noises of wagons and clanging trolley cars outside, and the hubbub of
the gymnasium below, all conspired to make the children a little more
restless.
Fernald listened to Miss Grant, who sat at the desk with fifteen girls
and boys and one or two older persons around her. The older ones were
parents or friends who lived in the neighborhood and frequented the
library. Miss Grant was discharging the books as they were returned,
charging new ones, and incidentally acting as literary adviser and
bureau of information.
"Is this the one you want--'The Halfback'? It hasn't been
discharged--who brought this in? Oh, you did--you're returning it? You
mustn't take the card out till I have stamped it. And this is the book
you want to take?"
A voice from the rear of the crowd: "No, 'm, that's mine."
Another voice: "'Tain't neither, teacher, it's mine; she promised it to
me last Choosday."
The first voice: "Oh, you big--I didn't do nothin' of the sort,
teacher!"
A man, elbowing his way to the front, and relying on the fascinations
of his dyed moustache and hat tilted to one side: "Say, jus' gimme
this, will yer?"
While Miss Grant is charging the book, he leans over her confidentially:
"Say, don't you or that other young lady belong to the Order of the
Golden Bazoo? Don't yer? Say, that's too bad--we're goin' to have a
little dance to-morrer night at the Red Men's hall. We'd be glad to
have yer come. Say, you can come anyway--I can get yer in all right Yer
can meet me at the drugstore on the corner, here, and I'll--"
A small girl with a red tam-o'shanter, interrupting: "Teacher, me an'
Minnie Leboskey just took out these books--this is mine--'The Birds'
Chris'mas Carol' and this is Minnie's--'Sarter Resortus' an' Minnie
has read it hundreds of times, an' she says she don't want it again,
an' please, teacher, this here is a kid's book, an' I don't want it,
an' will yer give me somethin' for my mother, she says she's read the
one you sent her last week, an' can she take the White House Cook Book,
too, on the same card?"
A tall and very resolute-looking woman, with three books under her arm:
"Have you got 'The Leopard's Spots' in this library? I want my son to
read it. He has just finished 'The Clansman,' but he has never read
'The Leopard's Spots.'"
Miss Grant: "Why, how old is he?"
The resolute-looking woman, presenting cherubic-faced urchin: "This is
him--he'll be twelve next April."
Miss Grant: "I'm sure we have some other books that he'll like better
than 'The Leopard's Spots.' That is not a child's book--there is a
copy at the central library, but it is not kept in the children's room.
Wouldn't you like--"
The resolute-looking woman: "No, I wouldn't. I know what I want. I'm
his mother, and I guess I know what's what. You needn't try to dictate
to me. Have you got it here or haven't you? That's all I want to know.
I can't find it over there on those shelves."
Miss Grant: "No; we have not."
The woman: "All right, then, I'll go somewhere else--for he's goin' to
read that book, whether or no."
A young lady, an acquaintance of Miss Grant, who thinks she is doing a
little slumming: "Oh, Miss Grant, how do you do? I promised that I'd
come and help you, you know. How perfectly delightful this is--only
some boys on the corner threw snowballs at Jean and he wouldn't bring
the automobile nearer than the next block--he's waiting there now, and
he's terribly peeved. Now, what shall I do--shall I sit down here and
help you?"
A small boy: "Say, teacher, come over here an' make this feller give me
my book."
Another small boy: "Aw, I ain't got his book."
First small boy: "Yes, yer have, too!"
The other small boy: "No, I ain't--"
His remarks end in a yelp as the elbow of the first boy goes home in
his ribs. The two clinch, and fall over a settee, from which they are
pulled up and separated by Mr. Fernald. The young lady in search of
slumming experiences observes that another small boy is experimenting
with a penful of red ink, while Miss Grant's back is turned, to see
how far he can flip the ink. The young lady decides she will go
and see if her chauffeur is in any further trouble, and she departs
hastily, assuring the librarian that she will return soon. She does not
reappear, however.
A youth, apparently a butcher's assistant, wearing a blue frock,
and carrying a slice of meat (for which some family is indignantly
waiting): "Say, miss, my grandmother wanted me to get her a book
called--say, it had a funny name, it was 'It Didn't Use to Be,' or
something like that. Have you got it?"
