' I says, after I +had thought all I could about it, 'I believe Attorney Toole would tell +you what to do about that box. There ain't nothin' a lawyer needs more +than to be popular, and there ain't no way to git popular quicker than +by doin' little favors, an' he ought to be glad to do a favor for you, +for you're almost an orphan. Your ma's dead, an' Pap Briggs ain't overly +strong, an' you're liable to be an orphan almost any minute. I can tell +by the looks of Attorney Toole,' I says, 'that he's got a good heart, +and if you say the word I'll ask him what he says to do about that box.' +She seemed sort of put out at what I'd said about orphans, but I seen +she was willing to have me ask you about that box, and I seen it would +be doin' you a favor, too, to tell you about it, so you could sort of +exercise your mind on it, so I jest dropped up----" + +"Colonel," said Toole, "this is a very serious case." He put his hand +over his mouth to hide the smile he could not prevent from coming to his +lips. + +"You don't mean to tell me!" exclaimed the Colonel. "I was afraid there +might be somethin' wrong about it somewheres. But I ain't goin' to go to +no expense about it. It ain't my box----" + +"I would not take a case like this for money," said the attorney, +turning suddenly and facing the Colonel with a seriousness that +frightened that cautious soul. "I would not take a case involving a +medium-sized, medium-heavy box; a box left for board by a man from parts +unknown, now departed to parts unknown; a box that may contain stolen +property; I would not take such a case for money, Colonel. But I'll +undertake it for friendship. For friendship only. You ARE my friend, +aren't you, Colonel?" + +"Surely! Surely!" exclaimed the Colonel eagerly. + +"A medium-sized box," said Toole, turning his head to hide his smile, +"should be opened only in the presence of an attorney-at-law. That is +legal advice and worth five dollars, but I charge you nothing for it, +you being my friend. Consider it a gift from me to you." + +"I'm much obliged," said the Colonel gruffly. + +"And now," said the attorney briskly, "for the MODUS OPERANDI, as we +lawyers say. Has the client, the lady in the case, a hatchet?" + +The Colonel thought. + +"I ain't right sure," he said at length, after he had searched his +brain; "seems like she ought to have, but I've got one, an' I'll loan it +to her." + +"Good!" exclaimed Toole briskly. "That is better yet. A medium-sized box +left by a transient in payment of default of a board bill should +always be opened, if possible, with a hatchet not the property of the +plaintiff. Chitty says that. It was so ruled in the case of MUGGINS vs. +MUGGINS." + +He took from his desk a bulky volume, and ran over the pages rapidly. + +"Box," he said, "small box-medium box. Here it is. Humph!" + +The Colonel leaned over the book, but the attorney closed it quickly. + +"Bring an ax," he said. "A hatchet would do, but an ax is more legal. +Hatchets for small boxes, axes for medium boxes. There is a later case +than MUGGINS vs. MUGGINS." + +"I'll fetch the ax," agreed the Colonel. + +"Can you be at the house in half an hour?" asked the attorney. + +The Colonel could. + +"You're right sure there ain't goin' to be no charges to this?" he asked +anxiously, and when the attorney had once more assured him there would +be none, he picked his hat from the floor and shuffled into the hall and +down the stairs. + + + + + + +CHAPTER IX. The Witness + +When Eliph' Hewlitt reached the Briggs house, he did not hesitate, but +walked right up to the front door and rang the bell. A minute later he +saw the red silk that obstructed the pane of beveled glass in the upper +part of the door drawn ever so slightly to one side and then quickly +replaced. He caught the glisten of an eye, as the red silk was held +aside, but the door did not open. Miss Sally, after the brief glance, +tiptoed back through the hall. She did not want to meet the book agent. + +Eliph' waited a respectable minute and then rang the bell again, +although he had little belief that this would bring Miss Sally to the +door. It is good form to ring the bell of the front door several times, +before going to the back door, for it may be that the lady of the house +is dressing, or is hastily taking the folded paper "curlers" out of +her front hair, or slipping on her "other skirt" before admitting the +visitor. Few indeed are the front doors in Iowa that open promptly to a +knock or a ring. Primping time must be allowed, and if this, followed +by a second ring or knock, does not open the door, nothing but business +permits the visitor to go to the back door. Having waited, Eliph' went +to the back door. It closed almost as he reached it, and it would not +open to his most vigorous knocking. + +To know a person is in a house, and not to be able to reach that person, +is annoying, and Eliph' had often had this happen to him. The usual +course was to go away and return again; returning a third or fourth +time, or until the door at last opened; but Eliph' was not merely trying +to sell a copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of +Literature, Science and Art this time. He had no time to waste in the +usual manner. If he could not get into one house to sell a book, he +could enter another house and sell a book, but when a man is after a +certain heart he does not care to go to another house and take another +heart. Some men do it, but they are usually sorry afterwards. Eliph' +walked to the front of the house again, and looked at the front door. + +He felt there should be some way to get into the house and have five +minutes' conversation with Miss Sally. If this Colonel and this Skinner +had already had months or years of opportunity for pressing their suits, +there was not time to be lost, and the sooner he began the sooner he +would win. But none of his ordinary methods of entering unwilling houses +would serve his purpose this time. It would not do to begin by making +Miss Sally unfriendly. So Eliph' tucked his book more snugly under his +left arm and looked at the house. He walked to the gate and looked up at +the roof; walked across the street and viewed the house in perspective; +but nothing useful came of it, so he crossed the street again and tried +ringing the doorbell once more. He rang it sharply and waited. Then he +knocked and waited. He was willing to wait until the door opened, and +he leaned against the porch railing and waited, ringing the doorbell +insinuatingly, or commandingly, or coaxingly, from time to time. + +Meanwhile, the attorney waited until the half hour he had assigned was +up, and then walked toward Miss Briggs' house with briskly business-like +steps. + +"Now, some folks," he said to himself, as he walked, "wouldn't get any +fun at all out of a case like this, but I do. That's the way to keep +young. It's why I don't grow stale in this town. It is a small puddle +for a toad of my size, but I hop around and keep things stirred up." + +As he neared the house, he saw the Colonel approaching from the opposite +direction, and he waved his hand to him, and the Colonel hurried to meet +him. They turned into the yard together, and saw Eliph' Hewlitt resting +easily against the porch railing. + +"Nobody's at home?" asked the attorney. + +"Yes," said Eliph'. "Somebody's home, but they don't answer the bell. + +"Book agent?" said the attorney. "Well, you can't blame them, much. Gems +of literature aren't always wanted." + +The Colonel scowled. He felt a personal interest in Pap Briggs' money, +and he resented any attempt to part the old man from any of it. He +suffered almost as deeply at tax time as Pap himself did, and he +considered the money Sally had to pay in installments on Sir Walter +Scott as practically thrown away, and that she might as well have taken +it out of his own pocket. He knocked on the lower step of the porch, +with the side of his ax, angrily. + +"You git out of this here yard!" he ordered. "I don't want no book +agents a-hangin' around here, an' I won't have it. You clean out of +here!" + +Eliph' coughed lightly behind his hand, but the words of reproof that he +intended to launch softly at the Colonel were never spoken. + +"Well, this IS lucky!" cried the attorney, holding out his hand to +Eliph'. "Colonel, this is the best luck we could have had. Here we need +a witness, and here we have him right on the spot! I was going to stop +and get Skinner on the way down, and then I thought maybe, from what you +said, you and Skinner were not very friendly, so I didn't, and now I'm +glad I didn't. We find a witness right here on the porch, just as if he +had been ordered to be here. I call that a good omen." + +The Colonel was not pleased, and he showed it, but he really had nothing +that he could urge against this book agent, so he said nothing. The +attorney rang the bell, and Miss Sally, having peeped out to see the +meaning of so many men on her porch, recognized the Colonel and the +attorney, and opened the door. The attorney stood back to let Eliph' +enter, and then followed him in. The three men stood in the little +hallway, hats in hand, while Toole explained why they had come, and Miss +Sally led the way to the second-floor room where the box stood. + +It was an impressive scene as the four gathered around the box. + +"Knock off the lid!" said the attorney firmly. The Colonel raised his ax +and struck. The board splintered but remained firm. "Legally," said the +attorney, "you may strike three blows." + +At the third blow a portion of the lid fell clattering to the floor, and +the three men and Miss Sally peered anxiously into the box. From it the +Colonel tenderly lifted a nickel-plated cylinder, as tall as a man's +knee and as large around as a leg of mutton. It had a convex top, and on +one side a dial. From near the base a long rubber tube extended. + +The Colonel handled the thing gently. He held it in his hands as an +old bachelor might handle his newborn nephew, and Miss Sally looked +anxiously into his face, appealing for enlightenment. The Colonel +studied the thing carefully, and then looked into the box again, and +back at the glittering object in his hands. There were three more +exactly like it in the box. + +"What is it?" asked Miss Sally nervously. It looked explosive. + +The gingerly manner in which the Colonel handled the dangerous-looking +thing aroused her suspicions. She backed away from it. Eliph' Hewlitt +opened his lips to speak, but the attorney motioned him to be still. + +"Don't you know what it is?" Miss Sally asked, appealing to the Colonel. + +"Yes," said the Colonel, but he still looked at the glistening affair +with doubt. "Oh, yes! But I can't see what that there young feller was +doin' with four of 'em. I can't see what he was doin' with 'em anyhow. +Mebby," he said, "he was agent for 'em." + +"He was agent for 'most everything I ever heard tell of a man bein' +agent for," said Miss Sally, "but I wish you'd tell me what they are." + +"Well, ma'm," said the Colonel, "this is fire-extinguishers; patent +chemical fire-extinguishers. I know because I recall seein' some once +when I was down to Jefferson. They had 'em in a theater there. They put +out fires with 'em." + +"Well!" exclaimed Miss Sally. "How do you ever suppose anybody would put +out a fire with a thing like that?" + +The Colonel turned the affair over and over. + +"I didn't study that up," he admitted, "but I guess if I take time I +can find out how the thing works. They squirt out of this here tube +somehow." + +He turned up the end of the tube and squinted into it. Again Eliph' +Hewlitt was about to speak, but the attorney caught his eye and winked, +and the little book agent held his tongue. + +"Well, land's sakes!" exclaimed Miss Sally, "What am I goin' to do with +four fire-extinguishers, I'd like to know?" She asked the question as +if the Colonel had got her into this thing of the ownership of the +fire-extinguishers, and she looked to him to take the responsibility. He +was quite willing to accept it. + +"I've got to think that over," he said. "A feller can't decide right off +hand what to do with four fire-extinguishers. It looks to me as if they +was worth a lot more than the young feller owed you, Miss Sally. They +ain't no doubt about Miss Sally havin' a right to 'em, is there, Mister +Toole?" + +"Not a bit of doubt!" exclaimed Toole cheerfully. "She has every right +in the world. You've got a witness that they came out of that box, and +she can sell, give, donate, assign, or bequeath them, for better or for +worse." + +"Then that's all right," said the Colonel, "an' I guess that's all we +need you for." + +"Except to settle the witness fees with this gentleman," said Toole, +turning to Eliph', who was still eager to say a word or two. "But mebby, +if I have a word or two with him, I can fix it up without making any +expense for you." + +He drew Eliph' to one side. + +"What's the cost of that book you're selling?" he asked. "Well, I'll +take one. I don't take one for a bribe, but because I can see you're not +the sort of man that would sell a book that wasn't worth the money. I +want that book. And just you keep still about those fire-extinguishers. +Between you and me, those are first-class nickel-plated lung-testers, +and not fire-extinguishers. But that doesn't matter. There's just +about as heavy a call for fire-extinguishers in Kilo as there is for +lung-testers. Can you keep still about it?" + +"I can," said Eliph' Hewlitt, "and you'll never regret having bought a +copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, +Science and Art. It is a book that should be in every man's hand, and +in every home. If you owned a copy now, you would know is value to man, +woman, or child. I was going to try to sell one to Miss Briggs when you +came, and if you could help me to----" + +The attorney smiled. This was the sort of game he enjoyed. "Don't tell +about the lung-testers," he whispered, and turned to Miss Sally. "Miss +Briggs," he said, "will you let this gentleman have a few minutes of +your time? I want him to show you a book he has. It is a book that +should be in every home. If you will give him a few minutes." + +He did not wait for Miss Sally to answer, but turned to the scowling +Colonel. + +"Colonel," he said, "I want you to walk down to the office with me. I +shouldn't wonder if you could sell those fire-extinguishers right here +in Kilo." + +The four descended the stairs together, and the Colonel would willingly +have lingered, but the attorney took him by the arm and jovially steered +him out of the door. Miss Sally, too, would gladly have had the Colonel +remain, to protect her from the book agent, and to say "no" when the +appeal to buy was reached, but Eliph' retreated into the darkness of +the parlor, and took a seat in the corner of the room, and Miss Sally, +unable now to escape him, seated herself as far from him as she could. + + + + + + +CHAPTER X. The Boss Grafter + +Eliph' Hewlitt was resolved that into this interview no words regarding +Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science +and Art should enter. With two such favored rivals in the field, and +with such difficulty in getting into the house as he had experienced, he +meant to get well acquainted in a hurry. Miss Sally sat stiffly in her +chair, steeling herself to refuse the request to buy a copy of the book. +Her usually attractive face was stern, as she looked at Eliph' Hewlitt, +and she watched him suspiciously as he slowly combed his whiskers with +his fingers, as if she feared this was some part of the operation by +which he was charming her into a hypnotic state in which she would sign +for a book without knowing why. She nerved herself to ward off whatever +insinuating words he should first say, and Eliph', as he studied her +face, sought words that would advance him at one bound deep into the +state of being well acquainted. It was a trying moment for both. + +Then, so suddenly that Miss Sally almost jumped from her chair, Eliph' +coughed behind his hand, and spoke. + +"It seems like it would be as hot to-day as it was yesterday, if it +don't shower before night," he said, and smiled pleasantly as he said +it. + +Miss Sally was taken off her guard, and before she was aware she had +answered, quite as politely as she would have answered the minister +himself. + +"It's awful hot," she said. "I guess Kilo's the hottest place on earth +in summer." + +"Not the hottest," answered Eliph', leaning forward eagerly. "You +wouldn't say that if you had a copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge +and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, and studied it up the way +I do. Page 442 gives all the hottest places on earth, with the record +highest temperature of each, together with all the coldest places, where +there is the greatest rainfall, and a chronological table of all the +great famines, floods, storms, hot and cold spells the earth has ever +known, from the time of Adam to the present day, with pictures of the +Johnstown flood, and diagrams of Noah's Ark. This, with the chapter +on the Physical Geography of Land and Sea, telling of tides, typhoons, +trade winds, tornadoes, et cetery, explains why and how weather happens. +All this and ten thousand other subjects, all indexed from A to Z in one +book----" + +He paused suddenly, appalled to think that he was already far from his +resolve not to mention Jarby's Encyclopedia, and, as his voice still +hung on the last word he had spoken, the doorbell rang, and Miss Sally +jumped up, happy for any interruption. She merely turned her head to +say: + +"I guess I don't want one to-day," and then Eliph' heard her open the +door, and greet the newcomers as she welcomed them into the hall. They +were Mrs. Tarbro-Smith and Susan, and, as Miss Sally hurried them up the +stairs to remove their dusty hats, she leaned back and called to Eliph': + +"You can get right out the door," she said, "it ain't shut. I guess I +won't have no more time to spend listenin' to you to-day." + +For half an hour Eliph' waited, listening to the chatter of voices, and +then he quietly stole from the house and stepped gently out of the yard. +There was no sense in waiting longer, and he knew it. + +Mrs. Tarbro-Smith, receiving a letter from the editor of MURRAY'S +MAGAZINE, had learned at length that Clarence was not typical Iowa, and +she had transferred her field of study to Kilo on his recommendation. +She meant to spend the rest of the season there, and hoped Miss Sally +would take her to board. She found that Miss Sally would be glad, +indeed, to have her company, and Mrs. Smith did not think it necessary +to mention that she was looking for local color and types. She was +pleased when she heard that Eliph' Hewlitt, who had so interested her, +was "working" Kilo. + +As Eliph' Hewlitt walked toward the hotel he felt that another +opportunity had been lost--thrown away--by his inability to avoid +Jarby's Encyclopedia as a topic, and for one moment he came as near +giving up Miss Sally as he ever came to giving up anything. In that +moment he saw the simplicity of his courtship, as he had imagined +it would be, resolve itself into a tangled affair, as all these new +individualities entered into it. Instead of being a mere matter between +himself and Miss Sally, it was involving men and women, one after the +other. It seemed to become a fight between himself, a singer stranger in +Kilo, and an endless chain of interested citizens. Already there was Pap +Briggs, who hated book agents; the Colonel and Skinner, who hoped to +win Miss Sally; Mrs. Smith, who would serve as a defense against Eliph's +attacks; and, as he walked down the street, he seemed to see in every +man, woman, and child, a possible ally of either the Colonel or Skinner. +But he tucked his sample copy of Jarby's under his arm more securely, +and braced up his courage. He even whistled as he approached the hotel, +but, when he glanced up at the attorney's office and saw Toole and the +Colonel with their head together, he stopped whistling. If Toole was +going to take either side, Eliph' would have liked to claim him. Toole +was a smart man. + +Toole and the Colonel left Miss Sally's with the attorney well pleased, +and his enigmatic smile rested on his face as he led the Colonel to +his office. He handed him a chair, and made him take a cigar, and then +turned and faced him. + +"Now," he said, "what are you going to do with those +what-do-you-call-'ems?" + +"Them fire-extinguishers?" said the Colonel, licking the cigar around +and around before lighting it. "Well, I ain't had much time to think +that over yet. A feller can't decide on a thing like that all at once. +It ain't likely no one in Kilo would buy a fire-extinguisher like them, +all nickel-plated, if they had their senses about 'em. 'Twouldn't be +natural. I might raffle 'em off, only nobody'd be likely to buy chances +on a fire-extinguisher. I might take 'em down to Jefferson, but I +don't see as that would do much good, nobody'd be likely to buy +fire-extinguishers off of me down there." + +"No," said the attorney, turning to his table and looking over some +papers, with an appearance of interest, "No, I guess not. I don't see +that you can do much of anything with them, unless you use them for +ornaments. It seems a pity that Miss Briggs didn't go to Skinner for +advice about that box, instead of you, doesn't it?" + +The Colonel stopped with a lighted match half way to his cigar. + +"What do you mean?" he asked, red in the face. "Do you mean that puffy +old beef-cutter's got more sense than what I have, young man?" + +"Oh, no," said the attorney, carelessly. "Not at all. I was +just thinking that if Skinner HAD opened that box, and HAD found +fire-extinguishers in it, it would have been a fine chance for him to +say to Miss Briggs, 'Madam, I am building in this town an opera house, +known as Skinner's Opera House. The safety of the people of Kilo demands +fire-extinguishers in Skinner's Opera House. I will take those four +nickel-plated appliances and install them in my opera house, and +allow you ten dollars apiece for them, cash or meat.' But, of course," +continued the attorney innocently, "you can't do that; you haven't built +an opera house." + +The Colonel's little eyes peered at the attorney, and they were filled +with cunning. Across his hard mouth a smile crept and broadened until he +had to lay his hand across it, it was so indecently wide and exultant. + +"Skinner is no fool," continued the attorney. "As soon as he hears that +Miss Briggs has those four things he will probably rush right up to her +house and offer to buy them. It would be a great feather in his cap with +her, if he could get the credit of having thought of it. I shouldn't +wonder if he had heard of what was in that box by this time. It seems a +pity, doesn't it, that he should get all the credit after you have done +all the work?" + +The Colonel looked at the noncommittal face of the attorney, and smiled +again. This was a sort of cunning he could appreciate, and he leaned +over and gave Toole a sly poke in the ribs, to show him that he +understood. Toole looked at him with a blank face, and at this the +Colonel slapped his knee, and uttered a mirthful noise that was like the +sound of a man choking. He clapped his greasy hat on his mat of hair and +went out, pausing at the door to look back and grin at the attorney once +more. + +Mr. Skinner was trimming a roast. He had just cut off a piece of suet, +which he held in his plump red hand as he listened to the Colonel's +proposition to sell him four nickel-plated fire-extinguishers at +ten dollars each. Perhaps the Colonel spoke too impetuously; too +commandingly. Skinner held the lump of suet offensively near the +Colonel's nose as he answered. + +"Fire-extinguishers!" he laughed. "Me buy fire-extinguishers? I wouldn't +give THAT for them." + +He shook the suet before the Colonel's eyes. + +"No, sir!" he sneered. "I wouldn't give THAT for them. And I throw that +away!" + +"Skinner," said the Colonel, growing dangerously red in the face, "don't +you shake no meat in MY face like that! Don't you dare do it! I won't +have no butcher shake meat in MY face. You low-down beef-killer. That's +all you are, a beef-killer." + +"Mebby," admitted the butcher indifferently. "Mebby I am, but I don't +buy no fire-extinguishers. And I don't take much stock in agents for +them, neither. No. Nor in gold bricks. Nor green good. No." + +The Colonel raised his fist and brought it down on the butcher's counter +so hard that the meat scales danced, and the indicator jerked nervously +across the face of the dial, weighing a half pound of anger. The butcher +leaned back against the shopping block, and gently caressed the handle +of his cleaver. He pointed to the door with his other hand. + +"Git out!" he said, and the Colonel scowled but went. + +On his way home the Colonel bethought himself of a good excuse to stop +at Miss Sally's. He had left his ax there, and he went to the back +door, this not being a formal call. Miss Sally came to the door when he +knocked, and brought him the ax, and he took