Parnassus on Wheels (6 page)

"Of course Brooklyn is a dingy place, really," he admitted. "But to
me it symbolizes a state of mind, whereas New York is only a state
of pocket. You see I was a boy in Brooklyn: it still trails clouds
of glory for me. When I get back there and start work on my book
I shall be as happy as Nebuchadnezzar when he left off grass and
returned to tea and crumpets. 'Literature Among the Farmers' I'm
going to call it, but that's a poor title. I'd like to read you some
of my notes for it."

I'm afraid I poorly concealed a yawn. As a matter of fact I was
sleepy, and it was growing chilly.

"Tell me first," I said, "where in the world are we, and what time
is it?"

He pulled out a turnip watch. "It's nine o'clock," he said, "and
we're about two miles from Shelby, I should reckon. Perhaps we'd
better get along. They told me in Greenbriar that the Grand Central
Hotel in Shelby is a good place to stop at. That's why I wasn't
anxious to get there. It sounds so darned like New York."

He bundled the cooking utensils back into Parnassus, hitched Peg up
again, and tied Bock to the stern of the van. Then he insisted on
giving me the two dollars and eighty cents he had collected in
Greenbriar. I was really too sleepy to protest, and of course it was
mine anyway. We creaked off along the dark and silent road between
the pine woods. I think he talked fluently about his pilgrim's
progress among the farmers of a dozen states, but (to be honest)
I fell asleep in my corner of the seat. I woke up when we halted
before the one hotel in Shelby—a plain, unimposing country inn,
despite its absurd name. I left him to put Parnassus and the animals
away for the night, while I engaged a room. Just as I got my key
from the clerk he came into the dingy lobby.

"Well, Mr. Mifflin," I said. "Shall I see you in the morning?"

"I had intended to push on to Port Vigor to-night," he said, "but as
it's fully eight miles (they tell me), I guess I'll bivouac here. I
think I'll go into the smoking-room and put them wise to some good
books. We won't say good-bye till to-morrow."

My room was pleasant and clean (fairly so). I took my suit case up
with me and had a hot bath. As I fell asleep I heard a shrill voice
ascending from below, punctuated with masculine laughter. The
Pilgrim was making more converts!

I had a curious feeling of bewilderment when I woke the next
morning. The bare room with the red-and-blue rag carpet and green
china toilet set was utterly strange. In the hall outside I heard a
clock strike. "Heavens!" I thought, "I've overslept myself nearly
two hours. What on earth will Andrew do for breakfast?" And then
as I ran to close the window I saw the blue Parnassus with its
startling red letters standing in the yard. Instantly I remembered.
And discreetly peeping from behind the window shade I saw that the
Professor, armed with a tin of paint, was blotting out his own name
on the side of the van, evidently intending to substitute mine. That
was something I had not thought of. However, I might as well make
the best of it.

I dressed promptly, repacked my bag, and hurried downstairs for
breakfast. The long table was nearly empty, but one or two men
sitting at the other end eyed me curiously. Through the window I
could see my name in large, red letters, growing on the side of the
van, as the Professor diligently wielded his brush. And when I had
finished my coffee and beans and bacon I noticed with some amusement
that the Professor had painted out the line about Shakespeare,
Charles Lamb, and so on, and had substituted new lettering. The
sign now read:

H. MCGILL'S
TRAVELLING PARNASSUS
GOOD BOOKS FOR SALE
COOK BOOKS A SPECIALTY
INQUIRE WITHIN

Evidently he distrusted my familiarity with the classics.

I paid my bill at the desk, and was careful also to pay the charge
for putting up the horse and van overnight. Then I strolled into the
stable yard, where I found Mr. Mifflin regarding his handiwork with
satisfaction. He had freshened up all the red lettering, which shone
brilliantly in the morning sunlight.

"Good-morning," I said.

He returned it.

"There!" he cried—"Parnassus is really yours! All the world lies
before you! And I've got some more money for you. I sold some books
last night. I persuaded the hotel keeper to buy several volumes of
O. Henry for his smoking-room shelf, and I sold the 'Waldorf Cook
Book' to the cook. My! wasn't her coffee awful? I hope the cook book
will better it."