Miss Grant: "Yes, I think so. You go over to Miss French--the lady
across the room there, and ask her to see if 'It Never Can Happen
Again' is on the shelves."
The youth: "That was it, I knew it was something like that."
A severe-looking woman, about thirty-eight years old: "Good evening.
Have you ever read this book?"
She exhibits a copy of "Barrack Room Ballads," and does not wait for
Miss Grant to reply. "I have not read the whole of it--I only looked
into it here and there. It ought not be in any library--it is full of
the most disgusting profanity. You ought to know about it, and you
ought to withdraw it from the shelves immediately."
Katie Finnegan, aged fifteen, leaning heavily on Miss Grant's left
shoulder, and whispering into Miss Grant's left ear: "Teacher, are you
goin' to let me walk home with you to-night?"
Maggie Burke, aged thirteen, leaning on Miss Grant's right shoulder,
and whispering into Miss Grant's right ear: "Say, Miss Grant, I think
your hat is just lovely."
A serious-faced man, evidently a workingman in his best clothes:
"Haven't you got the Encyclopædia Britannica here? I can't find it on
those tables."
A girl of twelve: "Teacher, I want Tolstoi's 'Little Women.'"
A deeply irritated man: "Look here, I'd like to know what this means!
D'ye see this postal? Well, look there: 'Please return Evans's 'A
Sailor's Log' which is charged on your card. The fine amounts to twenty
cents.' I ain't never had no book outer this place!"
Miss Grant: "Perhaps you took it from the central library, or one of
the other branches?"
The irritated one: "No, I didn't neither. I ain't never had no books
outer no library!"
His companion, another man, with views on capital and labor: "Aw, it's
just one of Carnegie's games to get money out of yer."
The irritated man: "Well, he won't get no money outer me."
Miss Grant, who has read the name "John Smith" on the other side of
the post-card: "Perhaps this came to you by mistake--it was meant for
someone else of the same name, maybe."
The irritated man: "Well, you can keep it--I don't want it, anyhow."
He and his friend depart, much pleased at having baffled Carnegie this
time.
Miss French, the other librarian, laying a very dirty slip of paper
on Miss Grant's desk: "What do you suppose this means? There is a boy
waiting for the book, but we haven't anything about shingling--I've
looked in the catalogue twice."
Miss Grant read the note, which ran: "plees give barer why not shingel
the house and oblige Mrs. coffey 2795 forth street."
Miss Grant: "Oh, yes--just write her a note, will you, Miss French?
Tell her we haven't any of Frank Danby's books. She wants 'Let the Roof
Fall In,' you know."
A small boy: "Have you any books about explosions? Mother says she
wants one about the Pan-American explosion."
Another small boy: "Haven't you got the Mutt and Jeff book yet? When
are you goin' to get it?"
A small girl: "Please, can I keep this book on how to bring up parrots
till next week?"
The janitor of the building: "Closin' time in five minutes, Miss."
Two women: "Oh, what's he putting out the lights for? I haven't found a
book yet!"
MULCH
MULCH
Toward spring the books on gardening begin to come into the library,
and I look them over with fresh enthusiasm. Mrs. Bunkum is no longer my
favorite author in this field, but her sister writers are very dear to
my heart.
There is Mrs. Reginald Creasus. I seize her latest volume with the
eagerness of a child. I like to see the pictures of the new marble
bench which she has imported from Pompeii and set up at the end of the
Rose Walk. Then she usually has a new sculptured group--a fountain, or
some other little trifle by Rodin or St. Gaudens, which looks so well
amidst the Japanese iris.
After gazing at these illustrations for a while, I go home and observe
the red woodshed, and I declare it looks altogether different. It is
wonderful how discontented with your lot you can get by reading Mrs.
Creasus's books on gardening. Sometimes I think that I am making a
mistake in voting the Republican ticket, year after year. Mr. Debs may
be right, after all.
This year Mrs. Creasus calls her volume "The Simple Garden." From it I
gathered that anyone who knows anything at all will not pass the summer
without an Abyssinian hibiscus unfolding its lovely blooms somewhere
on the place. They are absolutely necessary, in fact. You have to
be careful with them--when you plant them, that is. The fertilizer
which they require has to be fetched from the island of Ascension. I
calculated that by going without food or clothes for two years I could
just about buy and support one of them.