the opportunity to say a +bad word for Skinner, and he was astounded to find that she sympathized +with Skinner on his refusal to buy the fire-extinguishers. + +"I don't wonder at it," she said, "seeing he has put so much money on +that opery house already. He's done a lot for this town that nobody else +would ever have thought of doin'. Mr Skinner's a very public-spirited +citizen, and to think he made it all out of sellin' meat! It must be a +good business. I guess you'll have to excuse me now, Colonel Guthrie, +I've got visitors down from Clarence." + +The Colonel's steps dragged as he walked home. Never had Miss Sally +said so many good words for his rival. She had almost rebuffed his good +offices in the attempt to sell the fire-extinguishers, and had praised +Skinner to his face. + +Early the next morning he "dropped up" into the office of Attorney +Toole, and as that young man lay back in his chair, with his feet on +his desk, he told him the whole story. The attorney smiled. This was the +kind of split in the ranks of the Citizens' Party that he had hoped to +promote. + +"After that, Colonel," he said, when the Colonel had told him that +Skinner had ordered him out of the shop, "you ought to MAKE him buy +them." + +"I wisht I could, dog take him!" cried the Colonel. "I'd like to make +him eat 'em." + +"Colonel," said Toole, "I see you are, as always, guided by a spirit of +conservative kindness. You hesitate to force that butcher to do what he +does not want to do. The feeling does you honor, but is it business? You +hesitate even when you see how easily you could force him to do what he +is in duty bound to do to protect the lives of our trustful citizens. +I admire your gentleness, but I deplore your unbusinesslike moderation. +You lack public spirit." + +The Colonel grinned savagely. He felt that the attorney was teasing him, +but he could not quite tell how. + +"You," said Toole easily, "knowing that our town council can, and +should, pass an ordinance compelling all owners of opera houses to +install nickel-plated fire-extinguishers--to install four of them in +each opera house in Kilo--for the protection of our people, hesitate to +ask them to pass such an ordinance. You hesitate because you do not wish +to appear malevolent toward a rival. Now, don't you?" + +"Me be kind to that fat, pig-stealing, sausage-grinding----" snorted the +Colonel, but the attorney stopped him with a lifted hand. + +"Just what I said," exclaimed the attorney. "You are too kind; too +considerate; too regardful of his feelings. But would he be so kind and +considerate and regardful of your feelings, if he was in your place?" + +He lowered his feet and his voice, and placed his hand on the Colonel's +knee. + +"No!" he whispered hoarsely. "No!" he cried loudly and defiantly. "No! +He would not! He would use the influence you have with the city +council and the mayor to have an ordinance passed making YOU put +fire-extinguishers in YOUR opera house, and compel YOU to buy them of +HIM. But you will not use your huge influence with Mayor Stitz and the +city council. You hesitate." + +Toole shook his head sadly; he almost wept out the last word, he seemed +so heartbroken to see the Colonel hesitate. + +"Why hesitate?" he asked. "If I were not a stranger in town, as I may +say, I should beg you not to hesitate. I should beg you to act. I should +beg you to think of the lives of poor, helpless women and children. I +should beg you, for humanity's sake, to go to the honorable mayor and +city council, and appeal to them to pass an ordinance compelling this +Skinner to buy nickel-plated fire-extinguishers. To compel him, Colonel! +But I have nothing to say." + +He shuffled the legal-looking papers that littered his desk. The +Colonel's eyes had narrowed to fine points of hate-instilled cunning as +the attorney proceeded. + +"What have we come to," asked the attorney sadly, "when the leading +citizens of a town like Kilo neglect their duty? Are there no true +citizens left to show the mayor and city council their plain duty?" + +When the Colonel had the thing put to him in this light he did not +hesitate. He knew Stitz, the mayor, and he knew that Stitz had full +control of the city council. What Stitz told it to do the city council +did, and the Colonel believed he had a right to dictate what Stitz +should tell it, for he had suggested the name of Stitz as candidate for +mayor, and, with Skinner, had helped elect him. He went at once to the +mayor, and laid the case before him. + +Mayor Johann Stitz was an honest, upright shoemaker, and owned his own +building. It had once been a street car in Franklin, and when the horse +cars were superseded by electric cars, Stitz had bought this car at +auction, and had paid ten dollars to have it hauled to Kilo. It had not +been a very good car when it left the shops before it made its first +trip, and the ten years of running off the track and being boosted on +again had not improved it much. It was in pretty bad shape when Stitz +picked it up for eighteen dollars, and it had deteriorated greatly since +it had been doing duty as a cobbler's shop, but Stitz liked it. The tiny +car stove that stood midway of one of the seats was all he needed in +cold weather, and the seats along the sides were a continuous spread of +cobblers' seats. He could cobble all the way up one side of the car and +all the way back the other, and when he had customers waiting he always +had a seat to give them. He and the whole city council could hold a +caucus in the car, and all have seats, and in the evenings he could take +a stool out on his front or back porch and smoke a pipe in peace. His +car stood side by side with the round topped wagon of the traveling +photographer, who had not traveled since his felloes gave out on that +very lot six years before. + +The city officers of the Citizens' Party, being of an independent +part, were so independent that they were worried and chafed by their +independence. No one but a man in office knows the real blessedness of +having the set beliefs and an traditions of a regular party to fall +back upon. The independence of the independents made their work more +difficult; it compelled them to decide things for themselves, and then +everybody complained of what they did. No independent is ever satisfied +with what another independent does, and they lost even the satisfaction +of knowing that they were pleasing their own part, which a properly +service Democrat or Republican is rather apt to be sure of. In this +state of things the six councilmen had thrown their burdens of decision +to Stitz. They cast the whole burden on him, saying, "Ask Stitz. He's +mayor. What he says, we'll do." And Stitz never would say. + +As the Colonel entered the mayor's shoe shop Stitz was reading a +magazine, which he laid beside him on the car seat while he listened +to the Colonel. A pile of similar magazines lay beside him on the seat. +They were the missionary offerings of Doc Weaver, who was interested +in whatever was latest in religion, government or popular science. They +were magazines telling of the municipal corruption of "New York, The +Vile," "Philadelphia, Defiled but Happy," "Chicago, the Base," and "St. +Louis, the Decayed." Doc Weaver had given them to Mayor Stitz to show +him the evil of graft, and to keep his administration clean and pure. + +When the Colonel had laid before the mayor his request for an ordinance +compelling all opera house owners in Kilo to install and maintain four +nickel-plated fire-extinguishers in each opera house, the mayor beamed +on him through his iron-rimmed spectacles. + +"Ho! Ho-o!" he exclaimed, "it is to make Mister Skinner buy some +fire-extinguishers, yes? So shall my city council pass an ordinance, +yes? Um!" + +He smiled broadly at the Colonel, and then nodded. + +"For how much you graft me?" he asked blandly. + +"What?" asked the Colonel. + +"Graft me," repeated Mayor Stitz. "I say for how much you will graft me +when I shall pass one such ordinance my council through?" + +"What's that?" asked the Colonel, puzzled. + +"For how much you will make me one graft?" Mayor Stitz repeated slowly. +"Graft! Graft! Understand him not?" + +The Colonel shook his head. + +"What is it?" he asked. + +"Graft! Graft! Graft!" exclaimed the mayor with annoyance. "Don't you +know him? When I make you one ordinance to pass, so, then you make me +one graft, so! Like I read me in this book. Me to you, one ordinance; +you to me one graft. So!" + +A look of dismay came over the face of the Colonel, as he frowned at +the smooth, honest face of the mayor, from which beamed eyes of childish +honesty and frankness. + +"Here in this book," said the mayor slowly and distinctly, like one +explaining some simple thing to a child, "I read me of this graft +business. It is to me this graft comes. So it is by all big cities. Man +would have one ordinance. Goot! In every town is such one boss grafter. +To the boss grafter gives the ordinance-wanting man a graft. So! Then +for the ordinance-wanting man does the boss grafter get one ordinance +made like is wanted. Yes! So, it is; no graft, no ordinance! Some graft, +some ordinance! I read him in this book Doc Weaver gives me as a lesson +to go by. It is a goot way. I like me that graft business." + +A glimmer of the meaning entered the Colonel's mind, but he could hardly +connect the idea of graft with the honest Johann Stitz. As a fact, to +Mayor Stitz the idea of unlawful gain did not come. Graft was a way out +of the difficulty of having to decide things. It was a system authorized +by the lawmakers of great cities, and a system that could operate +in Kilo. Whenever Stitz and his council passed an ordinance someone +complained, and upbraided him; he saw now why this was; they had not +used the approved system. But the Colonel still frowned. + +"Well, what--how much do you want?" he asked. + +Mayor Stitz turned up his innocent face and smiled blandly again. + +"That makes not!" he exclaimed. "In the books it says much money, but +is not yet Kilo so gross as New York. We go easy yet a while. It is what +you want to graft me. One bushel apples--one bushel potatoes--that YOU +must say." + +The Colonel moved closer to the mayor. He thought of Miss Sally, and of +Skinner. + +"I will make you a present of a bushel of apples," he said. + +The mayor laid down his magazine and arose. As the Colonel watched him +with surprise, he removed his leathern apron. The Colonel folded his +hand into a fist, but on the pleasant face of Mayor Stitz there was no +sign of anger; no sign of righteous indignation; only a bland look of +satisfaction. + +"Well," inquired the Colonel impatiently, "will ye put the ordinance +through, or won't ye?" + +The mayor looked at him with surprise in every feature. Clearly this +Colonel did not understand the first rudiments of graft. + +"First I must go by Mr. Skinner," said Stitz simply. "Mebby he grafts me +more NOT to pass such an ordinance." + +"Look here, Stitz," said the Colonel in alarm. "You ain't goin' to do +that, are ye?" + +"Vell," said the mayor, "still must I do it! So always does the boss +grafter. Which side grafts him the most, so he does. It is always so, +never different. To the most grafter, so goes he. I read it in this +books. When the boss grafter does not so, what use is the grafts? How +then does he know which he shall do for, the ordinance-wanting man, or +the ordinance-not-wanting man?" + +The Colonel tried to argue with him, but the mayor was obdurate. He +would not budge from the highest principles of graft, and, as the +Colonel had gone too far now to recede with honor, he secured the best +terms he could. The most he could obtain was a promise that the mayor +would not mention any names, nor so much as hint that graft had been +promised. He uneasily awaited the mayor's return. + +Stitz returned radiant. He was rubbing his hands and beaming. + +"Fine!" he exclaimed. "Fine! I make me one boss grafter yet! Mister +Skinner grafts me one roast beef and six pigs' feet. He ain't much +liking those fire-extinguishers to have. How much more will you graft me +now?" + +The Colonel looked the mayor squarely in the eye. + +"Stitz," he said, "I ain't goin' to run no auction with that there +Skinner. I come to you first, an' I was the first to say I'd make you +a present, an' you ought to pass that ordinance anyhow. But to shut up +this thing right here an' now, I'll do this: if you'll say you'll +pass that ordinance like I want, so Skinner'll have to buy them four +nickel-plated fire-extinguishers that Miss Briggs owns, at twenty-five +dollars each, I'll give you four bushels of Benoni apples, two bushels +of Early Rose potatoes, four bunches of celery, a peck of peas, and +one spring chicken. And if you won't" he added, raising his hand +threateningly, "I'll go to them six councilmen, an' I'll graft 'em +one at a time, an' THEN where 'll your boss grafter be? You can't help +yourself." + +"Say!" he exclaimed, "ain't I a boss grafter? Apples, potatoes, celery, +peas, and chickens! Five grafts for one ordinance! I do it!" + +"An' don't you say nothing about it," warned the Colonel. + +The Colonel thought there would be no harm in making a little commission +for himself on the deal. It was not as if he had done nothing to earn +it. He would have to furnish the produce for the mayor's "graft," and +he had secured the services of Toole free of fees, and he was doing Miss +Sally a good turn into the bargain. If Skinner was compelled to buy the +four fire-extinguishers at twenty-five dollars each Miss Sally could +afford a commission of ten dollars each, and forty dollars were always +forty dollars to the Colonel. + +The mayor kept his promise. At the next meeting of the council the +ordinance was proposed, and hurried to a third reading by suspension of +the by-laws, and the next day Stitz signed it. There was some opposition +at the council meeting, for Skinner was present, and wanted to talk, +but the marshal was present, too, and at a word from Stitz, he helped +Skinner down the stairs, but gently, as a marshal owing a considerable +butcher's bill should. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XI. The False Gods of Doc Weaver + +When Eliph' Hewlitt reached the hotel after his unfortunate visit of +courtship, he stood a minute irresolute, and then the sign of the KILO +TIMES, across the street, caught his eye. Here was a power he must not +neglect; the power of the press. He knew well enough that the next issue +of the KILO TIMES would chronicle his arrival in town; something +like "E. Hewlitt is registered at the Kilo Hotel," or "E. Hewlitt, +representing a New York publishing house, is sojourning in our midst," +but he felt that his heart interest in Kilo demanded something more than +this. He was willing to have all the friends he could muster for the +fight he would have to make for Miss Sally's affection, and he knew that +the press was powerful in creating first impressions. He crossed the +street and climbed the stair to the office of the KILO TIMES. + +Every Thursday, except once a year, when Thomas Jefferson Jones went to +the State Fair at Des Moines, the KILO TIMES appeared, printed on an old +Washington hand-power press in the TIMES office four small pages, backed +by four other pages that came already printed from a Chicago supply +house, with the usual assortment of serial story, "Hints to Farmers," +column of jokes, sermon, and patent medicine advertisements. T. J.'s own +side was made up of local advertisements, a column of editorial, a few +bits of local news that he could scrape together, and several columns +of "country correspondence." T. J. himself was the entire force of the +TIMES, except for a boy who came in every Thursday morning to work the +hand-power of the press, who then washed up and delivered the papers +about town. T. J. had built up the paper from a state of decay until it +was one of the most prosperous country weeklies in Iowa, and he had done +this against a handicap that would have discouraged most men--he was not +married. + +In Kilo subscriptions are frequently paid in turnips or cordwood, and +the advertisers expect at least half of their bills to be taken out in +trade, and the unmarried publisher is at a disadvantage. An unmarried +publisher has little use for the trade half of the payment he received +from the advertising milliner. No editor can appear in public wearing a +gorgeously flowered hat of the type known as "buzzard," and retain the +respect of his subscribers. Neither can he receive as currency, in a +year when the turnip crop is unusually plentiful, more than sixty or +seventy bushels of turnips in one day without having to get rid of them +at a severe discount. But, in spite of all this, T. J., by his energy +and good humor, had made a success of the TIME, and his editorials +advising the people not to patronize the Chicago mail-order houses, but +to patronize their home merchants, were copied by his contemporaries all +over the State. One of his editorials on the prospects of the year's hog +crop was quoted by the hog editor of a big Chicago daily, word for word. +These are the real triumphs of country journalism, and all over +the State his paper was referred to by his brother editors as "Our +enterprising contemporary, the KILO TIMES," and T. J. as "The brilliant +young editor of the same." + +When Eliph' Hewlitt entered the printing office T. J. was standing +by his case setting up an item of news. He never wrote anything but +editorials on paper; other matter he composed in type as he went along. +It saved time. Now he laid his "stick" on the case and turned to Eliph'. + +"My name is Hewlitt, Eliph' Hewlitt," said the book agent, "agent for +Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science +and Art,' published by Jarby & Goss, New York; price five dollars, +neatly bound in cloth, one dollar down, and one dollar a month until +paid." + +As the editor was about to speak, Eliph' raised his hand. + +"I don't want to sell you one!" he exclaimed. "We are members of the +same craft, and I never canvass publishers, except to offer them a +chance to buy this book at a very liberal discount offered by our firm +to the fellow members of the great craft, a discount of forty percent, +bringing the cost of the book, complete in every respect and exactly +like those sold regularly for five dollars, down to the phenomenally +low cost of three dollars. At this price no publisher can afford to be +without a copy, containing, as it does, all the matter usually found +in the most complete and expensive encyclopedias, and much more, all +condensed into one volume for ready reference. It saves times and +money." + +T. J. shook his head, not unkindly, but positively, and was about to +turn to his case again, but Eliph' held out his hand. + +"I merely mentioned it," he said, with a smile. "I don't want to sell +you one. I supposed you would have learned from the landlord that I was +in town and I only wanted to be sure that you got the item right for the +next paper." + +T. J. turned to his galleys and read from the type: + +"'One of the visitors to our little burg this week is E. Hewlitt, of New +York, who is stopping at the Kilo House.'" + +Eliph' stroked his whiskers and smiled. + +"Yes," he said. "Quite correct. H-e-w-l-i-t-t, I presume? A very good +item, and well worded, but it might be more--more extensive." + +"We are rather crowded for space this week," said T. J. "Two of our +country correspondents missed the mails last week, and we have a double +dose of it this week." + +"Certainly," said Eliph'. "But I was thinking that this book ought to be +mentioned. The advent of a book like Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge +and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, containing, as it does, +selections from the world's best literature, hints and helps for each +and every day in the year, recipes for the kitchen, the dying words +of all the world's great men, with their lives, et cetery, ought to be +noticed. I was wondering if you would have space to run in a little card +about that book." + +T. J. came forward and brushed a heap of exchanges from the only chair +in the office, and motioned to it with his hand. Eliph' laid his book on +the editor's desk, and picked up a copy of last week's TIMES. He ran his +eye over the columns, and stopped at the advertisement of Skinner, the +butcher. + +"I was thinking of something about twice the size of this," he +suggested. + +T. J. smiled and mentioned his rate for the space. It was not much, and +Eliph' nodded. + +"Every week, until forbid," he said, "and I guess I'd better subscribe. +I am going to live right here in Kilo right along now, and the man that +don't take his home paper never knows what is going on." + +T. J. was pleased. He was more pleased when Eliph' pulled a long purse +from his pocket, and paid for one insertion of the advertisement and for +the subscription. The editor pulled a pad of paper toward himself, +and wrote hastily, while Eliph' briefly mentioned facts. When the next +number of the TIMES appeared there was a well-displayed advertisement of +Jarby's Encyclopedia, with Eliph' Hewlitt mentioned as agent, but more +important to Eliph' was the "local item" that stood at the very top of +the local column. + +"We are glad to announce that Kilo has secured as a citizen Eliph' +Hewlitt, a man whose work in behalf of good literature entitles him to +the highest praise. Mr. Hewlitt, who intends to make his home with +us permanently, is representative of the celebrated work, Jarby's +Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, +published by Jarby & Goss, Greater New York, and his travels in behalf +of that work have taken him to all parts of the nation. To have a man +of such extensive travel decide to make Kilo his home is an honor. +Mr. Hewlitt says that in all his travels he never found a town more +up-to-date and progressive for its size than our own little burg. We +heartily welcome him to our midst. + +"We have it on good authority that Mr. Hewlitt is a man of considerable +means, amassed in carrying on his work as a disseminator of literature, +and that he intends, in the near future, to purchase a home here. He +will probably buy a lot, and erect a dwelling that will be a credit +to him and to our little burg. At present he is stopping with Doctor +Weaver, the leading physician of our little burg. + +"We learn that our new citizen has followed a habit universally adopted +by many authors, theatrical artists, and others gifted in various ways, +and early adopted a NOM DE PLUME, choosing the name of Eliph' Hewlitt +because of its unassuming simplicity. His real name is Samuel Mills, and +he is the son of the late W. P. Mills, of Franklin, gifted author of the +deservedly famous poetical work, 'The wages of Sin.' Early in his career +our new citizen found himself overshadowed by the fame of his father, +and unwilling to succeed by and because of his own efforts, he chose +a NOM DE PLUME, which he has ever since used. This truly American +independence does him the greatest credit. + +"Mr. Mills, or Eliph' Hewlitt, as he prefers to be known, is an old +schoolmate of James Wilkins, the prominent livery and hotel man of our +little burg. Again we welcome him to our midst." + +This was headed, "Eliph' Hewlitt Now a Citizen of Kilo!" and it was all +the introduction the little book agent needed--except to Miss Sally. +When she read it she turned pale. A book agent living in the very town +was more than she could bear. + +But there was another item of news that Eliph' left with T. J. that went +into the same issue of the TIMES. This stated that Mrs. Smith, of New +York, and Miss Susan Bell were visiting Miss Sally Briggs, and T. J. had +completed the slight information given him by Eliph' by a call at Miss +Sally's. It was after Eliph' had told T. J. that he meant to make his +home in Kilo that the enterprising editor suggested Doc Weaver's as a +good boarding place, and the little book agent was glad enough to settle +himself in a real home, for the Kilo Hotel was hardly more than an annex +to the liver, feed and sale stable part of Jim Wilkins' business, and +any man with half an eye could see that it was not, as a home for men, +to be compared to the comfort with the stable, as a home for horses. Jim +would have been the last man in Kilo to expect a visitor to remain in +the Kilo Hotel more than two days. Before the end of the day Eliph' had +arranged with Mrs. Doc Weaver for board and lodging, and had moved his +big valise to the little back room on the second floor, from the low +six-paned windows of which he could look out over the cornfield that +environed Kilo on that side. + +At supper he met Doc Weaver himself, and found him, as Kilo pronounced +him, "a ready talker." Eliph' and Doc Weaver were sitting at the supper +table, earnestly engaged in conversation, while the doctor's wife +cleared away the dishes, and Eliph' was pouring out the knowledge he +had absorbed from Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium +of Literature, Science and Art. The doctor was having a mental