Part 8

"Come out from in front of that glass door," the boy shouted, "and let me have a shot at yer! Aw, yer don't dare to! Yer're scared to!"

And Mr. Fernald, not being a true sportsman, had to admit to himself that he was scared to. He gazed at the boy a moment or two, and then went slowly inside. The boy set up a derisive yell, showing that the victory remained with the Child of Darkness, as it frequently does.

* * * * *

His experience of one evening in the settlement library made Fernald anxious to see more of the work. He returned on the following Thursday, but a little later than the time of his first visit. It was half-past seven, and the settlement was in full swing. Loud whoops and yells, combined with noise as of a herd of buffaloes, indicated that a basketball game was in progress in the basement gymnasium. The rumble and crash of a bowling alley were partly drowned by the cries from a back room, where various minor games were being enjoyed. The two library assistants, Miss Grant and Miss French, were dispensing books in the room near the entrance.

Fernald had just taken his coat off when Mr. Flaherty, the janitor, beckoned him to the door of the library by the nonchalant method of standing in the door and throwing his chin in the air with a series of short jerks. When Fernald went across the room to find what was wanted, Mr. Flaherty drew him mysteriously into the passage.

"Say, I guess yer got into some trouble here last week, didn't yer?"

"Trouble? No; I don't remember any trouble."

"Didn't yer put a feller out, or somethin'?"

"Oh, yes; I forgot. I did put a boy out. What's the matter--is he back again?"

"Him? No. The old man's here, though. Been waitin' for an hour. Says he's going to have the law on yer."

Fernald became interested.

"Where is he?" he inquired.

"He's in here. Been settin' by the stove, and now he's gone to sleep. I'll send him out to yer. But don't yer worry about no law. Godfrey! I've had more'n forty of 'em goin' to have the law on me."

"I'm not worried," Fernald assured him, and the other departed in search of the wrathful parent.

This person soon appeared in the form of a short, stout man with a straggly yellow moustache and a very red face. He had enormously long arms, so that his hat, which he carried in one hand, hung nearly on a level with his ankles. He was blinking at the lights, and was plainly more than half asleep. Also it was evident that the wrath had gone out of him. He looked inquiringly at Fernald, as though the librarian, not he, were seeking the interview. He continued to blink, until at last Fernald had to begin the conversation.

"You wanted to see me? Something about your son?"

"Oh, yes. Say, he come home, an' he says you put him outer here."

"Yes, I did," replied Fernald; "that was a week ago to-night. And if I had been here two weeks ago, and had had a cow-hide, I would have given him a good licking. He needs one."

The man looked greatly astonished, but said nothing, so the librarian continued:

"I put him out last week for banging three little boys over the heads with a magazine. I had been watching him for ten minutes. He doesn't come in here to play in the gymnasium--which is what he needs--nor to read. He comes into the library every week just to raise the devil. This was the first time he had ever touched a book--when he picked up one to lambaste these boys with it. And two weeks ago he stuck his foot out when one of the women who had charge of the library was passing the table, and she tripped and fell flat, with an armful of books. If he wants to come back and behave, he may, but he can't come otherwise."

"He says you choked him," remarked the man.

"He lies," said Fernald. "I took him by the collar and put him out--that's all. He was quite able, as soon as I let him go, to run into the street and pick up half a dozen lumps of ice, and swear at me, and dare me to come out from in front of the glass door, so he could have the pleasure of breaking my face without any risk of breaking the glass."

"Oh, well," the man returned, "it's all right then. As soon as I see you, I knew it was all right."

Fernald was somewhat mystified at the impression he had made. He was not especially tremendous physically, and although he came clad in the armor of righteousness on this particular occasion, he had no delusions about the effect that kind of armor is likely to have on a man of this sort. But the father of the boy went on to explain:

"Say, yer know, I didn't know but it was some of these here kids that had been pickin' on him. I wouldn't stand for that, yer know. But soon's I see you I knew it was all right. Say, he ain't got no business here, anyhow. I told him so. I don't want him to come. It ain't a fit place."

And the man departed, wishing the librarian good-night. Fernald was thoroughly resigned to the idea of the boy not coming any more, but he could not help smiling at the idea that it wasn't a fit place. Graham House, the pet charity of a large and prosperous church, had been described in the words that its officers might have used of some particularly obnoxious saloon or gambling joint. He imagined how the Rev. Alexander Lambeth, who came over once or twice a week to smile around the place, clerically--how he would look at hearing one of the residents of the neighborhood describe it as not "a fit place" for his son to visit in the evening.

Fernald went back into the library room. It was crowded with children, and the two librarians had their hands full. One of them was charging books at the desk; the other was making desperate endeavors to get the books in the cases in some sort of order, to find certain volumes which some of the children wished, to keep the children fairly quiet, and, in general, to regulate the discipline of the place.

There were no particularly ill-behaved youngsters--one or two who were pretending to look at the "picture papers" at the table, in reality were merely waiting for a chance to get into a scuffle, or in some other way to "put the liberry on the bum."

The children's room at the central library was a quieter place. It was in a much quieter part of the town; the impressive architecture (impressive to children, at least), spacious rooms, and other accessories produced a more typical "library atmosphere."

Here, the fact that their feet were on their native heath, the familiar 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.