I wish Mrs. Creasus would write a book about the complicated garden. I
should like to see it.
Just as I had bought a garden hose, along came Mrs. Creasus's book,
remarking casually that it is well to have the whole garden laid
out with underground water-pipes, placed at least six feet below
the surface, to avoid frost. Two or three private reservoirs are,
of course, an essential. I wonder what Mrs. Creasus keeps in these
reservoirs. I suppose it is champagne, but I wouldn't like to ask.
Scotch gardeners are going out, she says. The Chinese are the only
kind, although they demand--and get--forty to fifty dollars more per
month than the others. I made a note to employ no more Scotchmen, and
then I looked to see what she had to say about sweet-peas.
She was ever so enthusiastic about them. No family should be without
sweet-peas, she said. You dig a trench, and you put in four or five
different kinds of dressing, separated by layers of earth, and then you
plant the peas, and as fast as they come up you keep discouraging them
by putting more earth and things on top, and then you build a trellis
for them to run on, sinking the posts not less than four feet, and
there you are.
Only--you must mulch them.
Mulch! That struck me as a pleasant word. It had a nice squshy sound
about it. I thought it would be so nice, on hot evenings, to go around
mulching and mulching.
I went to the dictionary to look it up and find out what it meant,
but just at that minute General Bumpus came into my office. He was
interested to see Mrs. Creasus's book lying open on my desk--he is
president of the library board, and he is another gardening enthusiast.
"Going to have some sweet-peas?" he asked, observing the picture.
"Yes," I replied, "I thought I would."
"Well," he said, "that's all right. Only you must mulch them good and
plenty."
"Is that necessary?" I inquired, looking him straight in the eye.
"Oh, yes--absolutely."
Before we could say anything more about it, someone came in to tell
the general that Mrs. Bumpus said the horses were uneasy, and that she
wished he would come out. He went away, and then Miss Davis came to
get me--there was a man in the reading-room, who wanted me to give
him permission to break some rule or other. So I forgot all about the
sweet-peas until I was on my way home. Then I stepped in at the seed
shop to get the peas.
Philip Morris was there, buying a lawn-mower. He had paid for it, and
was starting toward the door, when he saw me.
"Hullo! Buying sweet-peas?"
"Yes. Have you ever raised any?"
"Tried to. One year they didn't come up at all, and another year the
cut-worms got 'em, and another they just sort of sickened and died. But
I didn't mulch 'em--that was the trouble."
"Well, why _didn't_ you mulch 'em?"
"Why, I would have, but--George! that's my car! Good-night!"
And he rushed out.
I did not like to display my ignorance before the dealer, so I merely
took the peas and started up the street with them. Inside of two
minutes I met Miss Abernathy. She has a marvelous flower-garden. I
stopped her and told her of my purchase.
"Oh, you're going to have sweet-peas! I envy you. I've never been very
successful with them."
"What happened to them?"
"I don't know. They seemed to get disappointed--they need very rich
soil."
"Maybe," I suggested tentatively, "you didn't mulch 'em."
"Oh, that doesn't make any difference."
"Doesn't it?"
"Not a bit."
And she bade me good evening, and passed on.
When I reached home and had eaten dinner, I told Jane that I was going
to plant some sweet-peas. I described the process to her. She was very
much interested, and offered to help. I dug the trench and put in the
peas. I thought some bushes might do instead of Mrs. Creasus's trellis.
"Now," I said, "all they need is to be mulched."
"To be what?" asked Jane.
"Mulched. You always have to mulch sweet-peas; that is, Mrs. Creasus
and General Bumpus, and Philip Morris say so, but Miss Abernathy thinks
not."
"How do you do it?"
"Jane, do you mean to say that you do not know how to mulch?"
"Of course I don't. How do you do it?"
I felt in my pocket.
"Can't you roll me a cigarette? There's some paper and tobacco in the
house--on my desk."
Jane went dutifully away, and when she returned, I lighted the
cigarette.
"There," I said, "they're all mulched--I did it with this hoe."
"Is _that_ what it means?"
* * * * *
All this happened in April, and now it is August, and the sweet-peas
still maintain a somewhat sullen appearance. I wonder if Miss Abernathy
was right, after all. Perhaps I did wrong to mulch them,--at least, so
savagely.