feast. +Behind his spectacles his eyes glowed, and in exact ratio, as the +doctor's spirits rose, the frown on his wife's forehead deepened. + +The doctor had few opportunities for discussing any subjects but the +most ordinary. Neighborhood gossip, the weather, the price of corn, were +the usual sources of conversation in Kilo, except when an election gave +a political tinge to discussions, or when a revival turned all attention +to religious matters; but the doctor's mind scorned these limitations, +and he found few persons from year's end to year's end to whom he could +speak openly on his favorite themes. + +To Kilo in general the doctor was something of a mystery. Ordinarily +he was the most silent of men, but on occasion, as for instance when he +could buttonhole an intelligent stranger, he dissolved into a torrent of +words. + +Doc Weaver held views. He believed there were other things besides the +Republican party and the Methodist Church, and being liberal-minded, +he believed all these other things in turn, and he had believed them +enthusiastically. He could not help thinking that he was of a little +finer clay than Skinner, or Wilkins, or Colonel Guthrie. Kilo +considered the doctor one of her peculiar institutions; as Kilo took +the ever-joking Toole seriously, so she took the ever serious doctor +good-naturedly, but not too seriously. He was "jist Doc Weaver," and +Kilo reserved the right to laugh at him in private, and to brag about +him to strangers, and they were apt to "joke" him about his beliefs. +As he was sensitive and dreaded the rough raillery of his neighbors, he +kept his enthusiasms to himself. He was like an overcharged bottle of +soda water. + +Eliph' and the doctor were discussing Christian Science and faith cures +generally, and when the doctor's wife passed to and fro, catching a +phrase now and then, a look of deep anxiety spread over her face, until, +as she brushed the crumbs from the red tablecloth, her shoulders seemed +to droop in dejection. + +When she smoothed the cloth and set the lamp on the mat in the center +the doctor glanced at his watch and arose. He buttoned his frock coat +over his breast (it was the only frock coat in Kilo), and drew on his +driving gloves, holding his hands on a level with his chin. It was a +habit, an aristocratic touch, which, like his side-whiskers, detached +him from the rest of Kilo. He had once worn a silk hat, but he soon +abandoned it for gray felt; for even he saw that a silk hat emphasized +his individuality too strongly for comfort. It was a tempting mark for +snowballs in winter. + +When the doctor had closed the door and stepped from the front porch, +his wife sank into a chair. + +"I do hope you won't git mad at what I'm goin' to say, Mister Hewlitt," +she said, "'cause I ain't goin' to say it for no such thing; but I +couldn't help hearin' what you was sayin' to Doc while I was reddin' off +the table. I wisht you wouldn't let him git to talkin' about new-fangled +religions and sich. It ain't for his good nor mine." + +Eliph' nodded good-naturedly. + +"Why, ma'm," he exclaimed, "we were only discussing faith cures, and +neither of us believes in them--wholly, that is. Of course everyone +who has read the chapter on "India, It's Religions and Its History,' in +Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science +and Art, must to some extend admit the power of mind over matter. But +if you'd rather not have me, I'll not discuss it again. There are one +thousand and one other interesting subjects treated of in this great +book, any one of which will please the studious mind." + +"I'd rather you wouldn't, if you don't mind," said the doctor's wife +simply. + +Eliph' Hewlitt pushed back his chair, and arose as he saw the lines of +worry leave the face of his hostess. He turned to the side table and +looked among the books that lay on it. + +Mrs. Weaver sprang to her feet. + +"Land's sakes!" she cried. "I know what you're lookin' for. You're +lookin' for that book of yourn, ain't you? It's right there behind them +wax flowers on that what-not. I seen it layin' around and I jist shoved +it back there so Doc wouldn't git at it." + +"Well, you sit down, ma'm," said the book agent. "I can get it. But +there was no need to be so particular. The doctor knows how to hand a +book as well as the next man." + +The doctor's wife drew her darning basket from the side table and turned +its contents into her lap. + +"'Twasn't that," she said; "I'd never have thought of that, I guess. I +hit it because I didn't know if 'twas a proper book for Doc. It's got a +kind of a queer name." + +Eliph' turned the book over in his hand. It was the first time anyone +had suggested that the volume might be dangerous. He looked up and +smiled. + +"It would not harm the youngest child, ma'm," he said, "unless it fell +on it. I wouldn't harm a baby." + +"Well, I guess you'll think I'm awful foolish about Doc," said Mrs. +Weaver, "but I wasn't goin' to take no chances, and the name kind of +riled. Me. And them pictures of ladies bending." + +"Physical Culture," said Eliph', "How to Develop the Body, How to +Maintain Perfect Health, How to Keep Young and Beautiful. Page 542. Why, +ma'm, that's just a system of training for the body. It makes one more +graceful, just like running and jumping makes a boy strong." + +The doctor's wife heaved a sigh of relief. + +"Well, I guess that won't hurt Doc any if he does read it," she laughed. +"I thought it was some new-fangled religion or other, and I allus keep +sich things out of Doc's reach. Mebby you'll think I'm crazy, but when +you know Doc as well as I do, you'll find out mortal quick he is to +take up with new notions, and it would be jist like him to give up his +sittin' in church and go and be a Physical Culture, if there was any +sich belief. I don't mind much his bein' a Socialist, or any of them +politercal things, if he wants to,--and goodness knows he does,--'cause +they keep his mind busy; but since I got him to jine church I'm goin' +to keep him jined, Physical Culture or no Physical Culture. I seen them +pictures, and they riled me right up, to think of Doc's goin' round +wrapped up in them sheets, or whatever it is on them folks in the +pictures. Mebby it's all right for Physical Culturers, but I don't ever +hope to see Doc so." + +Eliph' Hewlitt laughed a thin little laugh, and Mrs. Weaver smiled. + +"Now, you do think I'm foolish, don't you?" she inquired. "But I had +sich a time with Doc 'fore I married him that I'm scared half to death +every time I hear a long word I ain't right sure of. I was 'most worried +out of my wits last Summer when Miss Crawford was lecturin' on Christian +Science. It was jist about even whether Doc 'ud git in line or not. He +had an awful struggle, poor feller, 'cause he can't bear to have nothin' +new to believe in com round and him not believe in it. Religions is to +Doc jist like teethin' is to babies; they got to teethe, and seem like +Doc's got to catch new religions. He ain't never real happy when he +ain't got no queer fandango to poke his nose into. But he didn't git +Christian Scientisted. + +"I says to him, 'Doc, ain't you an allopathy?' And he says, 'Yes, +certainly.' 'Well,' I says, 'if you go and be a Christian Science you +can't be no allopathy, Doc. Christian Science and allopathy don't mix,' +I says, 'and you'd starve, that's what you'd do. I leave it to you, Doc, +if you quit big pills, how'd you ever git a livin'? There ain't no big +pills set down in the Christian Science book.' + +"Well, he poked his eyes up at the ceiling, and says, 'I might write, +Loreny.' 'Yes,' I says, 'so you might. And what 'd you write, Doc +Weaver?' I says. 'Shakespeare?' And Doc shet right up, and never +said another word. It was a mean thing for me to say, but I was awful +worried." + +"Shakespeare?" inquired Eliph'. + +"Yes, that's the word--Shakespeare," said Mrs. Weaver. "It come purty +nigh keeping me from marrying Doc. You see, Doc ain't like common folks. +Don's got sich broad ideas of things. Lib'ral, he calls it, but I name +it jist common foolish. He's got to give every new-fangled scheme a +show. I guess, off and on, Doc's believed most every queer name in the +dictionary, and some that ain't been put in yet. I used to tell him they +didn't git them up fast enough to keep up with him. He's got a wonderful +mind, Doc has. + +"I hain't no notion how ever Doc got started believin' things, but mebby +he got in with a bad lot at the doctor school he went to. Doc told me +hisself they cut up dead folks. Anyhow, he come back from Chicago +a regular atheist; but that was before I knowed him. He lived up at +Clarence, and he didn't come to Kilo 'til about ten years after that, +and he'd got pretty well along by then, and had got right handy at +believin' things. + +"Well, when Doc come to Kilo pa had jist died an' ma an' me had to take +in boarders to git along; so Doc come to our house to board. That's how +Doc an' me got to know each other. I was about as old as Doc, and we +wasn't either of us very chickenish, but I thought Doc was the finest +man I'd ever saw, an' exceptin' what I'm tellin' you, I ain't ever had +cause to change my mind. + +"I'd never sa so many books as Doc brought--more'n we've got now. I +burned a lot when we got married--Tom Paine and Bob Ingersoll, and all I +wasn't sure was orthodoxy. Why, we had more books than we've got in +the Kilo Sunday School Lib'ry. 'Specially Shakespeare books, some +Shakespeare writ hisself, an' some that was writ about him. Doc was real +took up with Shakespeare them days. + +"'Most all his spare time Doc put in readin' them Shakespeare books, and +sometime he'd git a new one. One day he come home mad. I ain't seen Doc +real mad but twice, but he was mad that day and no mistake. He'd got a +new book, an' he set down to read it as soon as he got in the house; but +every couple of pages he'd slap it shut and walk up an' down, growlin' +to hisself. Oh, but he was riled! That night I heard him stampin' up +an' down his room, mad as a wet hen, and by and by I heard that book +go rattlin' out of the window and plunk down in the radish bed. So next +morning I went out and got it, 'cause I liked Doc purty well by then, +and it made me sorry to see sich a nice, quiet man carry on so. + +"I couldn't make head nor tail of the book, nor see why it riled Doc +up so. It was jist another Shakespeare book, only this one said that it +wasn't Shakespeare, but some one else, that wrote the Shakespeare books. +I thought Doc was real foolish to git so mad about it, but I had no idea +how much Doc had took it to heart. + +"Well, I do run on terribul when I git started, don't I? An' them supper +dishes waitin' to be washed! But I guess it won't hurt them to stand a +bit. You see, when Doc begun to take a likin' for me, the poor feller +started in to talk about what he believed in. Most fellers does. First +he begun about greenbacks. He was the only Greenbacker in Kilo; but that +was jist politercal stuff, and while I'm a good Republican, like pa was, +I didn't see that it would hurt if my husband did think other than what +I did on that, so long as he wasn't a saloon Democrat. That was when +they was havin' the prohibition fight in Ioway, you know. But when Doc +begun lettin' out hints that he didn't think much of goin' to church, I +was real sorry. + +"I was sorry because I couldn't see my way clear to marry an outsider, +bein' a good Methodist myself; but I didn't dream but that he was jist +one of these lazy Christians that don't attend church lest they're +dragged. There is plenty sich. I thought mebby I could bring him round +all right once he was married; so I jist asked him right out if he would +jine church. + +"Well, you'd have thought I'd asked him to take poison! He didn't flare +up like some would, but jist sat down and explained how he couldn't. I +guess he must have explained, off an' on, for three weeks before I got +a good hang of his idea. Seems like he was believing some Hindoo stuff +jist then. I don't know as you ever heart tell of it. It's about souls. +When a person dies his soul goes into another person, and so on, until +kingdom come. R'inca'nation's what they call it." + +"Yes," said Eliph' Hewlitt, "it is all given in 'India, Its Religions +and Its History,' in Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of +Literature, Science and Art." + +"Jist so!" said Mrs. Weaver. "Well, I guess by the time Doc got done +explainin' I knew more about r'inca'nation than what your Encyclopedia +of Compendium does, because night after night Doc would sit up and +explain till I'd drop off asleep. + +"But it wasn't no use. So far as I could see, r'inca'nation was jist +plain error and follerin' after false gods, and I told Doc so. Anyhow, +I knowed there wan't nothin' like it in the Methodist Church, an' I jist +up and let Doc know I wouldn't marry anybody that believed such stuff. +Doc reckoned to change my mind, but my argument was jist plain 'I +won't!' and that settled it. I believe a man and wife ought to belong to +the same church,--'thy God shall be my God'--and I wasn't goin' to give +up what I'd been taught for any crazy notions Doc had got into his head. +I told him so, plain. + +"Then Doc took a poetry-writing spell, but he wasn't no great hand at +it. I told him in plain words he would be better off rollin' allopathy +pills. I used to git right put out with Doc sometimes, foolin' away good +time that way, sittin' round by the hour spoilin' good paper. I reckon +he started close onto a thousand poems, but he didn't git along very +good. 'Bout the their line he'd stop and tear up what he'd wrote. When +I wasn't mad I used to feel real sorry for Doc, he tried so hard; +but feelin' sorry for him didn't help him none, and it was kind of +ridiculous to see him. + +"One day I asked Doc why he didn't tell ma and the rest of Kilo what +he believed in, and he said that Kilo folks couldn't understand sich +things, bein' mostly born and bred in the Methodist Church, and not +lib'ral like he was. I seen he was payin' me a compliment, because he +had told me, but I couldn't swaller r'inca'nation, for all that. And so +we didn't seem to git no further. + +"But one day Doc says, 'Well, Loreny, WHY can't you marry me? They +ain't no one can love you like I do, and you know I'll make you a good +husband, and I'll go to church with you reg'lar if you say so.' + +"'Goin' to church ain't all, Doc Weaver,' I says. 'I jist won't marry a +man that believes sich trash as you do.' + +"'Well, tell me why not,' he says. + +"'I'll tell you, Doc Weaver,' I says, 'since you drive me to it. I'm +willing enough to marry YOU, but I ain't willing to marry some old +heathen Chinee or goodness knows what!' + +"'Doc was took all aback. 'Why, Loreny!' he says, 'Why, Loreny!' + +"'I mean it,' I says, 'jist what I say. How can I tell who you are when +you say yourself you ain't nothing but some old spirit in a new body? +Like as not you're Herod, or an Indian, or a cannibal savage, and I'd +like to see myself marryin' sich,' I says, 'I'd look purty, wouldn't I, +settin' in church alongside of a made-over Chinee?' + +"Doc ain't very pale, ever, but he got as red as a beet, and I see I'd +hit him purty hard. Then he kind of stiffened up. + +"'Loreny,' he says, 'I'd have thought you'd have believed my spirit to +be a little better than a heathen Chinee's,' he says, 'though there's +much worse folks than what they are.' + +"I seen he was put out, an' I hadn't meant to hurt his feelings, so I +says, more gentle, 'Well, Doc, if you ain't that, what are you?' + +"I s'pose, Mr. Hewlitt, you've noticed how sometimes something you find +out will make clear to you a lot of things you couldn't make head nor +tail of before. That's the way what Doc said did for me. There was that +poetry writin' of his, an' the way that Shakespeare book made him mad, +an' how he read those Shakespeare books instead of his Mateery Medicky +volumes. + +"Well, I asked Doc, 'If you ain't a heathen Chinee or some sich, what +are you?' an' when he answered you could have knocked me down with a +wisp of hay. You'd never guess, no more than I did. + +"'Loreny,' he says, solemn as a deacon, 'I didn't reckon never to tell +nobody, an' you mustn't judge what I tell you too quick. I ain't made up +my mind sudden-like,' he says, 'but have studied myself and what I like +and don't like, for years, and I've jist been forced to it,' he says. +'There ain't no doubt in my mind, Loreny,' he says, an' he let his voice +go way down low, like he was 'most afraid to say it hisself. 'Loreny, I +believe that Shakespeare's spirit has transmigrated into me.' + +"Well, sir, I was too taken aback to say a word. I thought Doc had gone +crazy. But he hadn't. + +"When I kind of got my senses back I riled up right away. 'Well,' I says +snappy, 'I think when you was pickin' out someone to be you might have +picked out someone better. From all I've heard, Shakespeare wasn't no +better than he'd ought to have been. He don't suit me no better than a +Chinee would, and I hain't no fancy to marry Mister Shakespeare. Maybe +you think it's fine doin's to be Shakespeare, Doc Weaver, but I don't, +and I ain't going to marry a man that's like a two-headed cow, half one +thing and half another, and not all of any. When you git your senses,' +I says, 'you can talk about marryin' me' and off I went, perky as a +peacock. But I cried 'most all night. + +"Him an' me kind of stood off from each other after that, and I made up +my mind I'd die before I'd marry Doc so long as he was Shakespeare, and +Doc had got the notion that he was Shakespeare so set in his mind it +seemed likely he would. + +"I hadn't never took much stock in poetry readin' since I got out of +'Mother Goose,' but I begun to read Shakespeare a little jist to see +what kind of poetry Doc thought he had writ when he was Shakespeare. +Well, I wouldn't want to see sich books in the Sunday School Lib'ry, +that's all I've got to say. Some I couldn't make sense out of, but there +was one long poem about Venus and some young feller--well, I shouldn't +thing the gov'ment would allow sich things printed! I jist knowed Doc +couldn't ever have writ such stuff. There ain't so much meanness in him. +But I couldn't see clear how to make Doc see it that way. + +"I'd about given up hopes of ever curing Doc, when one day a feller come +to town and give a lecture in the dance room over the grocery. He was +one of these spiritualism fellers, and as soon as it was noised around +that he was comin', I knowed Doc would be the first man to go and the +last to come away, and he was. Thinks I, 'Let him go. If Doc jines in +with spiritualists, it will be better'n what he believes in now, and if +he begins changin' religions, mebby I can keep him changin', and change +him into a churchgoer." And so, jist to see what Doc was like to be, +I coaxed ma to go, an' I went, too. It wasn't near so sinful as I +expected. + +"The feller's name was Gilson, an' he was as pale as a picked chicken, +but real common lookin', otherwise. He was a right-down good talker and +seemed real earnest. He wasn't the ghost-raisin' kind of spiritualist, +and them that went to see a show, come away dissap'inted, for all he did +was to talk and take up a collection. He said he was a new beginner and +used to be a Presbyterian minister. Doc stayed after it was over and had +a talk with Gilson, and of course he got converted, like he always did. +He told ma so. + +"I hadn't been havin' much talk with Doc one way or another, but when ma +told me he had jined the spiritualists I eased up a litt, and one day +I made bold to say, 'Well, Doc, I s'pose now you have give up that +Shakespeare foolishness, ain't you?' + +"'No, Loreny,' he says, 'I ain't.' + +"'Land's sakes!' I says, 'do you mean to say you can be two things at +once in religion, as well as bein' Shakespeare and Doc Weaver?' + +"'Yes, Loreny,' he says. 'The spirit has got to be somewheres between +the times it has got a body,' he says, 'That stands to reason. It's +always puzzled me where I was between the time I died two or three +hundred years ago and the time I entered this body,' he says, 'and +spiritualism makes it all clear. I was floatin' in space.' + +"That's jist how fool-crazy Doc was them days. There he was believin' +with all his might that r'inca'nation business and that spirit business +at the same time. + +"I says, 'Well, Doc, some day you'll see how deep in error you are,' and +I didn't say no more. + +"Of course Doc wouldn't let well-enough alone. There was a big +spiritualist over to Peory, Illinoy, a reg'lar ghost-raisin' feller, and +what did Doc do but write over and git him to come to Kilo and give a +seance. That is a meetin' where they raise up ghosts. Doc wanted the +feller to stop at our house, but I wouldn't have it, so he had to put up +at the hotel. Doc said it was a shame, but as soon as I seen the man I +said it served him right, and that he was a fraud, but Doc swallered him +right down, hide an' hoof. + +"They had the seance in the hotel parlor, and no charge, so me and ma +went, thought we wasn't jist sure it was right; but I says it wasn't as +if it was real--we knowed it was all foolishness; so ma and me trotted +along. I found out afterward that Doc paid to have the feller come +to Kilo. His name was Moller, an' he was one of them long-haired +greasy-lookin' men. + +"I must say it was real scary when they turned the lights down an' +Moller made tables jump around and fiddles play without anybody playin' +on them. There wasn't many folks there, but ma held my hand, an' I held +ma's, and Doc was right in front of us. + +"Moller did a lot of tricks sich as I hear they always do, an' then he +said he'd bring up any spirits anyone would like to have come up. That +was what Doc was waitin' for, and he popped right up. + +"'I should like to talk to Bacon,' he says. + +"'Bacon?' says Moller. 'There's a good many Bacons in spirit-land. Which +one do you want to speak to, brother?" + +"'The one that lived when Shakespeare did,' says Doc. 'The one that +wrote the essays and sich. Sir Francis Bacon.' + +"'Ah, yes!' says Moller. 'I'll see if he's willin' to say anyting +to-night.' And down he set into a chair. Well, you'd have died! In a bit +his head and legs begun to jerk like he had St. Vitus dance, and then he +straightened out, stiff as a broomstick. It was the silliest thing ever +I seen. I felt real sorry for Doc, he was so dead earnest about it. + +"In a minute Moller opened his jaw and begun to talk. It was all sort of +jerky-like. + +"'I'm sailin' through starry fields,' he says, 'explorin' the wonders of +the universe. Why am I called back to earth this way? Doth somebody want +to question me about something?' + +"Doc was all worked up. He held onto a chairback, an' he was so shakin' +I could hear the loose chair rungs rattle. + +"'Is this Bacon?' he says. + +"'It is,' says Moller, his voice jerkin' like a kitten taken with the +fits. + +"'Well,' says Doc, like his life was hangin' on what Moller would say, +'did you, or did you not, write Shakespeare's plays?' + +"'I did not,' Moller jerked out; 'Shakespeare did.' + +"You could hear Doc sigh all over the room, it was sich a relief to his +mind. Doc was awful pleased. He was smilin' all over his face, he was +so pleased to have Bacon own up, an' he turned to ma and me and says, +'Ain't it wonderful!' + +"Then Moller come out of his fit an' set still a while, like he had jist +woke up from a long nap. Then he says he's goin' into another trance, +an' if any in the room wants to hold talk with any of their lost friends +or kin, they should ask for them, an' he jerked again, and jerked out +stiff. + +"That old back-slider, Pap Briggs, popped up, but Doc was ahead of him, +'cause Pap always has to regulate his store teeth before he can git his +tongue goin', and Doc says, 'I desire to speak with Richard Burbage.' + +"I guess Moller didn't now any sich feller. Anyways he jist lay still +an' so Doc says, 'Mebby there's several Richard Burbages. I mean the one +that owned a theater with Shakespeare.' But Richard Burbage didn't feed +like talkin' that evenin'. I reckon Moller didn't know nothin' about +Richard Burbage, and was frightened that Doc would ask him something +that he couldn't answer. There ain't nobody slicker than them fake +fellers. It's their business. + +"But Doc was so worked up he would have swallered anything, and I guess +Moller thought he had to make up to Doc for payin' his expenses, so he +says, smilin', 'I see, doctor, you are interested in literature, and +I'll try to get somebody in that line that's willing to talk.' So he +jerked into another trance. + +"Purty soon Moller says: 'From the seventh circle I have come, drawn by +the will of somebody that knows and loves me. It's a long way. Billions +of miles off is ny new home, where I spend eternity writin' things that +make what I writ on earth look like nothin','--or some sich nonsense. +Doc looked back at me once, proud as sin, an' then he swelled out his +lungs, an' run his hand over his whiskers, like you've seen him do. He +was gittin' wound up for a good talk. + +"If I do say it myself, Doc's a good talker, an' I figgered he'd make +Moller hustle. I see Doc was goin' to spread hisself to do credit to +Shakespeare. He hadn't no doubt that one spirit would recognize another, +so he says, like he was makin' a speech, 'You know who I am?' + +"'I do,' says Moller. + +"'Then,' says Doc, 'since my spirit eyes are blinded by this mortal +body, may I ask who you are?' He didn't hardly breathe. Then Moller +jerked. 