I began to see something of the little man’s idealism in his work. He was a kind of traveling missionary in his way. A hefty talker, too. His eyes were twinkling now and I could see him warming up.
“Lord!” he said, “when you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue—you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night—there’s all heaven and earth in a book, a real book I mean. Jiminy! If I were the baker or the butcher or the broom huckster, people would run to the gate when I came by—just waiting for my stuff. And here I go loaded with everlasting salvation—yes, ma’am, salvation for their little, stunted minds—and it’s hard to make ’em see it. That’s what makes it worth while—I’m doing something that nobody else from Nazareth, Maine, to Walla Walla, Washington, has ever thought of. It’s a new field, but by the bones of Whitman it’s worthwhile. That’s what this country needs—more books!”
He laughed at his own vehemence. “Do you know, it’s comical,” he said. “Even the publishers, the fellows that print the books, can’t see what I’m doing for them. Some of ’em refuse me credit because I sell their books for what they’re worth instead of for the prices they mark on them. They write me letters about price-maintenance—and I write back about merit-maintenance. Publish a good book and I’ll get a good price for it, say I! Sometimes I think the publishers know less about books than anyone else! I guess that’s natural, though. Most school teachers don’t know much about children.”
“The best of it is,” he went on, “I have such a darn good time. Peg and Bock (that’s the dog) and I go loafing along the road on a warm summer day, and by and by we’ll fetch up alongside some boardinghouse and there are the boarders all rocking off their lunch on the veranda. Most of ’em bored to death—nothing good to read, nothing to do but sit and watch the flies buzzing in the sun and the chickens rubbing up and down in the dust. First thing you know I’ll sell half a dozen books that put the love of life into them, and they don’t forget Parnassus in a hurry. Take O. Henry, for instance—there isn’t anybody so doggone sleepy that he won’t enjoy that man’s stories. He understood life, you bet, and he could write it down with all its little twists. I’ve spent an evening reading O. Henry and Wilkie Collins to people and had them buy out all their books I had and clamour for more.”
“What do you do in winter?” I asked—a practical question, as most of mine are.
“That depends on where I am when bad weather sets in,” said Mr. Mifflin. “Two winters I was down south and managed to keep Parnassus going all through the season. Otherwise, I just lay up wherever I am. I’ve never found it hard to get lodging for Peg and a job for myself, if I had to have them. Last winter I worked in a bookstore in Boston. Winter before, I was in a country drugstore down in Pennsylvania. Winter before that, I tutored a couple of small boys in English literature. Winter before that, I was a steward on a steamer; you see how it goes. I’ve had a fairly miscellaneous experience. As far as I can see, a man who’s fond of books never need starve! But this winter I’m planning to live with my brother in Brooklyn and slog away at my book. Lord, how I’ve pondered over that thing! Long summer afternoons I’ve sat here, jogging along in the dust, thinking it out until it seemed as if my forehead would burst. You see, my idea is that the common people—in the country, that is—never have had any chance to get hold of books, and never have had anyone to explain what books can mean. It’s all right for college presidents to draw up their five-foot shelves of great literature, and for the publishers to advertise sets of their Linoleum Classics, but what the people need is the good, homely, honest stuff—something that’ll stick to their ribs—make them laugh and tremble and feel sick to think of the littleness of this popcorn ball spinning in space without ever even getting a hot box! And something that’ll spur ’em on to keep the hearth well swept and the wood pile split into kindling and the dishes washed and dried and put away. Anyone who can get the country people to read something worth while is doing his nation a real service. And that’s what this caravan of culture aspires to … You must be weary of this harangue! Does the Sage of Redfield ever run on like that?”
“Not to me,” I said. “He’s known me so long that he thinks of me as a kind of animated bread-baking and cake-mixing machine. I guess he doesn’t put much stock in my judgment in literary matters. But he puts his digestion in my hands without reserve. There’s Mason’s farm over there. I guess we’d better sell them some books—hadn’t we? Just for a starter.”
We turned into the lane that runs up to the Mason farmhouse. Bock trotted on ahead—very stiff on his legs and his tail gently wagging—to interview the mastiff, and Mrs. Mason who was sitting on the porch, peeling potatoes, laid down the pan. She’s a big, buxom woman with jolly, brown eyes like a cow’s.
“For heaven’s sake, Miss McGill,” she called out in a cheerful voice—“I’m glad to see you. Got a lift, did you?”
She hadn’t really noticed the inscription on Parnassus, and thought it was a regular huckster’s wagon.
“Well, Mrs. Mason,” I said, “I’ve gone into the book business. This is