A BOOKMAN'S ARMORY
A BOOKMAN'S ARMORY
Mr. Anthony Gooch, brother of the well-known librarian of East Caraway,
owns one of the choicest private libraries it has ever been my good
luck to see. I spent an evening with him recently and inspected his
books. Mr. Anthony Gooch was highly amused at the account of his
brother's literary zoölogical annex, which I wrote for the "Boston
Transcript."
"Percival has tacked that barn on his library," he said, "and filled
it with all those absurd animals--not one-half of which are genuine.
Poor Percy! The dealers have pulled his leg unmercifully. And he spends
all his evenings and holidays shoveling hay to those preposterous
elephants, and wandering around in that menagerie--I'm afraid the old
fellow is getting dotty. Why, what do you think he told me last week?"
I had not the least idea, and I said so.
"Why, he is negotiating with a London dealer for the oysters mentioned
in 'The Walrus and the Carpenter'! You remember them, of course?"
And Mr. Gooch, leaning back in his chair and waving the stem of his
long pipe in time with the beat of Lewis Carroll's exquisite verses,
repeated:
"'But four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat--
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn't any feet.
"'Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four,--'
"I told him that he was being cheated, for the poem distinctly states
(see stanza 18, lines 5 and 6) that the Walrus and the Carpenter ate
all the oysters. But he replied that perhaps these were some of the
Elder Oysters, for in the poem it says:
"'The eldest Oyster looked at him,
But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head--
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.'"
"It is useless to argue with him," continued Mr. Anthony Gooch, "and if
his trustees will let him spend the money, I suppose I ought not mind.
Still I do hate to think of the name of Gooch being connected with a
fraudulent collection."
I agreed that it was distressing, and remarked that I thought it
curious that one brother should be a collector and the other have
no interest in that kind of hobby. For Anthony Gooch's library is
remarkably free from all items that appeal merely to the bibliomaniac.
His books are beautiful, but they are to be read, and Mr. Gooch has
read them. He owns no unopened copies, nor any such nonsense. My host
smiled.
"Well, of course I do not go in for fakes, and I certainly do not care
to act as keeper to a lot of crocodiles, and flounders, and jackdaws,
and other livestock, as Percival does. Still, my little museum--you
have never seen it? Come this way."
Mr. Gooch led me to a door at the right of the fireplace, between two
bookcases. He opened the door, turned on the lights, and we entered
a small room. I exclaimed with astonishment, for we stood in an
arsenal--or, rather, an armory.
The walls were lined with weapons. Stands of arms were in the corners,
and a number of flags and banners hung from the ceiling. The weapons
were of every variety and period. Old spears and battleaxes, stone
hatchets, bows and sheaves of arrows--these were mingled with modern
rifles, automatic pistols, and bowie knives. Daggers of a dozen
patterns hung on the walls or lay on the tables. One or two ancient
pieces of artillery--culverins and drakes, I fancy--were in a corner,
together with a quick-firing gun from some modern man-of-war.
"These," said Mr. Gooch, looking me in the eye, very seriously, "are
absolutely genuine--every one of them. And not one but has figured in
some scene in literature. I have spent fifteen years in assembling
this collection, and--well, I prize it highly. That is one of the
reasons why it disgusts me to have my brother Percival waste his time
over that ridiculous aggregation of animals, so many of which are sheer
frauds. It tends to bring my collection of weapons under suspicion,
and I do not need to say that I cannot bear to have anyone doubt the
absolute authenticity of my treasures. If you feel any doubt about them
I wish you would say so now, and we will go back to the library."
But I told Mr. Gooch that suspicion was a trait foreign to my nature.
"Long ago," I said, "I took the advice of the White Queen in 'Through
the Looking-Glass,' and practised believing impossible things for half
an hour every day. Like her, sometimes I've believed as many as six
impossible things before breakfast."
"Then I have no hesitation in showing you my collection," remarked Mr.
Gooch. "Look at this sword--it is the envenomed rapier of Laertes,
dipped in an unction which he bought of a mountebank. Be careful not to
touch the point--I think some of the poison lingers on it now, and it
has already been responsible for two--no, three deaths. You remember
that Hamlet used it to kill the king, after it had wounded both him and
Laertes in the fencing bout."