'I am Shakespeare,' he says, sudden-like. + +"'What's that?' says Doc, short and quick. + +"'Shakespeare,' says Moller--'William Shakespeare.' + +"Poor Doc jist dropped into his chair, and run his hand over his +forehead and his eyes, like he had bumped into the edge of a door in the +dark. I ain't never seen Doc real pale but once, and that was then. +Then he turned round to ma an' me, weak as a sick baby, an' says, 'Come, +Loreny; this lyin' place ain't nowhere for you and me to be,' and we +went out. + +"'Well, Doc,' I says, when we was outside, 'seems to me like there is +two of you,' and that was all I says to him about it, then; but I guess +he see what a fool he'd been, 'cause the next night he says, 'Loreny, +I wisht you'd git me a set of the articles of belief of our church. I'd +like to look them over.' + +"'Well,' I says, 'who'll I say wants them, Shakespeare or Doc Weaver?' + +"'You can say an old fool wants them,' says Doc, 'and you'll hit it +about right.' + +"So Doc jined church, an' he's leadin' the singin' now; but you can +see why I keep sich a lookout lest he gits started off on some new +religion." + +Mrs. Weaver glanced at the clock. + +"Mercy me!" she exclaimed. "Doc'll be home before I git them supper +dishes washed up. Now, you won't feel hurt because I don't want you to +talk new religions to Doc, will you? You can see jist how I feel, and +you wouldn't want no husband yourself that was a philopeny, as you might +say. I don't believe I could git on real well with Doc if he had kept on +bein' Shakespeare. I'd always have felt like he was 'bout three hundred +years older than me. But there's jist one thing I dread more than +anything else. If Doc should take up with the Mormon religion and start +a harem, I believe I'd coax him to be Shakespeare again. It's bad enough +to have a double husband, but, land's sakes, I'd rather that than be +part of a wife." + + + + + + +CHAPTER XII. Getting Acquainted + +Althought Eliph' Hewlitt was not making much progress in his courtship +he was far from idle in the succeeding weeks. He had taken many orders +for Jarby's great book in the county, before he arrived in Kilo, and as +a shipment of the books arrived from New York he spent much of his +time behind old Irontail making his deliveries and collecting the first +payments, and some time in the immediate neighborhood making new sales. +One of the copies he had to deliver was the one purchased by Mrs. +Tarbro-Smith, but although he delivered it to her at Miss Sally's, he +did not have an opportunity to speak to Miss Sally, for she hid herself +when he approached the door, and did not come down stairs again until he +had left the house. + +Mrs. Tarbro-Smith received the book with a lady-like enthusiasm, and +immediately placed it upon Miss Sally's center table, where its bright +red cover added a touch of cheerfulness to the room, suggestive of +the knowledge, literature, science and art the book was guaranteed to +irradiate in any family. But Miss Sally never so much as looked inside +its covers. She avoided it as if the thought the book itself might seize +her and sell to her, against her will, one of its fellows. Mrs. Smith +said openly that she wished she might see more of Eliph' Hewlitt, and +that she thought him a most remarkable book agent, particularly after +she had heard of his selling the Missionary Society a wholesale lot of +Jarby's Encyclopedia, and after glancing through the book she admitted +that it was really an excellent thing of its kind, but Miss Sally merely +remarked that she didn't like book agents, and that she hated this one +more than most, he was so slick. + +The energetic spirit of Mrs. Smith was sure to carry her into anything +that partook of a social nature, and she had arrived in Kilo in the +midst of the festival season, when out-door festivals of all varieties +were following one after another almost weekly for the benefit of the +church, which had a properly clinging and insatiable debt. In these +festivals she took a prominent part, for the brought her in contact +with the people of Kilo as nothing else could, and if she enjoyed the +affairs, so did Susan. Susan bloomed wonderfully. She sprang at once +from childhood to young womanhood, and Mrs. Smith was pleased to have +her protegee appear so well and receive so much attention, for she felt +that she had had the revision of her. She already saw in her the heroine +of the novel she meant to write, with the plot beginning in Kilo and +Clarence, and carried to New York and, perhaps, Europe. + +The attorney and the editor were particularly nice to Susan, and +attentive to Mrs. Smith at all the festivals, and it amused the New +Yorker to find herself and her maid on and equal social plane. It is +quite different in New York. But lady's maids in New York are not all +like Susan. Maids in New York do not spend their spare time studying +Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science +and Art, and Susan did. Even Eliph' Hewlitt could not have read the book +more faithfully than Susan did, nor have believed in it more trustfully. +Often when the editor or the attorney sought her at one of the festivals +they would find her talking with Eliph' Hewlitt, exchanging facts out of +Jarby's Encyclopedia. + +For Eliph' never missed a festival. He haunted them, standing in one +spot until his eyes fell upon Miss Sally, when he would make straight +for her with his dainty little steps, and she, catching sight of +him--for she was always on the lookout--would move away, weaving around +and between people until he lost sight of her, when he would stand still +until he caught sight of her again. It was like a game. Sometimes he +caught her, but before he could have a word with her she would make an +excuse and hurry away, or turn him over to another. Usually she shielded +herself by keeping either the Colonel or Skinner beside her, if they +were present, and they usually were. + +"Land's sake!" she exclaimed to Mrs. Smith, one evening, as they were +walking home after an ice-cream festival at Doc Weaver's, "I wish +somebody would tell that Mr. Hewlitt that I don't want to buy no books. +He pesters the life out of me. I can't show myself nowhere but he comes +up, all loaded to begin, and if I'd give him half a chance he'd have me +buyin' a book in no time. It don't seem to make no difference where I +am. I believe he'd try to sell books at a funeral." Mrs. Smith laughed. + +"I know he would!" she said. "He is delightful! Why don't you do as +I did, and buy a book, and then he will be satisfied, and leave you +alone." + +"Well, I won't!" declared Miss Sally. "I ain't done nothin' all my life +but buy books an' then fight pa to get money to pay installments on 'em, +an' I won't buy no more! I declared to goodness when I bought them Sir +Walter Scott books that I wouldn't buy no more, an' I won't. If I buy +this one off of this man, there'll be another, an' another, an' so on +'til kingdom come, an' one everlasting fight with pa for money." + +"Couldn't you pay for it with the money you got for those +fire-extinguishers?" asked Mrs. Smith. + +"Pa borryed that to pay taxes with, long ago, an' that's the last I'll +ever see of the money," said Miss Sally. "Pa ain't the kind that pays +back. He's a good getter, an' a good keeper, but he's about the poorest +giver I ever did see, if he is my own father. There ain't nothin' in +the world else that would drive me to get married but just the trouble I +have to get money out of pa for anything. I ain't even got a black silk +dress to my name, and there ain't another lady in Kilo but's got one. I +guessed when we moved to town I would have the egg money same as on +the farm, but since pa had his teeth out an' got new ones he won't eat +nothin' but eggs, an' I don't get any egg money. Pa eats so many eggs +I'm ashamed to tell it. I wonder he don't sprout feathers. I don't +believe so many eggs is good for a man. It don't seem natural. That +encyclopedia book don't say anywhere that eatin' too many eggs makes a +man close fisted, does it?" + +Mrs. Smith said she could remember nothing to that effect in the book, +and for a minute they walked in silence. Suddenly she looked up and +spoke. + +"Miss Sally," she exclaimed, "I know what to do! I will make you a +present of my encyclopedia. I will give it to you, and the next time you +see Mr. Hewlitt you can tell him you have a copy, and then he will leave +you alone!" + +That was how it happened that at the next festival Miss Sally did not +run when she saw Eliph' Hewlitt approaching, but stood waiting for +him. He stepped up to her with a smile that was half pleasure and half +excuse. + +"I don't want to buy a book," she said quickly. "I've got one. Mrs. +Smith gave me the one she had. So you needn't pester me any more." + +"I didn't want to sell you a book," said Eliph' gently, "although I +am glad to learn you have one. No person, whether man, woman or child, +should be without a copy of this work, including, as it does, all the +knowledge of the ages and all the world's wisdom, from A to Z, condensed +into one volume, for ready reference. It is a book that should be on +every parlor table and----" + +"Well, I've got one," said Miss Sally, "so it's no use wasting talk on +it. One's all I want. Another one wouldn't be no good but to clutter up +the house." + +"Just so," said Eliph'. "I don't want to sell you another. To sell this +book is the smallest part of my trouble. It is a book that sells itself. +I only need to show it, to sell it. Wherever it falls open it attracts +the attention with a gem of thought or a flower of knowledge, perhaps +the language of gems, or the language of flowers, how to cure boils, how +to preserve fruit, each page offers something of value to the mind. A +copy of this book in the house is a friend in sickness or in health, +a help in business and a companion in pleasure; to the agent it is a +source of steady and continuous income. One copy sells another." + +"I said before that I don't want another," said Miss Sally shortly. + +"Let us talk about something else," said Eliph' Hewlitt, coughing +politely behind his hand. "I'll be glad to, but I do not blame you for +bringing up the subject of the work I am selling. I make it a rule never +to talk book out of business hours, but I am not sensitive, as some book +agents are. When Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of +Literature, Science and Art is mentioned I am not offended; I am not +ashamed of my business--I enjoy it. I could talk of the merits of this +unequaled work day and night without stopping and yet not do it full +justice, but I don't. When my work is done I stop talking book. I might, +to enliven conversation, quote from the 'Five Hundred Ennobling Thoughts +from the World's Greatest Authors, Including the Prose and Poetical Gems +of All Ages,' containing, as it does, the best thoughts of the greatest +minds, suitable for polite and refined conversation, sixty-two solid +pages of the, with vingetty portraits of the authors, and a short +biographical sketch of each, including date and place of birth, date and +place of death, if dead, et cetery. Or I might, to brighten a passing +moment, propound one or more of the 'Six Hundred Perplexing Puzzles,' +page 987, including charades, conundrums, quaint mathematical catches, +et cetery, compiled to brighten the mind and puzzle the wits, suitable +for young or old, for grave or gay. It is a book that meets every want +of every day, is neatly and durably bound, and the price is only five +dollars." + +Miss Sally turned as if to run away, but Eliph' put out his hand and +touched her arm lightly. + +"But I don't," he said. "I don't quote, and I don't propound. I put the +book aside and I forget. When my work is done I relax my mind. I enter +into the pleasures I find most congenial, such as festivals, sociables, +fairs, kermesses, picnics, parties, receptions, et cetery, rules and +suggestions for conducting all of which are to be found in this book, +which is recommended and esteemed by the leaders of society, both in the +Four Hundred and out. Or I read a good book, a list of five hundred of +which may be found on page 336, 'The Reader's Guide,' giving advice +in selecting fiction, history, philosophy, religious works, poetry, et +cetery, the whole selected by eight of the most eminent professors of +literature in our colleges and universities, both at home and abroad. +Or I indulge in conversation, in which what better guide than is to be +found on page 662, 'The Polite Conversationalist,' including gems of +wit, apt quotations, how to gain and hold the attention, how to amuse, +instruct and argue, et cetery? When it is remember that all this, and +much more, can be had for only five dollars, neatly bound in cloth, +one dollar down and one dollar a month until paid, what wonder is it +that--that----" + +Suddenly one of the paper lanterns that hung from the wire above them +burst into flame, and Eliph' saw on Miss Sally's face the look of fear +with which she was regarding him, fear and fascination mingled. The +smile faded from his lips, and his gentle blue eyes became troubled. +He dropped the hand that had been lightly resting on her arm, and his +dapper air of self-confidence wilted in abashment. + +"Was I--was I talking book?" he asked weakly. "I was! Pardon me, Miss +Briggs, pardon me, I didn't know it. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to." + +For a moment Miss Sally studied his face, and she saw only a genuine +contrition there, and a regret so deep that she was sorry for him. There +could be no doubt of his sincerity. + +"Well!" she exclaimed, with a breath of relief; "I do believe you didn't +know you was! I believe that book's got so ground into you that you +can't help but talk it, like Benny Tenneker, who got so used to climbin' +trees an' fallin' out of 'em that he used to climb the bedposts an' fall +of of 'em in his sleep without wakin' up. Mrs. Doc Weaver's his aunt, +an' when he visited her he nearly got killed fallin' out of bed when he +was tryin' to climb a bed post when there wasn't not on the bed. He'd +got so he could fall out of any high place an' light safe, but he wasn't +used to fallin' off of low ones. He was such a nice boy. All Martha +Willing's children were nice. Mebby you've met her. She lives out +Clarence way." + +"Willin?" said Eliph'. "Yes, I sold her a--I mean to say, I met her." + +"Well, her husband's dead, and her and her boys is runnin' the farm," +said Miss Sally, "an' doin' right well, so I guess she ain't afraid of +book agents. She can afford to buy. I don't know as I'm afraid of 'em +either, or hate 'em as such, but I can't afford. Pa don't approve of +books much, an' he can't see why he should pay out money for what he +don't approve of. Books an' taxes he don't care much for. That's why I +was so scared of you." + +"I didn't want to sell you a--to sell you anything," said Eliph' meekly. +"All I wanted was to get acquainted, to get well acquainted." + +"I guess that's all right then," said Miss Sally. "There ain't anything +more natural than that you should wish that, bein' intendin' to make +your home here. I hope you like the place an' make lot of acquaintances, +but if I was you I'd try not to talk book any more than you have to. +I don't think it'll help to make you popular, as I may say. That Sir +Walter man sort of gave everybody an overdose of book, an' folks feel +kind of mad at book agents ever since. Like father Emmons, when he had +one of his sick spells, an' nothin' would do but he was goin' to die, so +he got up before sun-up an' drove to town to see Doc Weaver. He let Doc +know he felt he was dyin' an' told him the symptoms, an' all Doc says +was, 'All you want is salts. You stop at the drug store an' get a pound +of salts, an' I'll warrant you'll be as well as ever.' So when his +daughter--she's Mary Ann Klepper--went into the house after carryin' +lunch to the men in the field, there was her poor old father settin' at +the table with the big yeller bake-bowl in front of him, an' him +eatin' away at what was in it with a big spoon. 'Eatin' bread an' milk, +father?' she asks, an' her pa looks up with tears in his eyes, an' +swallers down another spoonful. 'No,' he says, as cross as a bear, 'I'm +eatin' a pound o' salts Doc Weaver told me to git, but hang if I can eat +another spoonful, an' I ain't above half done.' So I guess Kilo folks +kind of gag when they think of books." + +"If I so much as mention books," said Eliph' pleadingly, "I wish you'd +stop me. Don't let me. Mebby I do sort of get in the habit of it, +thinking it and talking it so much. But I never meant to sell you one. I +only wanted to get acquainted." + +Miss Sally laughed. + +"Well," she said cheerfully, "there's different ways to do it, but I +guess you an' me have got well acquainted different from what most folks +does. Ain't you been over to the ice-cream table yet? Or was you waitin' +to be primed; that's what us ladies is here for, to start folks spendin' +money, like Mrs. Foster's little nephew that come up from the city to +visit her last summer. He wanted to know what everything was for that +was on the farm or in the house, that he wasn't used to, an' when they +told him they always had to leave a dipper of water in the pail to prime +the pump with so it would give water, he wanted to know if the reason +they had the pans of milk in the spring-house was so they could prime +the cows so they would give milk." + +Eliph' laughed heartily, for his heart was light. He was making +progress; Miss Sally admitted that they were well acquainted, and now he +could proceed to the second step advised in "Courtship; How to Win the +Affections; How to Hold Them When Won." + + + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. "Second: A Small Present" + +The next morning Eliph' Hewlitt purchased the two-pound box of candy in +the pictured box that had long been considered by the druggist a foolish +investment. For months it had reposed in the end of the toilet soap +case awaiting a purchaser, and had acquired a sweet odor of scented soap +mingled with the plainer odor of cut castile, and no one had been so +extravagant as to buy it. Once the druggist had tried to persuade the +candy salesman to take it back in exchange for more salable goods, but +after taking it from the show-case and smelling it the drummer refused. +At the opposite end of the case the druggist kept his plush manicure and +brush-and-comb sets, with a few lumps of camphor scattered among them +to discourage moths, but the odor of camphor did not hurt the candy. The +scented soap protected it from the camphor. When Kilo buys scented soap +she likes to have it really scented. + +Miss Sally, when the small boy Eliph' secured as a messenger had +delivered the box of candy, knew well enough what it meant. The neatly +written card, "From Yours very truly, E. Hewlitt," did not suggest much, +perhaps, but in Kilo friends do not scatter two-pound boxes of candy +recklessly about. To receive a two-pound box on Christmas would have +been a suspicious circumstance, for a smaller box would have done quite +as well between friends, but to send a two-pound box on a day that was +no holiday at all, but just a plain day of the week, could stand for +but one of two things--the giver was insane, or he had "intentions," and +Miss Sally knew very well that Eliph' Hewlitt was not insane. Unless on +the subject of Jarby's Encyclopedia. + +She carried the box of candy to Mrs. Smith, and showed her the card. + +"How lovely!" cried Mrs. Smith, an exclamation which might have meant +either the box of candy or the sentiment that inspired the sender, and +then added, "How odd! It smells like soap!" + +"That's a sign it's good candy," said Miss Sally. "The candy Rudge sells +always smells of soap, an' he handles only the best, so when you see +candy that smells that way you know it's good. This is Rudge's candy, +sure enough, for I know this box by heart. Rudge has had it in his show +case ever since the firm was Crimmins & Rudge. It must be some stale by +this time, but the box is pretty." + +"I don't suppose Mr. Hewlitt knew it was stale," said Mrs. Smith, "He +evidently tried to get the best he could." + +"Yes," admitted Miss Sally. "He wouldn't know this box of candy so well +as we town folks do, him bein' a newcomer here. I suppose Rudge gave him +a discount off the price on account of the box bein' soiled a little. +I hope to goodness that man wasn't so foolish as to go an' pay straight +sixty cents a pound for it. He got cheated if he did, an' I'll tell him +so when I see him next." She slowly untied the red ribbon that bound the +box, and rolled it neatly around the fingers of her left hand, to lay +away for future use. "Now, what do you suppose that man sent it to me +for?" she asked. + +Mrs. Smith smiled, for she knew Miss Sally was asking the question +merely that she might have her own belief made sure by the words of +another. + +"Because he's in love, of course," said Mrs. Smith. "Because he is +desperately in love. It is a romance, my dear." + +Miss Sally looked doubtfully toward Susan, who was curled up on the +old sofa in the corner of the room. She was not sure that such matters +should be discussed before one so young, but Susan would have refused to +leave the room, even if asked, and she resented the questioning glance +that Miss Sally had thrown at Mrs. Smith. + +"'Courtship--How to Make Love--How to Win the Affections--How To Hold +Them When Won,'" she said gaily. "'First, get acquainted; second, make +small presents, such as flowers, books or candy; third, ask for the +lady's hand.' You needn't look at me that way, Miss Sally; I know all +about it. I read it in Jarby's Encyclopedia." + +"Lands sakes!" exclaimed Miss Sally. "And me and him only got well +acquainted last night at the festival. I never heard of such a thing!" + +"It's love at first sight," teased Mrs. Smith. "He will probably be +around this afternoon to propose, and we can have the wedding this +evening." + +"Well, he needn't come this afternoon, if he's got it in his mind to +come," said Miss Sally shortly, "for I won't be at home. I ain't goin' +to be rushed that way, not by no man. I don't say but Mr. Hewlitt is a +clever spoken man, Mrs. Smith, when he ain't talkin' books, but I ain't +in the habit of bein' courted like I was a Seidlitz powder, and had to +be drunk down before I stopped fizzin'. That may be some folks way of +doin' it, but it ain't mine." + +"Nor Colonel Guthrie's," suggested Mrs. Smith. + +"If the Colonel's slow it ain't his fault," said Miss Sally. "He'd +be quick enough if I'd let him, but I can't see no hurry, one way or +another. I don't say but that a husband is a good thing to have, mind +you! I guess I'm like all other women and want to have one some time, +but so long as I've got pa I'm in no hurry. He's as much trouble as +a husband would be, and as grumpy when things don't go to suit him. +Sometimes I feel like in the end I'd choose to marry the Colonel, since +it wouldn't be so much of a change, the Colonel bein' like pa in some +ways, such as bein' economical; and then again I feel like I'd prefer +Skinner, just because he'd BE a change. I'd be always sure of gettin' +good meat, for one thing, and I'd insist upon it. I can't a-bare tough +meat." + +"Shoemakers' children go without shoes," suggested Mrs. Smith. + +"They wouldn't if I was their mother, an' I'll tell Skinner so, if I +choose to marry him an' he tries to send home any but the best meat he's +got in the shop," said Miss Sally firmly. "That's one man, if I marry +him, I won't take no foolishness from. When a man is castin' his eyes my +way, an' then has to have a city ordinance made to compel him to do me +the favor of buyin' four fire-extinguishers off of me, that ain't no +earthly use to me, I'll let him know I'm going to have my way about some +things when we're married. I know well enough I ain't such a beauty that +Skinner an' the Colonel is what you might call infatuated with me, and +I don't expect 'em to be. Pa's got money, and if he didn't have I guess +the Colonel an' Skinner wouldn't bother their heads about me much; but +if they like me for pa's money now I guess they'll like me for it just +as well after they marry me, for I'll have it well known that money +don't go out of my name. And I'll let this book agent man know it too. +If it's pa's money he's in such a hurry to get, he'll find out his +mistake." + +"I rather like the book agent," said Mrs. Smith. "He doesn't seem to me +at all the adventurer type." + +"His whiskers do make him look like a preacher," said Miss Sally, "if +that's what you mean; but if he means business he ought to know I