He handed me two limp bills and a handful of small change. I took it
gravely and put it in my purse. This was really not bad—more than
ten dollars in less than twenty-four hours.

"Parnassus seems to be a gold mine," I said.

"Which way do you think you'll go?" he asked.

"Well, as I know you want to get to Port Vigor I might just as well
give you a lift that way," I answered.

"Good! I was hoping you'd say that. They tell me the stage for Port
Vigor doesn't leave till noon, and I think it would kill me to hang
around here all morning with no books to sell. Once I get on the
train I'll be all right."

Bock was tied up in a corner of the yard, under the side door of the
hotel. I went over to release him while the Professor was putting
Peg into harness. As I stooped to unfasten the chain from his collar
I heard some one talking through the telephone. The hotel lobby was
just over my head, and the window was open.

"What did you say?"

"—- —- —- —-"

"McGill? Yes, sir, registered here last night. She's here now."

I didn't wait to hear more. Unfastening Bock, I hurried to tell
Mifflin. His eyes sparkled.

"The Sage is evidently on our spoor," he chuckled. "Well, let's be
off. I don't see what he can do even if he overhauls us."

The clerk was calling me from the window: "Miss McGill, your
brother's on the wire and asks to speak to you."

"Tell him I'm busy," I retorted, and climbed onto the seat. It was
not a diplomatic reply, I'm afraid, but I was too exhilarated by
the keen morning and the spirit of adventure to stop to think of a
better answer. Mifflin clucked to Peg, and off we went.

The road from Shelby to Port Vigor runs across the broad hill slopes
that trend toward the Sound; and below, on our left, the river lay
glittering in the valley. It was a perfect landscape: the woods
were all bronze and gold; the clouds were snowy white and seemed
like heavenly washing hung out to air; the sun was warm and swam
gloriously in an arch of superb blue. My heart was uplifted indeed.
For the first time, I think, I knew how Andrew feels on those
vagabond trips of his. Why had all this been hidden from me before?
Why had the transcendent mystery of baking bread blinded me so long
to the mysteries of sun and sky and wind in the trees? We passed a
white farmhouse close to the road. By the gate sat the farmer on a
log, whittling a stick and smoking his pipe. Through the kitchen
window I could see a woman blacking the stove. I wanted to cry out:
"Oh, silly woman! Leave your stove, your pots and pans and chores,
even if only for one day! Come out and see the sun in the sky and
the river in the distance!" The farmer looked blankly at Parnassus
as we passed, and then I remembered my mission as a distributor
of literature. Mifflin was sitting with one foot on his bulging
portmanteau, watching the tree tops rocking in the cool wind. He
seemed to be far away in a morning muse. I threw down the reins and
accosted the farmer.

"Good-morning, friend."

"Morning to you, ma'am," he said firmly.

"I'm selling books," I said. "I wonder if there isn't something you
need?"

"Thanks, lady," he said, "but I bought a mort o' books last year an'
I don't believe I'll ever read 'em this side Jordan. A whole set o'
'Funereal Orations' what an agent left on me at a dollar a month. I
could qualify as earnest mourner at any death-bed merrymakin' now, I
reckon."

"You need some books to teach you how to live, not how to die," I
said. "How about your wife—wouldn't she enjoy a good book? How
about some fairy tales for the children?"

"Bless me," he said, "I ain't got a wife. I never was a daring man,
and I guess I'll confine my melancholy pleasures to them funereal
orators for some time yet."

"Well, now, hold on a minute!" I exclaimed. "I've got just the thing
for you." I had been looking over the shelves with some care, and
remembered seeing a copy of "Reveries of a Bachelor." I clambered
down, raised the flap of the van (it gave me quite a thrill to do it
myself for the first time), and hunted out the book. I looked inside
the cover and saw the letters
n m
in Mifflin's neat hand.

"Here you are," I said. "I'll sell you that for thirty cents."

"Thank you kindly, ma'am," he said courteously. "But honestly I
wouldn't know what to do with it. I am working through a government
report on scabworm and fungus, and I sandwich in a little of them
funereal speeches with it, and honestly that's about all the readin'
I figure on. That an' the Port Vigor Clarion."

