Parnassus on Wheels, Christopher Morley [life changing books to read .TXT] 📗

audience of Whitman disciples in Camden, and wondered how the fuss ended. I imagined him in his beloved Brooklyn, strolling in Prospect Park and preaching to chance comers his gospel of good books. How different was his militant love of literature from Andrew’s quiet satisfaction. And yet how much they really had in common! It tickled me to think of Mifflin reading aloud from Happiness and Hayseed, and praising it so highly, just before fighting with the author and giving him a bloody nose. I remembered that I should have spoken to Andrew about feeding the hens, and reminded him of his winter undergarments. What helpless creatures men are, after all!

I finished mending the cap in high good humour.

I had hardly laid it down when I heard a quick step in the road behind me, and looking back, there was Mifflin, striding along with his bald pate covered with little beads of moisture. Bock trotted sedately at his heels. I halted Peg.

“Well,” I said, “what’s happened to Andrew?”

The Professor still looked a bit shamefaced. “The Sage is a tenacious person,” he said. “We argued for a bit without much satisfaction. As a matter of fact we nearly came to blows again, only he got another waft of goldenrod, which started him sneezing, and then his nose began bleeding once more. He is convinced that I’m a ruffian, and said so in excellent prose. Honestly, I admire him a great deal. I believe he intends to have the law on me. I gave him my Brooklyn address in case he wants to follow the matter up. I think I rather pleased him by asking him to autograph Happiness and Hayseed for me. I found it lying in the ditch.”

“Well,” I said, “you two are certainly a great pair of lunatics. You both ought to go on the stage. You’d be as good as Weber and Fields. Did he give you the autograph?”

He pulled the book out of his pocket. Scrawled in it in pencil were the words “I have shed blood for Mr. Mifflin. Andrew McGill.”

“I shall read the book again with renewed interest,” said Mifflin. “May I get in?”

“By all means,” I said. “There’s Port Vigor in front of us.”

He put on his cap, noticed that it seemed to feel different, pulled it off again, and then looked at me in a quaint embarrassment.

“You are very good, Miss McGill,” he said.

“Where did Andrew go?” I asked.

“He set off for Shelby on foot,” Mifflin answered. “He has a grand stride for walking. He suddenly remembered that he had left some potatoes boiling on the fire yesterday afternoon, and said he must get back to attend to them. He said he hoped you would send him a postal card now and then. Do you know, he reminds me of Thoreau more than ever.”

“He reminds me of a burnt cooking pot,” I said. “I suppose all my kitchenware will be in a horrible state when I get home.”

VIII

Port Vigor is a fascinating old town. It is built on a point jutting out into the Sound. Dimly in the distance one can see the end of Long Island, which Mifflin viewed with sparkling eyes. It seemed to bring him closer to Brooklyn. Several schooners were beating along the estuary in the fresh wind, and there was a delicious tang of brine in the air. We drove direct to the station where the Professor alighted. We took his portmanteau, and shut Bock inside the van to prevent the dog from following him. Then there was an awkward pause as he stood by the wheel with his cap off.

“Well, Miss McGill,” he said, “there’s an express train at five o’clock, so with luck I shall be in Brooklyn tonight. My brother’s address is 600 Abingdon Avenue, and I hope when you’re sending a card to the Sage you’ll let me have one, too. I shall be very homesick for Parnassus, but I’d rather leave her with you than with anyone I know.”

He bowed very low, and before I could say a word he blew his nose violently and hurried away. I saw him carrying his valise into the station, and then he disappeared. I suppose that living alone with Andrew for all these years has unused me to the eccentricities of other people, but surely this little Redbeard was one of the strangest beings one would be likely to meet.

Bock yowled dismally inside, and I did not feel in any mood to sell books in Port Vigor. I drove back into the town and stopped at a tea shop for a pot of tea and some toast. When I came out I found that quite a little crowd had collected, partly owing to the strange appearance of Parnassus and partly because of Bock’s plaintive cries from within. Most of the onlookers seemed to suspect the outfit of being part of a travelling menagerie, so almost against my will I put up the flaps, tied Bock to the tail of the wagon, and began to answer the humourous questions of the crowd. Two or three bought books without any urging, and it was some time before I could get away. Finally I shut up the van and pulled off, as I was afraid of seeing someone I knew. As I turned into the Woodbridge Road I heard the whistle of the five o’clock train to New York.

The twenty miles of road between Sabine Farm and Port Vigor was all familiar to me, but now to my relief I struck into a region that I had never visited. On my occasional trips to Boston I had always taken the train at Port Vigor, so the country roads were unknown. But I had set out on the Woodbridge way because Mifflin had spoken of a farmer, Mr. Pratt, who lived about four miles out of Port Vigor, on the Woodbridge Road. Apparently Mr. Pratt had several times bought books from the Professor and