ain't +the kind of bird to be caught with boxes of candy. Neither Skinner nor +the Colonel is so silly as to think that." + +She smoothed her apron across her knees, and looked at its checked +pattern. + +"Seems to me," she said, with a touch of regret, "this ain't no time or +age for such foolishness. It ain't as if I was a girl like Susan there. +Boxes of candy an' Susan would match up like pale blue an' white. I +guess the safe thing is to make choice of one that ain't a stranger. +I've done business with Skinner years an' years, sellin' him calves an' +buyin' meat off of him; an' as for the Colonel, I guess I know all his +bad points as well as his good ones. The Colonel has been a friend of +pa's a long time." + +So it happened that when Eliph' Hewlitt called at Miss Sally's that +afternoon he did not find her at home. Mrs. Smith received him and tried +to make up by her kindness for the disappointment Eliph' evidently +felt. She thanked him in Miss Sally's name for the beautiful box of +candy--although Miss Sally had left no such word--and drew him on to +talk of Jarby & Goss, the publishers of the Encyclopedia, and of his +own adventures. The longer she talked with the little man the better her +opinion of him became, and she saw that he was gentle, shrewd, capable +and sincere--sincere even in his wildest enthusiasm for Jarby's +Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art. +When he arose to go he stood a moment hesitatingly with his hat in his +hand. He coughed apologetically. + +"I hope Miss Sally like the little token of esteem; the box of candy;" +he said, looking up into Mrs. Smith's face anxiously, "it isn't as if I +was used to such matters. My preference would have been a book; a good +book; a book that I could recommend to man, woman or child, containing +in a condensed form all the world's knowledge, from the time of Adam +to the present day, with an index for ready reference, and useful +information for every day of the year. It was my intention to have given +her such a book, which would have been a proper vehicle to convey to her +my--my regard, but I learned only last night that she already had a copy +of that work, without which no home is complete, and which is published +by Jarby & Goss, New York, five dollars, bound in cloth; seven fifty, +morocco. I learned that she already had one." + +"She told you I had given her my copy?" asked Mrs. Smith. + +"Yes," said Eliph' simply. "So I could not present her with a copy of +that work. My preference was to give a work of literature; I am a worker +in the field of literature, and it would have been more appropriate. +But I could give her nothing but the best of its kinds, and where find +another such book as Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium +of Literature, Science and Art? Nowhere! There is no other. This book +combining in one volume selections from the world's best literature, +recipes for the home, advice for every period of existence, together +with one thousand and one other subjects, forms in itself a volume +unequaled in the history of literature. No person should be without it." + +"I know, Mr. Hewlitt," pleaded Mrs. Smith, smiling, "but I have already +bought two copies. Don't you thing you ought to let me off with that?" + +"I was not trying to sell you one," said Eliph' with embarrassment. "I +hoped----" He paused and coughed behind his hand again. "You know my +intention in sending a present to Miss Briggs," he said bravely. "I +admire her greatly. I--to me she is, in fact, a Jarby's Encyclopedia of +Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art among women." + +"Dear Mr. Hewlitt," said Mrs. Smith, taking his hand, "I understand. And +I wish you all the good fortune in the world. I shall do all I can to +help you." + +"Thank you," said Eliph', shaking her hand as if she was an old +acquaintance he had met after long years of separation. "So you +understand that I can feel the same to no other woman. Not even to--to +anyone." He wiped his forehead with his disengaged hand. "So I feel that +you will not misunderstand me if I ask you to accept a copy of Jarby's +Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, +bound in morocoo, seven fifty. I mean gratis. No home should be without +one." + +"Why, it is very kind of you to suggest such a thing," said Mrs. Smith, +"and I'm sure I'll be glad to own a copy." + +"I'm glad to have you," said Eliph'. "I wanted to give you one, but I +didn't want you to think I meant it in the way I meant what I sent to +Miss Sally. I was afraid you might, or that Miss Sally might. But I +don't mean it that way." + +"I know you don't," said Mrs. Smith heartily. "And if Miss Sally is +jealous I will tell her she is quite mistaken. But if you will let a +woman that has had a little experience advise you, do not be too hasty. +Do not try to hurry matters too much. It would spoil everything if you +pressed for an answer too soon and received an unfavorable one. And I'm +afraid it would be an unfavorable one if you put it to the test now." + +Eliph's countenance fell. It said plainly enough that he understood +her to mean that the Colonel and Skinner were more apt to be favorably +received. + +"I'm afraid so," said Mrs. Smith regretfully. "You know they are older +acquaintances, and Miss Sally is not one of those who think new friends +are best." + +"I was coming again to-night," said Eliph'. "Perhaps I'd better not say +anything to-night. Perhaps I had better wait until to-morrow." + +"Wait until next month, or next year," advised Mrs. Smith. "There is no +hurry. Something may turn up." + + + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. Something Turns Up + +Something turned up the very next day. It turned all Kilo upside down as +nothing had for years, and created such a demand for the TIMES that J. +T. Jones had to print an extra edition of sixty copies, and he would +have printed ten more if his press had not broken down. + +Across two columns--the TIMES never used over one column headlines +except for the elections--blazed the work "GRAFT," and beneath, in but a +size or two smaller, stared the "sub-head" "OFFICIAL OF KILO CORRUPTED. +CITIZENS' PARTY ROTTEN TO THE CORE. PROMINENT CITIZEN IMPLICATED." +Beneath this followed the moral of it, "The City, as Predicted in +These Columns, Suffers for Departing from The Beneficent Rule of the +Republican Party." + +Attorney Toole was sitting in his office when the boy from the TIMES +delivered the paper to him. He smiled as he opened the damp sheet, for +he extracted more amusement than news from the little paper, but as he +turned it the headlines caught his eye, and instantly he was deep in +the columns. Someone had sprung his mine before he had intended--it +had exploded prematurely and with, what seemed to him, as he read on, a +futile insipidity. + +There were full two columns of it. There were hints and innuendoes, too +well veiled, but no names mentioned. The specific act of graft was not +brought to the surface. It was as if the writer had a "spread" of +some vaguely uncertain rumor, and yet there was not doubt that Colonel +Guthrie and Mayor Stitz and the fire-extinguishers were meant. The +attorney could see that, and he had an idea that the writer had meant +to tell more than he really did tell. The veiled allusions were so +thoroughly veiled in words that they were buried as if under mountains +of veils. Each slight hint was swamped in morasses of quotations and +fine flourishes, overgrown and hidden by tropical verbiage, and covered +up by philosophical and political phrases until nothing of the hint +could be seen. As he read on the attorney could see Doc Weaver talking, +as plainly as if he stood before him; he could see him at his desk in +a frenzy of composition, and he recognized the apt quotations from +Shakespeare that were Doc's specialty. Doc Weaver had written it. + +The attorney laid the paper down and studied the matter. How could Doc +have learned of the affair? Skinner, angry as he had been at having to +buy the four fire-extinguishers, would never have dared to wreck the +party he had helped to create. The Colonel would have been no such fool. +Stitz? He would hardly accuse himself. Who then? + +One passage set the attorney thinking again as he re-read the article. +"'Thinks are seldom what they seem,' as the poet says, which is as true +as that 'Honesty is the best policy.' And as Shakespeare says, 'To +what base ends,' for all this disreputable graft centers around certain +brilliant objects that are not what the guilty bribers and bribees +suppose them to be. While we shudder with horror at the temerity of the +sinners we shake with laughter as we think of their faces as they will +be when they realize that they are mortals to whom the immortal bard +refers when he enunciates the truth, 'What fools these mortals be!'" + +"Certain brilliant objects" could mean nothing but the lung-testers. +Eliph' Hewlitt had that secret, and Eliph' Hewlitt boarded with Doc +Weaver. The attorney felt a sudden rush of anger. It was to this +intermeddling book agent, then, that he owed the premature explosion of +the mine that was to have blown the Citizens' Party to fragments, and to +have landed the fragments in the basket held ready by Attorney Toole? + +The distribution of that week's TIMES acted like a tonic on the town +streets. New life followed in the wake of the boy as he carried the +paper from door to door. It began at the corner of Main and Cross +Streets, and as the boy proceeded, the merchants, the loafers, and the +customers came from the stores and gathered in knots that formed quickly +and dissolved again as the parts passed from one group to another, +questioning, arguing, and guessing. The attorney looked out of his +window. Across the street he could see the office of the TIMES, and T. +J. already besieged by questioners, to whom he was evidently giving a +kind but decided refusal of further information. The editor was waving +them away with his hands. Some of the editor's visitors handed T. J. +money, and carried away copies of the TIMES, but all went, gently +urged by the editor, and joined one or another of the groups below. The +attorney drew on his coat. He would postpone his interview with Eliph' +Hewlitt; Thomas Jefferson Jones was the man he wanted to see at that +moment. + +It was difficult for the attorney to retain his enigmatical smiles as +he climbed the stairs to the TIMES office. He was angry, but he knew the +value of that irritating smile that hinted superiority and a knowledge +of hidden details. He needed it in his talk with the editor. + +It is odd how common interests will bring men together. And sometimes +how common interests will not. The attorney and the editor had been as +one man in polite attentions to Susan Bell, Mrs. Smith's protegee, at +first, but as their acquaintance with her grew they seemed to like each +other less. They no longer consulted each other on the best methods of +bringing Republican rule back to Kilo. They did not consult together +at all. The attorney coldly ignored the editor, and his irritation, +beginning in this rivalry, was increased by the growing suspicion that +the editor dared look toward the leadership of the Republican party in +Kilo. + +It all angered the attorney. What right had a country editor to compete +with a man of talent, with a member of the bar, with Attorney Toole? Was +this the thanks a rising lawyer should receive for leaving the superior +culture of Franklin and bringing his talents to add luster to the bleak +unimportance of Kilo? The very impertinence of it angered him. Toole, +a man whose name would one day ring in the hall of Congress and perhaps +stand at the head of the nation's officers as chief executive, to be +bothered by the interference of a Jones! By the interference of a man +who spent his time collecting news of measles and hog cholera! It was +about time T. J. Jones was told a few things. + +As Toole entered the printing office T. J. was handing a copy of the +TIMES to a customer, and the editor turned, and, seeing who his visitor +was, held up his hand playfully. + +"No use!" he exclaimed. "I can't say anything about it, except what's +in the paper. Contributed article, and the editor sworn to silence, you +know." + +The attorney seated himself on the editor's desk, pushing a pile of +papers out of his way. + +"That's all right, Jones," he said. "That's for the"--he waved his hand +toward the window--"for the fellow citizens; for the populace. This is +between ourselves." + +"I'd like to," said Jones, "but really, I can't say anything about it. I +promised faithfully I would not betray my contributor's confidence." + +"Now, do I look so green as that?" asked Toole. "Nonsense! Doc Weaver +wrote that rot." He smiled. "He spread himself, didn't he?" + +The editor remained motionless. + +"I have nothing whatever to say," he remarked, noncommittally. + +"Well, I have!" cried the attorney. "I'll tell you that it is poor work +for you to steal my thunder and attempt to use it without consulting +me! It is poor work, and mean work. You want to be boss of this party +in Kilo county, that's what you want. And you haven't the capacity. You +have proved it right here, right here in this silly sheet of yours. +You hit on a big thing, and you spoil it. You are so anxious that Toole +shall get no credit that you rush it into print and make a fizzle of it. +I know who the traitors to the party are--you are one. Doc Weaver with +his elegant style and his Shakespeare is another. And that miserable +intermeddling little book agent is another. You make me sick." + +The editor stood like a statue, and his face was as white. The attorney +dropped his words slowly from lips that still wore the tantalizing +smile. + +"The childishness amuses me," said the attorney. "It makes me smile. Why +didn't you give names, since you had them? Why didn't you tell it all, +and do the party some good, as well as doing me some harm, if that was +what you were after--and I don't know what you were after if it wasn't +that? Why don't you get a schoolboy to edit your paper for you?" + +T. J. ground his nails into the palms of his hands. He meant to retain +possession of his temper, but it was boiling within. He said nothing as +the attorney indolently arose from his seat on the desk; he was resolved +to do nothing, but when the attorney brushed against him in passing, +turning his superior smile full in his face, he raised his arm. The next +moment the two men were lying beside the press, struggling and gasping, +locked fast and fighting for advantage, legs intertwined and each +grasping the other by a wrist. The editor was on top, but the heavier +attorney was working with the energy of hate, and as they panted and +struggled the door opened and Eliph' Hewlitt entered. + +There was strength in his wiry arms, and he threw himself upon the upper +man and dragged him backward. The attorney loosened his hold and the two +men stood up, panting and gulping, and soon began to brush their clothes +and look at the floor for dropped articles, as men do who have fought +inconclusively and are not sorry to have been parted. The only real +damage seemed to have been done to Eliph's spectacles, which he had +shaken off in his efforts, and which had been crushed beneath a heel. +The attorney presently smiled, but it was a silly smile, and then he +went out of the door and down the street. + +Eliph' coughed gently behind his hand, as if to excuse his intrusion. + +"Quarreling?" he suggested. "I used to wrestle some when I was a boy. +But not much. I hadn't then the rules, given on page 554 of Jarby's +Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, +including "How to Wrestle, How to Defend Oneself Against Sudden Attack, +Jui Jitsu," et cetery, with wood cuts showing the best holds and how +to get them. All this being but one of one thousand and one subjects +treated of in this work, the price of which is but five dollars, neatly +bound in cloth." + +The editor had turned his back and was staring angrily out of the +window--sulkily tremulous would be a better description, perhaps--when +he suddenly cried out. Eliph' searched hurriedly in his pockets for +another pair of spectacles, found them and put them on, and looked where +the editor pointed. Across the street the attorney, backed up against +the wall of the bank, was defending his face with one arm, and with his +right hand seeking to grasp a whip that was raining blows upon his face +and head. Someone grasped the whip from behind and wrenched it from the +hand of the attorney's assailant, and as the man turned angrily, the two +in the window saw that it was Colonel Guthrie. + +They heard him cursing those who had taken the whip from him, ending by +loudly justifying himself for what he had done to the attorney, and saw +the attorney step forward to quell the Colonel's hot words. The Colonel +put up both his hands and shouted, and some from the crowd, grasping +the attorney about the waist and arms, as if the feared he was about to +attack the older man, hurried him away, speaking soothing words to him. + +The Colonel rioted on. Nothing could have stopped him. He pulled a copy +of the TIMES from his pocket and slapped it with his hand as he abused +the attorney for having given T. J. Jones the facts of the article. + +He lit it be plainly known, in his anger, that the article called him +a giver of graft. The crowd stood silent, as crowds stand about some +drunken man, for the Colonel was drunk with wrath, and wordy with it, +talking to himself as drunken men do. He finished, and the crowd opened +a passage through itself to let him pass, and Skinner, who, in apron and +bare arms, had viewed his rival's wrath from a safe place on the edge of +the group, backed away. The Colonel, mumbling, caught sight of him, and +with one swift motion of the arm grasped him by the shirt band. + +"You!" he shouted, pulling the shirt band until Skinner grew purple +in the face. "You! You done it! Why couldn't you buy them +fire-extinguishers like a man? You made me buy up that Dutchman. I +wouldn't 'a' had to do it but for you." + +He gave the choking butcher an extra shake, and raised his hand to +strike him, but again the crowd interfered, and seized the Colonel, and +hurried him away. + +The butcher stood stupidly and rubbed his neck, waiting for the wits +that had been choked out of him to return, and far down the street Mayor +Stitz, hearing a noise, came out on his front platform and looked up the +street. It appeared to him that something was going on, and sticking his +awl in the door of his car, he walked blandly up the street to where the +remnant of the crowd formed a half circle around the butcher. He crowded +through, saying, "Look out, the mayor is coming. Stand one side yet for +the mayor!" + +The butcher looked and saw before him the round, innocent face of the +mayor, topped by the mayor's round bald head. He raised his large, fat +hand, and in vent for all his injured feelings brought it down, smack! +On the smooth bald spot. + +"Ouw-etch!" said the mayor. + +He was surprised. He backed away and rubbed the top of his head, +and what he said next was a rapid string of real, genuine German; +exclamations, compound tenses, and irregular verbs and all that makes +German a useful, forceful language. As long as he rubbed his head--with +a rotary motion--he spoke German; then he stopped rubbing and spoke +English. + +"So is it you treat your mayor!" he exclaimed indignantly. "Such a town +is Kilo, to give mayors a klop on the head! Donnerblitzenvetter! Not so +is it in Germany." He turned to the crowd. "A klop on the head! It is +not for klops on the head that I am mayor. No. I resign out of this +mayor business. Go get another mayor, such as likes klops on the head. I +am no mayor. I am resigned." + +He turned and walked slowly back to his car, pulled the awl out of the +door, and went inside. + +The editor moved away from the window. He seated himself at his desk and +leaned his head on his arms and thought. + +"Headache?" asked Eliph'. + +"No," said the editor, lifting his head. "I'm trying to think this thing +out. Guthrie is in it, and Skinner must be in it, and Stitz. And that +fellow across the way said you knew something about it, and he said Doc +Weaver wrote the article. No," he added hastily, as Eliph' offered to +speak, "let me think it out myself." + +He leaned his head on his hand, and gazed at the attorney's office. He +drew the week's copy of the TIMES toward him and read over the article +that had caused all the trouble. + +"It might be that fire-extinguishers ordinance," he said slowly. "Stitz +pushed that through. And Skinner had to buy them. And--they were owned +by Miss Briggs and the Colonel negotiated the sale." He jumped up +and turned over the file of back numbers of the TIMES. He found the +announcement he had made of the arrival of Eliph', and the report of +the meeting of the city council that had passed the fire-extinguishers +ordinance. Eliph' had been in town before the ordinance had passed. +Eliph' boarded now with Doc Weaver. Again he read the article in the +TIMES, seeking for the meanings that Doc knew so well how to hide. He +paused at the "Things are seldom what they seem" lines, and considered +it. Suddenly he arose and put on his hat. + +"Wait here," he said, "I'll be back." + +When he returned he was smiling. He had visited Skinner's Opera House +and had examined the fire-extinguishers where they sat, each on its +bracket. + +"Hewlitt," he said, "when you told Doc about the fire-extinguishers did +you tell him they were lung-testers?" + +The little book agent stared at the editor. + +"I never told," he exclaimed. "I have never said a word to Doc Weaver, +nor to anyone about them. Not a word. I have kept it as sacred as the +secret of the Man in the Iron Mask, a full account of whom, together +with a wood cut, is given on page 231, together with 'All the World's +Famous Mysteries,' this being but one feature of Jarby's----" + +"All right," said the editor. "And you never told him about the graft?" + +The blank amazement on the book agent's face was sufficient answer. + +"I've got to go out," said the editor. "I've got some reporting to do. +You'll excuse me. I want to see Stitz. And Skinner. And Guthrie. I wish +Doc hadn't gone to his State Medical Society meeting to-day." + +Eliph' went out with the editor, who locked the door behind him. + +"Don't say anything," said the editor, "but I think there will be an +extra edition of the TIMES out to-morrow." + + + + + + +CHAPTER XV. Difficulties + +Eliph' had said nothing to Doc Weaver about the affair of the +fire-extinguishers, he had known nothing of the graft matter, and yet +it could not be supposed that Doc Weaver could be a confidant of the +attorney's. The editor was puzzled, but he was sure he was right in +the main, and he was nearer learning the truth than he supposed, as he +hurried down the street to the mayor's car-cobbler shop. + +He opened the door and stepped inside, but the mayor did not look up +with his usual smile; he was sulking, and from time to time he rubbed +his head where the butcher had struck him. + +"How do, Stitz," said the editor. "How's the mayor?" + +The cobbler pulled his waxed threads angrily through a tough bit of +leather, and did not look up. + +"I am no more a mayor," he said crossly. "I am out of that mayor job. I +give him up. I haf been insulted." + +"I saw it," the editor assured him. "He gave you a good whack. +Sounded like a wet plank falling on a marble slab. Mad about the +fire-extinguishers business, wasn't he?" + +"And why?" asked the mayor, looking up for the first time, "he has a +right to obey those ordinances and not get mad." + +"Oh, but he don't like the way folks will laugh at him when they learn +the joke you have played on him. That was a good one." + +"Joke?" queried the mayor, growing brighter. "Did I play him one joke?" + +"You know," said T. J. "Making him buy those lung-testers of Miss +Briggs' when he thought they were fire-extinguishers. I should say it +WAS a joke!" + +"Sit down," said the mayor; "don't hang on those straps when seats is +enough and plenty. Sit down. So I joked him, yes?" + +"Rather," said the editor, "and Guthrie, too, making him pay that +graft." + +"Sure!" grinned the cobbler. "I got goot grafts. Apples, and potatoes, +and celery, and peas, and chickens! Five grafts for one such little +ordinances. Grafts is a good business, but now is all over. I quit me +that boss-grafter job. I like me not such kloppings on the head. Next +comes such riots, and revolutionings. I quit first." He sewed steadily +for a while then prepared another thread, waxing it, and twisting the +bristle on either end. + +"That fire-extinguishers joke," he said, as he ran the ball of wax up +and down the thread; "that was a good one, yes? On Skinner. That makes +me a revenge on Skinner for such a klop on the head, yes?" + +He adjusted the shoe on his knee, and began to sew again. + +"Yes," he said, "I am glad I make that joke on Skinner. What was it?" + +"Come now!" said T. J. "Don't pretend such innocence, Stitz. Don't