I saw that he really meant it, so I climbed back on the seat. I
would have liked to talk to the woman in the kitchen who was peering
out of the window in amazement, but I decided it would be better to
jog on and not waste time. The farmer and I exchanged friendly
salutes, and Parnassus rumbled on.

The morning was so lovely that I did not feel talkative, and as the
Professor seemed pensive I said nothing. But as Peg plodded slowly
up a gentle slope he suddenly pulled a book out of his pocket and
began to read aloud. I was watching the river, and did not turn
round, but listened carefully:

"Rolling cloud, volleying wind, and wheeling sun—the blue
tabernacle of sky, the circle of the seasons, the sparkling
multitude of the stars—all these are surely part of one rhythmic,
mystic whole. Everywhere, as we go about our small business, we
must discern the fingerprints of the gigantic plan, the orderly and
inexorable routine with neither beginning nor end, in which death
is but a preface to another birth, and birth the certain forerunner
of another death. We human beings are as powerless to conceive the
motive or the moral of it all as the dog is powerless to understand
the reasoning in his master's mind. He sees the master's acts,
benevolent or malevolent, and wags his tail. But the master's acts
are always inscrutable to him. And so with us.

"And therefore, brethren, let us take the road with a light heart.
Let us praise the bronze of the leaves and the crash of the surf
while we have eyes to see and ears to hear. An honest amazement at
the unspeakable beauties of the world is a comely posture for the
scholar. Let us all be scholars under Mother Nature's eye.

"How do you like that?" he asked.

"A little heavy, but very good," I said. "There's nothing in it
about the transcendent mystery of baking bread!"

He looked rather blank.

"Do you know who wrote it?" he asked.

I made a valiant effort to summon some of my governessly
recollections of literature.

"I give it up," I said feebly. "Is it Carlyle?"

"That is by Andrew McGill," he said. "One of his cosmic passages
which are now beginning to be reprinted in schoolbooks. The blighter
writes well."

I began to be uneasy lest I should be put through a literary
catechism, so I said nothing, but roused Peg into an amble. To tell
the truth I was more curious to hear the Professor talk about his
own book than about Andrew's. I had always carefully refrained from
reading Andrew's stuff, as I thought it rather dull.

"As for me," said the Professor, "I have no facility at the grand
style. I have always suffered from the feeling that it's better to
read a good book than to write a poor one; and I've done so much
mixed reading in my time that my mind is full of echoes and voices
of better men. But this book I'm worrying about now really deserves
to be written, I think, for it has a message of its own."

He gazed almost wistfully across the sunny valley. In the distance
I caught a glint of the Sound. The Professor's faded tweed cap was
slanted over one ear, and his stubby little beard shone bright red
in the sun. I kept a sympathetic silence. He seemed pleased to have
some one to talk to about his precious book.

"The world is full of great writers about literature," he said,
"but they're all selfish and aristocratic. Addison, Lamb, Hazlitt,
Emerson, Lowell—take any one you choose—they all conceive the love
of books as a rare and perfect mystery for the few—a thing of the
secluded study where they can sit alone at night with a candle,
and a cigar, and a glass of port on the table and a spaniel on the
hearthrug. What I say is, who has ever gone out into high roads and
hedges to bring literature home to the plain man? To bring it home
to his business and bosom, as somebody says? The farther into the
country you go, the fewer and worse books you find. I've spent
several years joggling around with this citadel of crime, and by
the bones of Ben Ezra I don't think I ever found a really good book
(except the Bible) at a farmhouse yet, unless I put it there myself.
The mandarins of culture—what do they do to teach the common folk
to read? It's no good writing down lists of books for farmers and
compiling five-foot shelves; you've got to go out and visit the
people yourself—take the books to them, talk to the teachers and
bully the editors of country newspapers and farm magazines and tell
the children stories—and then little by little you begin to get
good books circulating in the veins of the nation. It's a great
work, mind you! It's like carrying the Holy Grail to some of these
way-back farmhouses. And I wish there were a thousand Parnassuses
instead of this one. I'd never give it up if it weren't for my book:
but I want to write about my ideas in the hope of stirring other
folk up, too. I don't suppose there's a publisher in the country
will take it!"