Part 24 (1/2)

”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 ap.r.o.n, and came into the hall.

”Jarby's fixed it,” he said, and rapidly related what he had done, with ill.u.s.trations in the way of quotations from the t.i.tles and sub-t.i.tles 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 courts.h.i.+p 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-st.i.tch 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 sh.e.l.l 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, Courts.h.i.+p--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.