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