try +to fool ME. You knew all the time that those fire-extinguishers were +nothing but lung-testers." The mayor looked puzzled, and properly, +for he had never heard of lung-testers. "To test lungs," explained the +editor. "To show how many pounds a man can blow; how much wind his lungs +will hold; a sort of game, like pitching horseshoes. They are not worth +anything to Skinner. He paid his money for them for nothing. He will +have to buy four genuine fire-extinguishers now. That was what made him +mad at you." + +When the editor left Stitz's car he had learned all the mayor could +tell him, including the undoubted fact that the mayor considered graft +a quite legitimate operation, and this particular case a good joke on +Skinner and Colonel Guthrie, and that the mayor himself, thinking the +joke too good to keep, had told Doc Weaver. The editor easily guessed +that Doc had investigated the rest of the affair, and had seen the +fire-extinguishers and known them to be not what they seemed. He hurried +back to his office to set in type what he had learned. + +But others were abroad, too. Attorney Toole, watching the editor, had +seen him enter the cobbler-car and leave it again, and he easily guessed +the object of the editor's visit. He, too, went to see Stitz, and had a +long and confidential talk with him, first frightening him until he was +in a collapse, and then offering him immunity and safety, and at length +leaving him in a perspiration of gratitude. He held up to him a vision +of the penitentiary as the reward of grafting, and when the mayor was +sufficiently wilted, rebraced him by promising to defend him, whatever +happened, and finally restored him to complacency by showing him that +the transaction was not graft at all. When he parted from the mayor, +that official was, as opposition papers put it, "a creature of the +attorney's." + +The attorney found Skinner in his butcher-shop surrounded by a group of +friends, to whom he was relating a story of how he had been attacked by +the Colonel, and what would have happened to the Colonel if intervention +had not come just when it did. Toole entered briskly and pushed his way +through the group to where the butcher stood. + +"Skinner," he said, "I want half a dozen words with you, at once," and +his manner was enough to silence the butcher. Skinner led the way to the +back room where the sausage machine made its home, and Toole carefully +closed the door. + +"Now," he said, taking the butcher by the shirtsleeve," you have had a +taste of what comes of taking the political lead away from the party +to which it rightly belongs. You have had an experience of what happens +when people who know nothing about politics meddle with thing that +the natural political leaders should be left to handle. You have been +choked, and you have been cheated, and you deserve to be kicked. You pay +money to this editor here in town, for an advertisement that you know +does you no good, and in return he prints an article to make you laughed +at. You form a combination with Guthrie to put in outsiders instead of +good party men, and Guthrie uses his pull to have an ordinance passed to +make you spend money for fire-extinguishers. You elect a mayor, by your +influence as a leading citizen, and he takes a bribe from Guthrie, and +passes an ordinance to rob you. And you, like a fool, let him do it. And +you let Guthrie, that he may stand in solidly with the very woman you +have your eye on, sell you--what? Fire-extinguishers? Not much! Not +fire-extinguishers at all, but useless, no-account lung-testers! +Lung-testers, that he makes you pay one hundred dollars for, and that +you will have to throw away. That is what they are, lung-testers, +and you can pocket a loss of one hundred dollars, and buy four real +fire-extinguishers now, as the ordinance tells you, and makes you!" + +The butcher's mouth opened and his eyes stared. He felt weakly behind +him for the edge of the table, pawing uncertainly in the air. + +"That's all I have to say to YOU," said the attorney. "If you like that +kind of thing, you are welcome. If you are willing to be cheated it is +nothing to me. I don't say T. J. Jones set them up to doing all this, +just to throw down your Citizen's Party, but you can see in the TIMES +who printed the whole thing. If you like to have that kind of man run +your only public journal it is no business of mine, but look out for the +next TIMES!" + +The butcher had found the edge of the table and was leaning back against +it. The attorney paused with his hand on the door. + +"You ought to be able to make the Colonel pay you back that hundred +dollars," he said. "It looks as if he had obtained money under false +pretenses and given a bribe. But if you don't care, I don't," and he +went out. + +Outside of the butcher shop the attorney stopped and looked up and down +the street, smiling. He felt that he had done well, so far, setting both +the mayor and Skinner against the editor, making a tool of the mayor, +and inflaming the butcher against the Colonel. He would have liked to +go to the Colonel and set him against the editor and Skinner, but he +neither dared nor felt it really necessary. If Skinner attempted to make +the Colonel take back the lung-testers the ill feeling between the +two would be sufficiently emphasized, and no doubt the Colonel had +sufficient reason, in the publication of the article, to hate the +editor. + +Horsewhipped! His face reddened as he thought of it, but he was too +polite to consider a revenge of fists, which would not lessen the +insult of the whipping he had received, but would only add the stigma +of attacking an older man. That he had led the Colonel into the affair, +putting him up to it, did not strike him as being any excuse for the +Colonel. He felt that he had done only what he was entitled to do in the +pursuit of political leadership. He would revenge himself on the +Colonel later. A suit for damages for assault, timed to precede the next +election, would be both revenge and politics. He could, at the moment, +think of nothing else to do to undermine his opponents, and he had +turned toward his office when a fresh idea occurred to him. Should +Miss Sally take back the lung-testers, where then would his case stand? +Guthrie would return the hundred dollars to Skinner. Skinner was fool +enough to be satisfied with that, and Kilo, like many other towns, not +wishing to besmirch herself, would hush up the whole affair. Miss Sally +must not take back the lung-testers. + +The attorney swung around and walked briskly toward Miss Sally's home, +tossing tumultuously in his mind the events of the day, his plans and +what he would say to Miss Sally. As he turned in at the gate he saw +Mrs. Smith and Susan sitting on the porch, and he took off his hat, and +walked smilingly up to them. + +"Miss Sally in?" he asked, after the customary greetings. "I would like +to speak to her if she is." + +"She's in" said Mrs. Smith, "but she is engaged at present. Won't you +have a seat and wait?" + +Toole passed rapidly through his mind all those who might have business +with Miss Sally this morning--the Colonel, Skinner, the editor. It could +not be Skinner, for he had just left him, nor the editor, for he knew he +was still in his office where he had seen him last. Probably it was the +Colonel. He took the proffered seat. + +"I suppose you saw the TIMES," he said, "and that tremendous article. +It amused me considerably. Splendid specimen of local journalism. Our +friend T. J. is to be congratulated, isn't he? He has made quite a +stir." + +"The Colonel was here with a paper," said Mrs. Smith. "He was furiously +angry. I couldn't understand what it was all about, except that it was +connected with those fire-extinguishers Miss Sally had." + +"It was about the meanest piece of business I have ever run across," +said the attorney, speaking more to Susan than to Mrs. Smith. "It was +the most vindictive thing I ever heard of. Do you know any reason why +that editor should want to annoy Miss Briggs?" + +"Mr. Jones annoy Miss Sally?" said Susan, with surprise. "I can't +imagine why he should." + +"That's what puzzles me," said Toole. "There doesn't seem to be any +reason whatever, except that he is showing his ill-will. It looks like a +conspiracy to throw those fire-extinguishers back on Miss Sally's hands. +Probably he has taken an agency for fire-extinguishers, or had made a +deal to take some in payment for advertising space in his paper, and +wants to sell them to Skinner. I understand there is some cock-and-bull +story he has got up about these fire-extinguishers being out-of-date, or +useless, or something of that kind, and that he means to make a big stir +about the council having been bribed to force them on Skinner. I suppose +Jones will get something out of it, someway. I understand he means to +keep the thing alive in his paper, and throw ridicule on all concerned, +until he forces things his way. Probably he has some political object, +too. But I think it is bad that he should drag Miss Sally into it. +I don't mind his trying to throw mud on me. I can see his reason for +that." + +He looked at Susan and smiled. + +"I don't understand," said Mrs. Smith, "I couldn't see that he said +anything about you this morning." + +"Not this morning," said the attorney. "There will be more to follow. +Wait until you see the next issue of the representative of a free and +untrammeled press. He will serve up all his friends there. I saw him +darting around like a hawk-eyed reporter this morning. I went up to +plead with him to drop the whole thing, this morning, but he as much as +told me to mind my own business. The poor old Colonel was so angry +he came at me with a whip--I don't know why--but I did not take the +advantage my strength gave me. I can forgive a man who is anger blinded. +All I want to do now is to prevent that editor fellow making any more +trouble for my friends, if I can. I don't want Miss Sally to TAKE back +those fire-extinguishers, and I don't want her to be blackmailed into +BUYING them back. I want to put her on her guard against T. J. Jones." + +"This is very kind of you," said Mrs. Smith. + +"She is a friend of yours, and of Miss Susan's," said the attorney. +"That would be reason enough for my doing it." + +The door opened and Eliph' Hewlitt came out of the house, and Toole, who +had jumped up, in order to be on the defensive had it been the Colonel, +assumed an air of indifference. The book agent hesitated uncertainly, +glanced toward Mrs. Smith, felt under his left arm where his sample copy +usually reposed, and, not finding it, put on his hat and walked toward +the gate. Mrs. Smith sprang from her chair and ran after him. She caught +him at the gate and laid her hand on his arm. He turned to face her, and +she saw that there were tears in his usually clear eyes. He had put the +question to Miss Sally, and the answer had been unfavorable. + +The interview had been short and conducted with the utmost propriety, +as advised by "Courtship--How to Win the Affections," and Miss Sally had +been kind but firm. The article in the TIMES had, far from turning her +against the Colonel, shown her what the Colonel has risked for her sake, +and she had decided in his favor, although he had not yet appeared to +claim an answer to the question he had never asked, but had been hinting +for years. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. Two Lovers, and a Third + +The attorney, when Eliph' walked down the path to the gate, entered the +house, and found Miss Sally still sitting in the dark parlor where she +had had the painful interview with Eliph' Hewlitt. She still held her +handkerchief to her eyes, for she had been weeping, and the attorney was +not sorry to see this evidence of the stress of her interview with the +book agent. Certain that Eliph' had told Doc Weaver of the lung-testers, +he was no less certain that the book agent had been telling Miss Sally +that the nickel-plated affairs would be thrown back on her hands, and he +hastened to urge resistance. + +"Miss Briggs," he said, "I came right in, because I knew what that book +agent was here to say to you, and I wanted to warn you against him. I +know what he asked, and I hope you refuse him." + +Miss Sally gasped. + +"I believe," continued the attorney, taking a seat, "that you refused, +because you know which side your bread is buttered on. I believe that +before the day is over Colonel Guthrie will come with the same question, +and I want you to give him the same answer. And if Skinner should come +on his knees, I want you to send him away with the same answer, too. +They will all have arguments enough, but don't be fooled. They money is +all they want." + +Miss Sally gasped again. She was astounded. + +"I could see," said the attorney, confidentially, "that you have the +book agent a pretty sharp answer, and that was right. He had no business +to put himself forward at all, and I don't suppose you can guess why he +did." + +"He said he liked me," said Miss Sally weakly, ashamed to mention the +word openly. The attorney laughed. + +"My opinion is that it is an conspiracy," he said. "That is just the +word, a conspiracy, and T. J. Jones is at the head of it. The book agent +has come first; now the Colonel will come; and then Skinner, all asking +the same thing, but my idea is that they are all in partnership, and +that Jones is engineering the whole thing. They want your money, and +that is all they want, and once they get it they will be happy and you +will be left with four lung-testers on your hands." + +Even in Kilo slang comes and goes as in the rest of the world and Miss +Sally was not sure about the word "lung-tester." It had a slangy sound, +and it must be a term of reproach applied to the future value of the +four men Toole had mentioned. She accepted it as such. + +"All I have to say," continued the attorney, "is to refuse the Colonel, +and to refuse Skinner if he comes, just as you have refused this book +agent. Stick up for your rights. If they want to sue you, let them sue. +You have the money now, and it is better to have that than a lot of +good-for-nothing lung-testers. Once you get them on your hands you'll +never get rid of them." + +He arose and took up his hat. + +"That is all I have to say," he said, "but I wanted to let you know what +you ought to do. Don't mind if there is a lot of stuff published in the +TIMES. You have to expect that, and Jones will probably drag your +name into it, in connection with the Colonel and Skinner, but you are +perfectly innocent and they can do nothing to you." + +He went out, and Miss Sally remained in a daze, looking at the door +by which he had gone. She was still looking at it helplessly when Mrs. +Tarbro-Smith came in with a swish of skirts and put her arm gently about +her. + +"DO you think you did what your heart told you to do, dear?" asked the +lady from New York, kissing Miss Sally on the brow. "He was SO downcast. +I really pitied him, poor man." + +Miss Sally threw her arms around Mrs. Smith's waist and hit her face +in the lacy softness of her gown, and wept. The authoress smoothed the +brown hair and waited patiently for the tears to cease. + +"Did you see Mr. Toole?" she asked brightly, to ease Miss Sally's +weeping and to turn her thought to other things. "He wanted to see you +about those fire-extinguishers. But I don't trust him. I think he has +some plan or other that is selfish. I think he had been drinking." + +Miss Sally's tears ceased, and she sat up, straight and severe. + +"Fire-extinguishers?" she asked quickly. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Smith; "he seemed to think Skinner or the Colonel +or someone would want you to take them back. And return the money, I +suppose." + +"The money?" echoed Miss Sally slowly. She blushed as she saw that she +had misunderstood the attorney, thinking he had dared to advise in her +love matters, and then she frowned. "The money?" she repeated. "But +I gave that money to pa. Pa won't ever give that money back, never! I +don't know where on earth I'd ever get sixty dollars." + +As she spoke she heard someone on the walk, and then the heavy feet of +the Colonel climbing the porch steps. She heard him ask Susan if Miss +Sally was inside, and heard the girl answer that she was, and she held +Mrs. Smith's hand tighter. + +"Come in," she called, to the knock on the door, and the Colonel stumped +into the room. He was hot and angry, so angry that he did not stop to +offer his usual curt greetings. + +"Look here," he said, by way of introduction, "you an' your +fire-extinguishers has got me into a purty fix, Sally Briggs--a blame +purty fix-an' I want to know do you intend to git me out or not? I don't +want no foolishness. Skinner is after me an' I've got to pay him back +them sixty dollars, or somebody'll go to jail for it. You ought to have +knowed them wasn't nothin' but lung-testers, afore you set me up to +sellin' 'em to Skinner, an' not let me go an' make a 'tarnal fool out +of myself. But that ain't the thing now; the thing is, will you pay +back them sixty dollars? I guess you'd better do it, an' do it quick. +Skinner'll have the law on ye if ye don't." + +Miss Sally drew back toward Mrs. Smith as he scowled at her. + +"Now, you git them sixty dollars an' hand 'em over to me, that's +what you'd better do," said the Colonel. "I want to git shut of this +business. I was a fool fer meddlin' in a woman's affairs in the fust +place. I don't want to have no more hand in it. You git me that money, +an' let me fix it up with Skinner. He's mad, an' he won't stand no +foolin'. It was all I could do to keep him from comin' in an' makin' a +row right here in the house. He's waitin' at the gate till he sees if I +git the money, an' if I don't----" + +"But I haven't got sixty dollars," Miss Sally gasped. "I gave that money +to pa. I don't know whether I can GET sixty dollars out of pa." + +She was so helpless that Mrs. Smith's blood boiled at the rude brutality +of the Colonel, and she stepped forward and faced him. + +"What is all this about?" she asked. "What is the matter with those +fire-extinguishers? Why do you come bothering Miss Sally this way? Why +don't you settle it with Mr. Skinner yourself?" + +"The matter is, them ain't fire-extinguishers at all," said the Colonel +rudely, "an' wasn't, an' never was. Them things is lung-testers, an' +Sally was cheatin' Skinner when she sold 'em to him. An' the reason I'm +botherin' her is that she got the money fer 'em, an' she's got to find +it somehow an' pay it back. An' as for me settlin' with Skinner, I ain't +got nothin' to do with it. I wasn't nothin' but Sally's agent. I done +her a favor, an' that's all, an' I'm sorry I ever meddled in it." + +"But there certainly can't be such haste needed," said Mrs. Smith. "Miss +Sally is not going to run away. Mr. Skinner is not going to fail for +want of sixty dollars, is he? You can wait until to-morrow, or to-night, +when Miss Sally can see her father." + +"No, I can't," said the Colonel doggedly. "I can't wait at all. By +to-morrow mornin' that newspaper feller will have another paper printed +up, an' I hear tell he's goin' to give us all plain names, an' I ain't +goin' to wait. I want to git this thing fixed up right now. If Sally +ain't got sixty dollars, let her go borry it. I got to pay Skinner right +now, an' I want Sally to pay me. I want to git shut of this." + +"I don't believe Mr. Skinner is in any such hurry as you pretend!" +exclaimed Mrs. Smith. "I don't believe he is so ungenerous. I believe he +is more chivalrous, I believe HE will have some manliness, if you have +not." + +She started for the door, but the Colonel grasped her by the arm. + +"Hold on, here!" he said, but Mrs. Tarbro-Smith merely raised her +eyebrows and looked, first at his hand on her arm, and then at his face, +and his hand fell. He stood irresolute and uncomfortable as she went to +the door and called to Mr. Skinner. The butcher walked up to the door, +clearing his throat as he came. Mrs. Smith held the screen door wide +for him to enter, and he walked into the parlor, holding his hat in his +hands, and stood uneasily. + +"The Colonel," said Mrs. Smith pleasantly, "has told us you wish +Miss Sally to return the money you paid for what she supposed were +fire-extinguishers." + +"They was nothin' but lung-testers," said the butcher. + +"So it seems," said Mrs. Smith, "and it is odd that a man of business +like yourself should not know it in the first place. But of course +Miss Sally did not know what they were. Who told you they were +fire-extinguishers, Sally?" + +"The Colonel," said Miss Sally, and the Colonel moved his feet uneasily. + +"Indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Smith, giving the Colonel another of her +paralyzing glances. "But Miss Sally will do whatever is right. She +hasn't the money at this moment. You can wait until to-morrow for the +sixty dollars, can you not, until she can see her father?" + +The butcher grew red in the face, redder than his naturally high +coloring, but he shook his head. + +"I want it now," he said. "Business is business." And after a moment he +added, "It wasn't sixty, it was one hundred. Four at twenty-five, that's +one hundred. One hundred dollars, that was what I handed Guthrie. I paid +one hundred and I want one hundred back." + +Miss Sally and Mrs. Smith looked at the Colonel. + +"I had a right to make a commission," he blustered. "I ain't no sich +fool as to do business fer other folks an' lose time by it. I took out a +commission, an' I had a right to, an' I don't want to hear no more about +it. A commission's fair." + +"You didn't say anything about it," said poor Miss Sally. "Mrs. Smith +was just surprised to learn of it." + +"Surprised, my dear?" said Mrs. Smith, "No, indeed. Nothing that man +would do could quite surprise me. But forty percent commission! Miss +Sally hasn't sixty dollars in the house," she added, turning to the +butcher. "You know very well people here don't have so much in the house +at one time. If I had it I would gladly lend it to her, but I don't +happen to have so much with me to-day. You can wait until Mr. Briggs +gets back from Clarence, or you can do what you please." + +"I want the money," said Skinner doggedly. + +"Very well," said Mrs. Smith. "Collect forty from the Colonel. That will +keep you from starving until to-morrow. And now will you both kindly +leave the house?" + +"Now, look here, Mrs. Smith, ma'm," said the butcher. "You ain't got any +right to talk that way to me. Money matters is money matters, and a man +has a right to look after his own the best way he can. I was cheated +out of one hundred dollars by this man and Miss Sally, as easy as you +please, and there's bribery in it, and land knows what. But I ain't +mean. All I want is my money back, and I want it now. I hear T. J. Jones +is going to get out an extry to-morrow morning all about this, and all +I want is to do what is right. Hand me back my hundred dollars, and I'll +go to T. J. and explain that Miss Sally did what was right, and tell him +to leave her out of what he writes, but if I don't get the money I won't +say a word to him. He can guess all he wants about Miss Sally and the +Colonel being in cahoots with this bribe business. All I want is my +money." + +"But I say you shall have it in the morning." + +"Well, I don't count much on what you'll get out of Pap Briggs. You +might get ten cents, if he was feeling liberal, but he don't usually +feel that way. What I want is one hundred dollars right now. I don't +need no lung-testers, and I've been cheated, and I won't wait. If Miss +Sally ain't going to pay me, I'll see what the law says about it." + +"Mr. Skinner," said Mrs. Smith, "in consideration that Miss Sally is a +lady and that you are a gentleman, will you not wait till to-morrow?" + +"Business is business," he said flatly. "When I'm sellin' meat I ain't a +gentleman, I'm a butcher; and when Miss Briggs was sellin' lung-testers +she wasn't a lady, she was in business. Business is one thing an' bein' +pleasant is another. I've got to look after my money or I soon won't +have any." + +When the two men went out Mrs. Smith could hear them begin to wrangle +even before they quitted the yard, but she was more interested in what +might happen to Miss Sally through the vindictiveness of the butcher. +She was surprised to hear that T. J. Jones had even thought of such a +thing as bringing Miss Sally's name into the matter as a conspirator, +and she did not know enough about Iowa laws to know whether the butcher +could take any summary action or not. The most satisfactory way to +straighten things out would be to pay the butcher, but it must be done +at once. She pleaded with Miss Sally to remember someone of whom she +could borrow sixty dollars, but Miss Sally confessed that she knew no +one who would be apt to lend so much. She even expressed her doubt that +her father would ever release the money she had given him. The two women +sat in the darkened parlor, Miss Sally weeping softly and Mrs. Smith +thinking hard. The authoress was ashamed that she could devise no way to +aid her friend, and there they sat, exchanging a brief word from time +to time, and the gloom deepening every minute. Presently, when the +atmosphere was so charged with sadness that it was almost too thick to +breathe, Mrs. Smith called to Susan, and the girl came in. + +"Sue," said Mrs. Smith, "will you run down to the TIMES office and see +Mr. Jones? And--let me see--and tell him I very much want to see him +before he begins to print his extra. You won't mind, will you?" + +"Oh, no," said Susan cheerfully, and she went, a fairy in filmy white, +while the two women relapsed into gloom again. + +So softly did the next comer mount the porch stairs that the two women +did not hear him until a gentle tap on the door frame, followed by an +apologetic cough, announced the return of Eliph' Hewlitt. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. According to Jarby's + +When Eliph' Hewlitt, sad at heart, departed from his disastrous +interview with Miss Sally, he felt, for the first time in his life, a +doubt as to the infallibility of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge +and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art. Here was a book he had +praised, sold and believed, and it had failed him. Here was a book that +was proclaimed, in the "Advice to Agents," to be so simply written and +so easy of understanding that a child could follow its directions +as well as a man, and it had only led him to defeat. He had courted +according to "Courtship"; he had tried to win the affections according +to "How to Win" them, and instead of the "Yes" that Jarby's book led him +to believe he would receive, he had been given a "No." This, then, was +the book whose success he had made his life work! Caesar, when he +saw Brutus draw his dagger, was wounded no more in spirit than Eliph' +Hewlitt was now. + +The world seemed to slip from beneath his feet; his firmest foundation +seemed to have crumbled away; his best friend seemed to have turned +false. As he walked toward Doc Weaver's house he decided what he +would do: he would go to his room and tear his sample copy of Jarby's +Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art +to scraps and throw them out upon the wind; he would write to Jarby & +Goss and resign his commission; he would have Irontail hitched to his +buggy and leave Kilo at once and forever, and from some other town he +would write to G. P. Hicks & Co., and solicit the agency for Hicks' +Facts for the Million, a book he had heretofore hated and despised. All +this he resolved to do, and yet here he was again at Miss Sally's door, +and the sample copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium +of Literature, Science and Art was under his arm! + +Mrs. Tarbro-Smith, when she saw Eliph' Hewlitt at the door, uttered a +little cry of joy and darted toward him. She put her finger to her lips +and slipped out of the door and drew him to the seat that had once been +a church pew, but was now doing duty as a garden-seat under an apple +tree in the side yard. On Eliph's face was no longer the care-worn +expression of the rejected lover, but the full glow of confidence, +radiating from between his side-whiskers. + +Mrs. Smith bent confidentially toward him, and laid one hand on the copy +of Jarby's, which he had placed across his knees. In quick, crowding +words she bade him hope--which wasn't necessary--and told him of the +coming of Guthrie and Skinner, and of their demands. She laid before him +all she knew of the affair of the fire-extinguishers, of the horror of +the threatened legal attack on Miss Sally, and the disgrace that would +overwhelm her should T. J. Jones publish an article mentioning her name. +Eliph' Hewlitt must prevent the publication of the article; he must save +Miss Sally. + +The book agent was willing. As the appeal was spoken his eyes brightened +and the book agent instinct--the instinct that knows no defeat, but will +talk a book into any man's library, or die in the attempt--flowed +full and free through his soul. Mrs. Smith saw him take fire, and she +ventured the question she had been leading up to. + +"Now, Mr. Hewlitt," she said, "I have sent for Mr. Jones, and I will do +what I can to persuade him not to publish the article. I depend on you +to do what you can in that, too, but I am going to trespass on your good +nature in another thing also. It is something I know Miss Sally would +never allow me to ask, and I myself would not ask it but that I happen +to be waiting for a check from my publisher, and am quite out of funds +at the moment. I am going to ask you to lend me sixty dollars! Not for +myself, but to me. I believe Miss Sally would be willing to borrow it of +me, and I know, dear Mr. Hewlitt, you will be willing to lend it to me." + +Eliph' coughed softly behind his hand. + +"Gladly!" he said. "Gladly any amount. I have quite a little money +laid away, quite a little; some thousands, in fact; I might be called +a wealthy man--in Kilo. And it would be a pleasure, a real pleasure, +to spend all for Miss Sally. She is a fine woman, Mrs. Smith. I admire +her." + +"I knew I could depend on YOU," said Mrs. Smith, putting her white hand +on his scarcely less white one. + +"But I can appreciate Miss Sally's-ah-maidenly dislike, in fact, her +quite proper dislike of a loan from-ah-one who aspires---- In fact," he +said, boldly breaking away from all attempt to speak bookishly, "from +me. She don't want to borrow from me, and it would be the same thing if +you borrowed for her from me. The same thing. I am courting Miss Sally, +and such a loan would be irregular. There is nothing, Mrs. Smith, in +the chapter on 'Courtship--How to Win the Affections,' et cetery, about +loaning money to the lady. It would derange the directions given in this +book, which is----" + +"I don't want to hear about the book," said Mrs. Smith with annoyance. +"I know all about the book. So you refuse to lend me sixty dollars? You, +like these other men, are willing to desert Miss Sally at a time like +this?" + +"No," said the book agent. "Not desert. Rescue. Rescue her from the +hands of these--these men. Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and +Compendium of Literature, Science and Art should be in every home, +in every store, in every office. To be without it is to be like a +rudderless air ship tossed by the waves of the relentless ocean. It +contains a fact for every day in the year, for every moment of life, any +one of which is worth the price of the book many times over. This book," +he said--and then his eyes, which had been gazing far into the sky over +Miss Sally's house, returned to the eyes of Mrs. Smith--"I am going to +sell Mr. Skinner a copy of this book." + +In spite of her disappointment in him, Mrs. Smith, the authoress, felt +a thrill of pleasure in the discovery of such an admirable type--a book +agent who could see in the midst of love, courtship, conspiracy and +trouble only his book and a chance to sell it. But she was deeply +disappointed. + +"Then you desert Miss Sally," she repeated sadly. + +"Mrs. Smith." Said Eliph', reaching into his pocket and laying a handful +of thick greasy manila envelopes in her lap, "these are my bank +books. Six, containing the sum of seventeen thousand four hundred and +eighty-two dollars and forty-six cents, and all this I lay at +Miss Sally's feet if I do not succeed in selling a copy of Jarby's +Encyclopedia this afternoon. If sold, the matter is settled." + +When Eliph' reached the business part of Main Street he turned into +Skinner's butcher shop and halted at the counter. The butcher was at +work in the back room, and he put his head out and, seeing who had +called, shook it. + +"No books," he said shortly. "I never buy books. I didn't buy them Sir +Walter Scotts even. No books." + +Eliph' coughed his deprecatory little cough and walked behind the +counter and to the door of the back room. + +"So I understood," he said. "I heard at Franklin that you didn't buy +books; it was mentioned to me that I would be wasting my time in calling +on you. They said you was known all over the State as not buying books, +and many admired your self-restraint in not buying. They said it was +wonderful. That's why I never called on you to buy. But I didn't come to +sell you a book. I wanted to ask if you knew William Rossiter?" + +"William Rossiter?" asked Skinner, perplexed, coming out of the back +room. "Who's William Rossiter?" + +Eliph' laid his book on the chopping block. + +"William Rossiter, agent," he said. "He was here once. He was the man +that stopped with Miss Sally Briggs a while. I thought maybe you knew +him. He's dead. I thought maybe you'd be interested to know it." + +A light dawned on the butcher. William Rossiter must have been the man +that left the lung-testers at Miss Sally's. + +"I'm glad he's dead," he said. "I don't know anybody I'd sooner have it +happen to." + +"Don't say that!" exclaimed Eliph'. "If you only knew how he died, poor +young man, you wouldn't say it. He burned to death." + +"Well," said the butcher, "I don't know as I care how he died. I can't +say I'm sorry. I guess he cost me a hundred dollars. I've got to go to +law for it if I ever want to see it again. I guess he deserved to die, +for the trouble he has made in this town." + +Eliph' placed his hand on the sample copy of Jarby's. + +"I will tell you how he died," he said briskly. + +"No, you won't," said Skinner angrily, waving his hand toward the door; +"you won't tell me nothin'. I've heard of these stories of yours, I +have. You want to sell me one of them books, and you'll talk away at me +about this Rossiter feller, and the first thing I know you'll have me +down for a book. But you won't, for if you don't get right out of that +door I'm goin' to put you out." + +"All right," said Eliph' cheerfully, picking up his book, "if that's the +way you feel about it I won't take up your time telling you about it I +won't take up your time telling you about Bill Rossiter. Only I thought +you'd like to know how it happened he was burned up in a theater when +there was two dozen as good fire-extinguishers, right at hand, as there +is in the world. But I won't intrude. I know myself too well, and I know +I might happen to get to talking books before I thought. You see," he +said, as if apologizing for himself, "I can't forget how this book saved +my life, and might have saved the life of Bill Rossiter, too, if he +had had a copy, the price being only five dollars, bound in cloth, one +dollar down and one dollar a month until paid." + +"There," said Skinner, as if Eliph' had offended him, "you are talkin' +books right now, like I said you would." + +"Was I?" asked Eliph'. "And all I started out to say was that I met Bill +Rossiter in St. Louis just after he had run away from here. He told me +all about it, and wept on my shoulder as he told me how it pained him to +have to skip that way. He said it wasn't as if he could have left Miss +Briggs anything that she could use, but-lung-testers! He asked me what +a town like Kilo could do with lung-testers, and he felt awful about it. +Said he couldn't bear to look at a lung-tester any more, they made him +feel so ashamed, and what made it all the worse was that he had to look +at them all day." + +"I should think they would," said the butcher heartily. "It makes me +sick to see them. But why did he do it if he didn't like it?" + +"I was just going to tell you that," said Eliph', putting down his book +again. "You see, when he left here he went right to St. Louis, +that being where his home was, and that was how he happened to have +lung-testers with him when he was here. His father made them. That was +his father's business. He was in the lung-tester manufacturing business. +So when Bill Rossiter left here he went right home to his father, which +was the wise thing to do." + +"Went home to sponge on the old man, I suppose," said Skinner. + +"Just so," agreed Eliph', "and that was how I happened to meet him. +There was a man there in St. Louis by the name of Hopper-Darius +Hopper-and he owned the Imperial Theater and Museum. He was an old +friend of mine, and I had sold him a copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia of +Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art away back in +1874, and as soon as he heard I was stopping in St. Louis he sent +around to the hotel and begged me to come around to the museum and give +readings out of Jarby's to the people that come into the museum. He said +that it would draw bigger crowds in a cultured city like St. Louis +than would come to see a two-headed calf or a fat women's race, being +a course of readings that would instruct, entertain and please, and he +asked me to name my own price." + +"I should call him a fool," said Skinner scornfully. + +"He wasn't," said Eliph'. "It took splendid. But I wouldn't let him pay +me a cent. I said I considered it my sacred duty to make as many people +as I could love and know Jarby's, and that I was doing my best to better +the world that way, and was glad to do it free gratis, because in a +big place like St. Louis there were many that could not afford even the +small price of one dollar down and one dollar a month, which is all +that is asked for this splendid volume, containing all the wisdom of +the world, from the earliest days to the present time, neatly bound in +cloth, and I felt I was helping the cause of progress by reading them a +few chapters. I began at page one," continued Eliph', opening the book +in his hands, "skipping the allegorical frontispiece in three colors, +and the index in which ten thousand-----" + +"I thought you was goin' to tell me about William Rossiter," said the +butcher suspiciously. + +"So I am," said Eliph'. "William Rossiter was on the third floor of the +Theater and Museum building, for that was the job his father hunted up +for him. William was in charge of the penny-in-the-slot machines of all +kinds, a full description of which will be found in this book under the +head of 'Machines, Automatic,' including a description of how made, +how to use and how to repair. In fact, there is nothing in the way of +information, from how to tell the weight of a baby by measuring its +waist, to the age, size and history of the immortal pyramids of Egypt, +one of the seven wonders of the world, that this book does not contain. +It interests alike the student and the business man. And," he continued +quickly as Skinner was about to interrupt him, "among the slot machines +of which William Rossiter had charge were twenty-four lung-testers." + +"Twenty-four!" exclaimed Skinner. "Them St. Louis folks must like to +test their lungs!" + +"No," said Eliph', "they don't, and that is what makes me feel so bad +about William Rossiter. The St Louis people didn't care for lung-testers +at all. They crowded pennies into all the other machines, but they would +just go up to the lung-testers and sort of sniff at them, and walk away +without trying them. So there those twenty-four lung-testers stood, +useless to man and beast, all in a row, doing nobody any good, and there +I was on the floor below reading out of a book that would have told Bill +Rossiter how to make those lung-testers worth their weight in gold, and +would have saved his life. And to think he could have bought this book +for the small nominal sum of----" + +"You said that once," said Skinner. "Five dollars; one dollar down, and +one dollar a month until paid." + +"Bound in cloth," said Eliph'. "Seven fifty if in morocco leather. So at +the very minute that the fire broke out----" + +"Fire!" said Skinner; "what fire? You didn't say anything about a fire." + +"The fire in the theater and museum," said Eliph'. "It started right +on the stairs between the second and third floors, and the old building +flared up like dry paper. Two or three men that was trying the slot +machines saw the smoke and run for the lung-testers, thinking by the +look they were fire-extinguishers, which was the most natural mistake +in the world. The looks of them would fool anybody, but they were +lung-testers, and there that old building was, with twenty-four +lung-testers in it, and not one fire-extinguisher. After that fire +they passed an ordinance compelling every theater to have four +fire-extinguishers." + +"And do they have them?" asked Skinner. + +"Every first-class theater and opera house does, all over the United +States," said Eliph'. "But the odd thing was that at the very moment +the fire broke out I had this book open at page 416, 'Fire--Its +Traditions--How to Make a Fire Without Matches--Fire Fighting--Fire +Extinguishers, How Made.' I was reading to those people how to make +fire-extinguishers at home out of common chemicals and any suitable +nickel-plated can, that would be as good as the best sold in any store, +and right as I read it I thought how easy it would be for any man or +child to turn those twenty-four useless lung-testers on the third floor +into first-class fire-extinguishers, by following the simple directions +set down on page 418, at a cost of only about twenty-six cents each----" + +Skinner held out his hand for the book. + +"Let me have a look at that book," he said. + +Eliph' picked up the book and tucked it under his arm. + +"And at that minute came the cry of 'Fire!'" he said. "And I thought of +poor Bill Rossiter up there on the third floor, shut off from all hope +of rescue-----" + +Skinner reached down to his cash drawer and pulled it open. He took out +a dollar bill and held it toward Eliph'. The book agent ignored it. + +"Think of it," he said. "Bill Rossiter on the third floor, burning up, +and me on the floor below with this book in my hand reading off of page +418 the names of the simple ingredients that would----" + +"Mebby I might as well pay the whole five right now," said Skinner, +taking four more dollars out of his drawer. "Could you leave that book +with me?" + +"I will, as a special favor," said Eliph'. + +"Well, say," said Skinner, "I'll be mortally obliged to you if you will. +It will take a mighty load off of my mind." + +And when Eliph' left the butcher shop he had, for the first time in his +life, sold his sample copy. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. Another Trial + +When Eliph' stepped out of the butcher shop he saw T. J. Jones across +the street, returning from his interview with Mrs. Smith, and the book +agent hailed him and crossed the street. The editor wore a harassed look +as Eliph' stepped up to him, and it deepened when Eliph' asked him if he +had acceded to Mrs. Smith's request. + +"Hewlitt," he said, "I couldn't do it. I wanted to, but I couldn't. The +man was willing but the editor had to refuse. The press cannot sink the +public welfare to favor individuals; once the freedom of the press is +lost the nation relapses into sodden corruption. I told Mrs. Smith so. +And besides, I have the whole article in type, too. I like Mrs. Smith, +and I like Miss Sally, but the hissing cobra of corruption must be +crunched beneath the heel of a free and independent press. The TIMES +must do its duty, let the chips fall where they may." + +"'The pen is mightier than the sword,' page 233, Apt Quotations for All +Occasions," said Eliph', "this being one of three thousand quotations, +arranged alphabetically according to subject, as 'Bird--in the hand, +Bird--of a feather, Bird--killing two with one stone,' et cetery, +including 'Leap--look before you,' and 'Sure--be sure you're right, then +go ahead.' What do you mean to print?" + +The editor told him all he had been able to gather regarding the matter +of the fire-extinguishers, and as he talked Eliph' saw the butcher leave +his shop and enter the drug store--he was after chemicals. He turned to +the editor with fresh assurance. + +"See page 88, 'Every Man his Own Lawyer,'" he said, "giving all that it +is necessary for any man to know regarding the laws of his native +land, including laws of business, how to draw up legal papers, what +constitutes libel, et cetery. This one division alone being worth the +whole cost of the book, showing among other things what a paper should +print and what it should not. Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and +Compendium of Literature, Science and Art is a marvelous work, including +as it does the chapter on 'Fire--Its Traditions--How to Make a Fire +Without Matches--Fire Fighting--Fire Extinguishers, How Made,' et +cetery, containing directions by which man, woman or butcher can +convert lung-testers into approved fire-extinguishers at a cost of only +twenty-six cents. It is a good book. I just sold Mr. Skinner one." + +He watched the editor's face as the meaning of his words dawned on it, +and added: + +"Miss Briggs has a copy, morocco binding, including among ten thousand +and one subjects 'What Constitutes Libel.'" + +"Then those fire-extinguishers will be all right, after all?" said the +editor. "You want to look out how you trifle with the press. The press +never forgives nor forgets." + +"Those lung-testers, prepared according to Jarby's Encyclopedia of +Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, would put out +the flames of the fiery furnace prepared for Shadrach, Meschach and +Abednego, mentioned in 'Bible Tales,' Condensed and Put into Words of +One Syllable for Children,' page 569, Jarby's Encyclopedia," said Eliph' +airily. "They would satisfy an investigation committee of imps, or other +experts." + +The editor thought for a minute and Eliph' looked at him and smiled, +gently combing his whiskers with his fingers. + +"That's all right," said the editor. "That lets Miss Sally out, and it +may satisfy Skinner, but it don't do away with the bribery. Mayor Stitz +was bribed and he admits it. He says he was, and he brags about it. +Guthrie bribed him, and I've got enough left to give Stitz and Guthrie a +good shot. I'll leave Skinner and Miss Briggs out, but I'll go for Stitz +and Guthrie. I'll show them that in Kilo the press is alert, wide awake, +and not to be trifled with. I'll teach them a lesson." + +"So do!" said Eliph'. "And make Miss Sally mad. And make Mrs. Smith mad. +And make Miss Susan mad. And me. So do, and have Tolle tell them that he +did not want you to print it, and that he went up and fought you to get +you not to print it. So do, and instead of having Miss Sally and Mrs. +Smith and me your friends, have us run you down to Susan. Instead of +having hit Toole by printing the thing sooner than he wanted, as +you did, print more, and do him a favor. Make him a favorite of Miss +Sally's. So do, if you want to. Or--have me go to Miss Susan and say you +will not relent but that there is one chance--that she shall plead with +you herself." + +He stepped back and looked at the hesitating Jones. + +"Jones," he said, "the way you are acting, the way you hesitate, +would tell anybody that you have not a copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia of +Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, in your office. +No man who has read that book would lack wisdom, that work containing +under one cover all the wisdom I the world, price five dollars, two +dollars off to the press. Buy a copy and be sensible." + +Jones looked far down the street toward his office as if the matter he +had there standing in the galley was begging him not to desert it. + +"Courtship--How to Make Love--How to Win the Affections--How to Hold +them When Won," said Eliph'. "See Jarby's giving advice to those in +love, those wishing to win the affections, et cetery. 