Kilo. Part 16

"'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 n.o.body 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 b.u.mped 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 courts.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+pment 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 s.h.i.+elded 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 y 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 Enn.o.bling 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 pa.s.sing moment, propound one or more of the 'Six Hundred Perplexing Puzzles,'