I put down the rapier gingerly, and inquired about a flint-lock pistol
which lay on the table near at hand. Mr. Gooch told me that it was the
weapon owned by Madame Defarge, through which she came to her death.
"And what was probably worse, from her point of view," added the
collector, "she was thus unavoidably detained from her front seat at
the guillotine, on that day of days, when she hoped to see the Marquis
of Evremond lose his life. Someone has said that the whole French
Revolution seemed to have been brought about so Madame Defarge might
have her revenge--so, of course, the blow was a severe one to her. This
pistol exploded while she was struggling with Miss Pross in the empty
house, and the explosion killed her and deafened Miss Pross. Even then
the tumbril was carrying Sydney Carton to the guillotine."
"Your relics are rather gruesome," I observed.
"I pride myself that there are more horrors comprised in this small
room than in most of its size," said Mr. Gooch. "But they are not
all connected with tragedies. Here, for instance, is the mace which
the White Knight used in his battle with the Red Knight, and I have
also--up there on the wall--his sword--made of a lath, you see. Still,
weapons are naturally instruments of crime, or, at any rate, of
violence, and some very notorious murders are commemorated here."
He picked up a long, blood-stained knife.
"With this," he said, "Markheim killed the shopkeeper. One of the
very finest murders in literature, in my opinion. You recall the
circumstances: Christmas Day, the two men alone in the shop--"
"I do indeed," I replied, willing to show my familiarity with
Stevenson's wonderful tale, "and I remember the terrible moments that
followed--the murderer alone with the dead man, the silence, the
ticking of the clocks, the man who knocked on the outside door, and all
the rest of it."
Mr. Gooch replaced the knife and drew my attention to a shield and
a long spear which hung on the wall. These, he said, belonged to a
"Fuzzy-Wuzzy"--they were a "coffin-'eaded shield an' shovel-spear," the
implements for a 'appy day with Fuzzy on the rush. Near them hung an
old flint-lock musket. It was a perfect wreck--the stock worm-eaten,
and the lock and barrel covered with rust.
"It was never used to kill anything more dangerous than a squirrel or a
wild goose," said my host; "yet its original owner was nearly arrested
for carrying it on one occasion. Surely you can guess who that owner
was."
I guessed Rip Van Winkle, and Mr. Gooch said that was correct.
"It doesn't improve a musket or a man to lie out on the mountains day
and night for twenty years," he added.
Then he showed me Othello's sword of Spain, "of the ice-brook's
temper," with which the Moor smote himself, as once in Aleppo he smote
a malignant and a turban'd Turk.
"This box," said Mr. Gooch, "contains one of my greatest
prizes--nothing less than the dagger which led Macbeth to Duncan's
sleeping chamber--"
"But it was an 'air-drawn dagger'--it was imaginary," I began.
And then the old story about the man and his mongoose recurred to me,
and I stopped. I looked in the box, and, of course, found it empty.
The collector of weapons laughed and seemed greatly delighted with
his little joke. I judged that he was accustomed to play it on every
visitor.
"What is this bottle? It seems out of place here."
"Not at all," replied Mr. Gooch; "it is Falstaff's pocket pistol. This
cane once belonged to Mr. Wackford Squeers, but it was used on only one
occasion, and then against the owner himself, by Nicholas Nickleby."
He then showed me a sword broken near the hilt.
"It was Henry Esmond's. He broke it when he denied the Prince, and
heaped reproaches upon him for going dangling after Beatrix, when
the opportunity of his life was at hand. Little the Prince cared!
He deigned, a few moments later, to cross swords with Esmond, and
Frank used this broken blade to strike up their weapons. It was such
a condescension! Esmond knew the Prince to be worthless, and he had
just been insulting him in every way he could think. But he was of the
sacred blood of the Stuarts--enough for any Jacobite. You will find a
full account of it in the novel, if you care to refresh your memory.
This is a cigar-cutter's knife--a curious weapon, isn't it? Carmen used
it to slash the face of the woman she quarreled with--she cut a neat
St. Andrew's cross on her enemy's cheek. That led to her subsequent
arrest by Don José, the escape at which he connived, and all the train
of events which followed. This is the knife that Don José killed Carmen
with."
"How did you get all these weapons?" I asked him.