'If the object of +the affections can be placed in a position where she will be compelled +to ask a favor, the granting of it, however slight, will advance the +cause of the eager suitor." + +"I don't care!" said T. J. Jones suddenly. "I'd lose Skinner's ad if I +printed that article, and he pays cash." + +"Mine too," said Eliph', "and I was just thinking of doubling it. +Jarby's deserves----" + +"That's all right," said the editor, with a sigh of relief. "You needn't +have Miss Susan come begging me. Just tell her I gave up printing the +article because you said she wouldn't like it." + +"Don't throw away a chance," urged Eliph' putting a hand on the young +man's arm. "Be wise. Do as Jarby's says. Be urged. I followed Jarby's +advice." + +"Why are you--are you, too?" asked T. J., beaming upon him. + +Eliph' coughed behind his hand. + +"Yes," he said, "Miss Briggs. I followed Jarby's advice--and won." + +"Congratulations!" said the editor. "Have it your own way then. I'll be +at Miss Sally's after supper, if Sue wants to coax." + +They parted, and as Eliph' walked happily toward his boarding house +he did not realize that he had not won, nor that his appeal had been +rejected by Miss Sally, for he had regained his faith in Jarby's and if +he had not yet won, he felt that he would, and that was the same thing. + +After his supper Eliph' felt that the time had come to arrange things +with Miss Sally. There was no longer any cause for delay. He had +arranged the matter of the fire-extinguishers; he had settled the matter +of the TIMES, and he felt that Skinner and the Colonel must have hurt by +their actions their causes with Miss Sally. They had, indeed, far more +than Eliph' guessed. He repaired to his room and brushed his whiskers +carefully. Never had he appeared smarter than when he went out of the +gateless opening in Doc Weaver's fence, and turned his face toward Miss +Sally's home. + +His way led him past the mayor's little car, where Stitz was on his +platform smoking and evening pipe. The mayor halted him with a motion of +his pipe stem. + +"Mister Hewlitt," he said, "you know too that joke, yes? About those +lung-testers was not fire-extinguishers?" + +"That's all right," said Eliph', seeking to pass on, "It is all fixed up +now. They ARE fire-extinguishers." + +"Such a fool business on Skinner," said the mayor with enjoyment. "And +on Stitz, too. I thinks me I am the boss grafter, and I ain't!" + +He chuckled. + +"No-o!" he said cheerfully. "But next times I makes no more such fool +mistakes; I make me a real boss grafter. I am now only a boss-fool, but +boss grafter. So says Attorney Toole. Money is grafts, and houses and +lots is grafts, and horses is grafts, and buggies, but," and he paused +impressively, "apples isn't, and potatoes isn't, and peas isn't, and +chickens isn't. Nothing to eat is grafts. If it is to eat it is not +grafts. So says Attorney Toole. Things to eat is no more grafts +as lung-tester is fire-extingables. So says Toole. So nobody won't +prosecute me. I stick me to the mayor business yet a while. Klops on the +head is nothings much; all big men gets them. So says Attorney Toole." + +Skinner was locking his shop when Eliph' passed, and the stopped Eliph' +too. + +"Works fine," he said. "I tried a tomato canful on a bonfire in the back +yard, and it put it out like a wink. That's a great book; I'm glad you +spoke about it. I wish you'd told me about it sooner." + +Miss Sally was not on the porch when Eliph' arrived, for she was still +in the kitchen at the supper dishes, but Mrs. Smith and Susan were +there, and they greeted him eagerly. The little man smiled as he walked +up to them, and waved his hand in the air. + +"You fixed it?" cried Mrs. Smith. "It is all right now?" + +"Fixed from A to Z," said Eliph', as he took a seat on the porch step. +"All right from the allegorical frontispiece in three colors to the back +page. Jarby's wins, and error don't. Miss Sally in?" + +He heard the click of the dishes as Miss Sally laid them one by one on +the kitchen table, so he knew well she was in. + +"It might relieve her mind if I told her," he suggested, and Mrs. Smith +smiled and said it might. + +"Go right in," she said, and Eliph' did. + +He went into the hall and coughed gently behind his hand, and Miss Sally +looked up. She wiped her hands hastily on her blue gingham apron, and +came into the hall. + +"Jarby's fixed it," he said, and rapidly related what he had done, with +illustrations in the way of quotations from the titles and sub-titles of +Jarby's. "When you have a moment to spare," he added, "I would like to +speak to you. I want to tell you something about Jarby's Encyclopedia of +Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, a copy of which +I see lying on your parlor table, forming an adornment to the home both +useful and helpful." + +"Well, I don't want no books," said Miss Sally, "I've got one copy, and +that ought to be enough to adorn any home. And I've got to get these +dishes washed sometime. I've let the fire go out, and the water will be +cold. If there's anything important you want to say about that book, you +can go out and wait till I get the dishes done." + +"It's about how to get the best use out of it," said Eliph'. "I'll go +out and wait. It's something everybody that has a copy ought to know." + +He went out as she said, and found Susan alone on the porch. Mrs. +Smith was at the gate, and he could see her white dress in the evening +darkness. Susan sat with a knitted shawl about her shoulders, for +the evening were already growing chill, so long had Eliph's courtship +lengthened out. He could not have had a better opportunity to speak to +Susan alone, and he warned her of the "piece" T. J. had threatened to +publish in the morning, and of the disgrace and sorrow it would bring +to Miss Sally. The girl listened eagerly and her indignation grew as he +went on, so that he had to veer, and expatiate on the virtues of T. J. +and the right of the modern press to meddle in private affairs when it +wants to. + +"And can't anything be done?" asked Susan. "Why don't somebody do +something? I didn't think Thomas was like that." + +"He isn't," admitted Eliph' heartily. "But he needs coaxing. If you were +to coax him he might see how wrong he is. I shouldn't wonder if he +would come up here to-night, looking for me, being interested in Jarby's +Encyclopedia and anxious to get a copy at the reduced price of two +dollars off, offered to the press only. If he does, try to move him." + +"I will," said Susan. "And if he publishes that piece, I'll never speak +to him again." + +Eliph' was still sitting there when T. J. came, and when Susan proposed +a walk down to the corner he knew that it would be all right with T. J. +Jones. A light coming suddenly over his shoulder from the parlor behind +him told him that Miss Sally was ready to receive him, and he took his +hat and went into the house. + +Miss Sally was sitting in the rocker with the cross-stitch cover, and +Eliph' took a seat at the opposite side of the center-table and lifted +the morocco bound copy of Jarby's from its place beside the shell box. +The kerosene lamp glowed between them, and he drew closer to the table +and laid the book gently on his knees. Miss Sally sat straight upright +in her chair and looked at the little book agent. + +"This book," he said, looking up at her with eyes in which kindness and +business mingled, "although sold, in this handsome binding, for seven +fifty, is worth, to one who understands it, its weight in gold. It +holds a help for every hour and a hint for every minute of the day. +It furnishes wisdom for a lifetime. I read it and study it; for every +difficulty of my life it furnishes a solution. Corns? It tells how to +cure them. Food? It tells how to cook it. Love? It tells how to make it. +But," he said, laying his hand affectionately on the morocco cover, "to +be understood it must be read. To read it well is to admire and cherish +it, and yet, only this morning I was about to tear my copy of this +priceless volume to pieces and scatter it to the four winds of heaven." + +He paused to let this awful fact sink into Miss Sally's mind. + +"Yes," he continued, "I was about to turn away from the best friend I +have in the world and declare to one and all that Jarby's Encyclopedia +of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art was a fraud! +When I left your home yesterday, I was full of anger. I was mad at +Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science +and Art. I had trusted to its words and directions, as set forth in, +Courtship--How to Make Love--How to Win the Affections--How to Hold Them +When Won, and you sent me away. I went away a different man than I had +come, and resolved to go away from Kilo, and never to sell another +copy of this book. I resolved to take the sale of 'Hicks' Facts for the +Million,' a book, although greater in cost, containing by actual count +sixteen thousand less words than this. + +"I went to my room at Doc Weaver's," he continued, "and seized my copy +of this work from where it lay on my bureau. I called it names. I told +it it was a cheat and a liar. Yes, Miss Sally, I let my angry passions +rise against this poor, innocent book. I believed it had advised me +falsely. I had trusted to its words and had done as it said to do, and +you had sent me away, not in anger, but in sorrow, but just as much +away. I picked up the book and opened it, grasping it in two hands to +tear it asunder." + +He opened the book and showed her how he had grasped it. + +"I pulled it to tear it in two," he said, raising the book and pulling +it in the direction of asunder, "but it would not rip. It was bound too +well, the copies bound in cloth at five dollars, one dollar down and one +dollar a month until paid, being bound as firmly as the more expensive +copies at seven fifty. I pulled harder and the book came level with my +nose. I saw it had opened at 'Courtship--How to Make Love,' and I said, +'While I am getting my breath to give this book another pull, why not +read the lie that is written here once more? It will give me strength to +rend it asunder.' So I read it." + +He looked at Miss Sally and saw that she was showing no signs of being +bored. + +"I held the book like this," he said, showing how he held it, "and read. +All that it said to do I had done and my anger grew stronger. But I +turned the page! I saw the words I had not seen before; words that told +me I had tried to tear my best friend to pieces. I sand into a chair +trembling like a leaf. I felt like a man jerked back from the edges of +Niagara Falls, a full description and picture of that wonder of nature +being given in this book among other natural masterpieces. I weakly +lifted the book back again and read those golden words." + +"What was it?" asked Miss Sally, leaning forward. + +"'Courtship--How to Make Love--How to Win the Affections--How to Hold +Them When Won.'" said Eliph', turning to the proper page. "And the words +I read were these: 'The lover should not be utterly cast down if he be +refused upon first appealing for the dear one's hand. A first refusal +often means little or nothing. A lady frequently uses this means to test +the reality of the passion the lover has professed, and in such a case +a refusal is often a most hopeful sign. Unless the refusal has been +accompanied by very evident signs of dislike, the lover should try +again. If at the third trial the fair one still denies his suit, he had +better seek elsewhere for happiness, but until the third test he should +not be discouraged. The first refusal may be but the proof of a finer +mind than common in the lady.'" + +Eliph' removed his spectacles and laid them carefully in the pages of +the book which he closed and placed gently on the center-table. + +"Having read that," he said, "I saw that I had done this work a wrong. I +had read it hastily and had missed the most important words. I felt the +joy of life returning to me. I remembered that you were a lady of finer +mind than common, and I understood why you had refused me. I resolved +to stay in Kilo and justify Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and +Compendium of Literature, Science and Art by giving it another trial. +And now," he said, placing his hand on the book where it lay on the +table and leaning forward to gaze more closely into Miss Sally's face, +while she faced him with a quickened pulse, and a blush, "now, I want to +ask you again, WILL you put your name down for a copy of this work----" +He stopped appalled at what he had said, and stared at Miss Sally for +one moment foolishly, while over her face spread not a frown of anger or +contempt, but a pleasant smile of friendly amusement. + +"Not the book," he said, "but me." + +Miss Sally looked at the eager eyes that were not only serious, but +sincere and kind. + +"Well, Mister Hewlitt," she said, "I guess I'll have to marry someone +some time so I might as well marry you as anybody. But I don't think pa +will ever give consent to havin' a book agent in the family. He hates +book agents worse than I used to." + +"You don't any more," said Eliph', putting his hand very far across the +table. + +"Well, no, I don't," said Miss Sally graciously, "not all of 'em." + + + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. Pap Briggs' Hen Food + +The doubt that Miss Sally had expressed regarding Pap Briggs' acceptance +of Eliph' Hewlitt as a son-in-law was mild compared with the fact. When +the old man returned the next day from his farm at Clarence and learned +from Miss Sally that she had promised to marry the book agent he was +furiously angry. For two whole days he refused to wear his store teeth +at all, and when he recovered from his first height of anger it was to +settle down into a hard and fast negative. He went about town telling +anyone that would listen to him that there ought to be licenses against +book agents, and once having made up his mind that Miss Sally should not +marry Eliph' as long as he remained alive to prevent it, not even the +friendly approaches of the book agent could move him from his stubborn +resolution. Miss Sally would not think of marrying while her father was +in such a state of opposition, and indeed, Eliph' did not urge it. He +had no desire to defy his father-in-law, and he unwillingly but kindly +agreed to wait. + +In this way the autumn faded into winter. Mrs. Tarbro-Smith returned to +New York with a note-book full of dialect and a head full of local color +and types, and if she took Susan with her it was only because she agreed +to bring her back in June, when T. J. Jones was to marry her. Miss Sally +lived on with her father, attending to his wants, which were few and +simple. An egg for breakfast, and enough tobacco to burn all day were +his chief earthly desires, eggs because he could eat them in comfort, +and tobacco because he liked it. + +When Miss Sally had moved to town there was one thing she had said her +father SHOULDN'T do, after living all his life on a farm, and that was, +have store eggs for his breakfast. + +"Hens is trouble enough, Lord knows," said Miss Sally, "an' dirty, if +they can't be kep' in their place; but there's some comfort in their +cluckin' round, and I guess I'll have plenty of time, and to spare to +tend to 'em; so, Pap, you won't have to eat no stale eggs for breakfast, +if I kin help it. They ain't nothing' I hate to think on like boughten +eggs. Nobody knows how old they are, nor who's been a-handlin' them; and +eat boughten eggs you shan't do, sure's my name's Briggs!" + +So Sally brought half a dozen hens and a gallant rooster to town with +her, and supervised the erection of a cozy coop and hen-yard, and Pap +had the comfort of knowing his eggs were fresh. But fresh or not, it +made no difference to him so long as he had one each morning, and it was +fairly edible. + +"These teeth o' mine," he told Billings, the grocer, "cost twelve +dollars down to Franklin, by the best dentist there; but, law sakes! +A feller can't eat hard stuff with any comfort with 'em for fear of +breakin' 'em every minute. They ain' nothin' but chiney, an' you know +how chiney's the breakiest thing man ever made. That's why I say, 'Give +me eggs for breakfast, Sally,'--and eggs I will have." + +The six hens did their duty nobly during the summer and autumn and a +part of the winter, and Pap had his egg unfailingly; but in December the +long cold spell came, and the six hens struck. It was the longest and +coldest spell ever known in Kilo, and it hung on and hung on until the +entire hen population of Eastern Iowa became disgusted and went on a +strike. Eggs went up in price until even packed eggs of the previous +summer sold for twenty-seven and thirty cents a dozen, and angel-cake +became an impossible dainty. + +The second morning that Pap Briggs ate this eggless breakfast he +suggested that perhaps Sally might buy a few eggs at the grocery. + +"Pap Briggs," she exclaimed reproachfully, "the idee of you sayin' sich +a thin! As if I would cook packed eggs! No; we'll wait, and mebby the +hens will begin layin' again in a day or two." + +But they did not, and the days became a week, and two weeks, and still +no eggs rewarded her daily search. Pap knew better than to repeat his +suggestion of buying eggs, for Sally Briggs said a thing only when she +meant it, and to mention it again would only exasperate her. + +"Our hens don't lay a blame egg," Pap told Billings complainingly, "and +Sally won't buy eggs, and I can't eat nothin' but eggs for breakfast, so +I reckon I'll jist have to naturally starve to death." + +"Why don't you try some of our hen-food?" asked Billings, taking up a +package and reading from the label. "'Guaranteed to make hens lay in all +kinds of weather, the coldest as well as the warmest' That's just what +you want, Pap." + +"Well," said Pap, "I been keepin' hens off and on for nigh forty year, +and I ain't ever seen any o' that stuff that was ary good; but I got +to have eggs or bust, so I'll take a can o' that stuff. But I ain't no +hopes of it, Billings, I ain't no hopes." + +His pessimism was well founded. The cold spell was too much even for the +best hen-food to conquer. No eggs rewarded him. + +One evening he was sitting in Billings', smoking his pipe and thinking. +He had been thinking for some time, and at length a sparkle came into +his eyes, and he knocked the ashes from his pipe and arose. + +"Billings," he said, "mix me up about a nickel's wuth o' corn-meal, +and a nickel's wuth o' flour, and"--he hesitated a moment and then +chuckled--"and a nickel's wuth o' wash-blue." + +"For heaven's sake, Pap," said Billings, "have ye gone plumb crazy?" + +"No, I ain't," said Pap. "I ain't lost all my brains yit, nor I ain't +gone plumb crazy yit, neither. That's a hen food I invented." + +"Hen-food!" exclaimed Billings. "You don't 'low that will make hens lay, +do you, Pap?" + +"I ain't advisin' no one to use it that don't want to," said Pap, "but I +bet you I'm a-goin' to feed that to my hens"; and he chuckled again. + +"Pap," said Billings, "you're up to some be-devilment, sure! What is +it?" + +"You jist keep your hand on your watch till you find out," answered Pap, +and he took his package and went home. + +"Sally," he said when he entered the house, "I got some hen-food now +that's bound to make them hens lay, sure." + +She took the package and opened it. + +"For law's sake, Pap," she said, "what kind o' hen-food is that? It's +blue!" + +"Yes," said Pap, looking at it closely, "it IS blue, ain't it? It's a +mixture of my own. I ain't been raisin' hens off an' on fer forty year +for nothin'. You got to study the hen, Sally, and think about her. Why +don't a hen lay in cold weather? 'Cause the weather makes the hen cold. +This will make her warm. You jist try it. Give 'em a spoonful apiece an' +I reckon they'll lay. It don't look like much, but I bet you anything +it'll make them hens lay." + +"I don't believe it," she snapped, "and I'll hold you to that bet, +sure's my names Briggs." But the next day she gave them the allotted +portion. + +That evening when Pap Briggs knocked the ashes from his pipe and rose +from his seat in Billings' store, he said, "Billings, have you got some +mainly fresh eggs--eggs you kin recommend?" + +"Yes, I have," said Billings, with a grin. "So your hen-food don't work, +Pap?" + +Pap chuckled. + +"It's a-workin," he said, "and you can give me a dozen o' them eggs. +And, say, you need't tell Sally." + +Billings laughed. "I'm on," he said. + +Pap put the bag of eggs back of the cracker-box, and put three of them +in his pocket. + +When he reached home he quietly slipped around the house and deposited +the three eggs in three nests, and went it. + +The next morning Sally greeted him with a smile. "Eggs this mornin', +Pap," she said. "That hen-food did work like a charm. I got three eggs." + +Pap ate without comment until he had finished the second egg. He felt +that he could eat a dozen, after his long fast. + +"It do seem good to have eggs agin," he said. + +That evening, and the next evening he deposited three eggs as before. +On the third morning Sally said: "It's queer about them hens, Pap; they +lay, but they don't cluck like a hen generally does when she lays an +egg." + +Pap hesitated for a moment. + +"It's sich cold weather," he said, "I reckon that's why." + +About a week later Sally said: "I do declare to gracious, Pap, them hens +do puzzle me." + +Pap moved uneasily in his seat. + +"The do puzzle me!" repeated Sally. "Here the are layin' right along as +reg'lar as summer-time, and never cluckin' or lettin' on a bit, and +the queerest thing is they jist lay three eggs every day. It don't seem +natural!" + +That night Pap put four eggs in the nests. The next night he put in +five, and the next night three, and the danger into which his wiles had +fallen was averted. + +One morning Sally startled him by saying: "Pap, I can't make them hens +out. Here they are a-layin' right along, and all at once they quit +layin' decent sized eggs like they ought, and begin layin' little mean +things no better than banty eggs." + +Pap scratched his head. + +"You must allow, Sally," he said, "that it's quite a strain on a hen +to keep a-layin' right along through such weather as this, and I'm only +thankful they lay any. Mebby if you give them a leetle more o' that +hen-food they'll do better." + +"I believe it," said Sally. "Why, it's wonderful, Pap. I shouldn't be a +bit surprised to find 'em layin' duck eggs if I jist give 'em enough o' +that stuff." + +Pap looked closely at her face, but it was innocent of guile. She +suspected nothing. + +The next day the eggs were of the proper size. + +"It's a real blessin' to have hens a-layin'," she said one day. "I took +half a dozen over to the minister's wife this mornin', and she was so +pleased! She said it was sich a blessin' to have fresh eggs again. +She was gittin' sick o' them she's been buyin' at Billings'. She was +downright thankful." + +About a week later she said: + +"Them hens of ourn do beat all creation. I run out o' that hen-food a +week ago, and I hain't give them a mite since, and they keep a-layin' +jist the same. I can't make head nor tail of them, Pap." + +Pap squirmed in his chair. + +"Pshaw, now, Sally," he said, "you'd ought to have let me know you was +out. You oughtn't to do that. Feed 'em plenty of it. They deserve it. +If you stop feedin' them they'll stop layin' pretty soon. The effect of +that hen-food don't last more'n two weeks. No," he said thoughtfully, +"ten days is the longest I ever knowed it to last 'em." + +If Pap Briggs enjoyed his eggs for breakfast he enjoyed as fully the +many laughs he had with Billings over the scheme, and Billing found +it hard to keep his promised secrecy. It would be such a good story to +tell. But Pap exhorted him daily, and he did not let the secret out. + +One Sunday morning Pap came down to his breakfast and took his seat. +Sally brought his coffee and bacon. Then she brought him a plate of +moistened toast. + +"You've forgot the eggs, Sally," said Pap admonishingly. + +"They ain't none this morning," said Sally briefly. + +Pap looked up and saw that her mouth was set very firmly. + +"No eggs?" he asked tremulously. + +"No," she said decidedly, "no eggs! I kin believe that hens lay eggs and +don't cluck, and I kin believe that hens lay eggs all winter, and I kin +believe that Plymouth Rock hens lay Leghorn eggs and Shanghai eggs and +Banty eggs, Pap, but when hens begin layin' spoiled eggs I ain't no more +faith in hens." + +Pap laid down his knife and fork. + +"Spoiled eggs!" he ejaculated. + +"Yes, spoiled eggs," she declared. "You and Billings ought to be more +careful." + +Pap turned his bacon over and eyed it critically. Then he frowned at it. +Then he chuckled. + +"You needn't laugh," said Miss Sally severely. "You don't get no more +eggs until the hens begin laying regular. You can eat moistened toast. +You ain't fair to me, pa. You set up to say who I shall marry, when I'm +old enough to know for myself, and then you go and cheat me about eggs. +Mebby I ain't old enough to know who to marry, but I'm old enough to run +this house for you, and you don't get no more eggs. No more eggs until +spring, or until I can marry who I want to." + +Pap looked at the mushy piece of toast and grinned sheepishly. + +"You'd be worse of 'n ever, Sally," he said meekly, "if so be you +married a man that felt he had to hev eggs every morning. They'd be two +of us then." + +"Well, I'd just have to buy eggs then," she said, "if that come to pass. +I couldn't expect these few hens to lay enough eggs in winter for two +men. If I had to buy eggs for a husband, I'd buy them." + +The old man ate his toast slowly and without relish. + +"Sally," he said that afternoon, "I guess mebby you'd better git +married. I'm gittin' old. You'd better marry that book agent whilst you +got a chance." + +It was Pap Briggs who urged an early date, after that, and who was most +joyous at the wedding. + +"Pap," asked Sally one morning soon after she and Eliph' were married, +while the three were sitting at breakfast, "what ever made you swing +round so sudden and want me to marry Eliph', after objectin' so long?" + +Her father looked at Eliph' slyly and chuckled. + +"Eggs," he said. "I fooled you that time, Sally. I knowed when I said to +go ahead that Eliph' has to have eggs for breakfast. Doc Weaver told me +so." + + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Kilo, by Ellis Parker Butler + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KILO *** + +***** This file should be named 3427-8.txt or 3427-8.zip ***** This and +all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/2/3427/ + +Produced by Linda P. 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