Kilo. Part 7

He's been here all day.'

"'I ain't hot,' I says, forgetting that my temperature was torrid plus glowing, 'but I'm mad to think that that boy which I hired to sell my book should pa.s.s himself off as my son, and then stay talking all day in one place, instead of selling books throughout the promiscuous neighborhood.'

"'Then,' she says, as if for the first time seeing light, 'that young man in their ain't no son of the author of this "Sin" book?'

"'Never; subsequent nor previous, nor wasn't, nor will be,' I solemnly made prevarication.

"'Well,' she says, 'he said he was when he come in; and me and ma didn't think it likely an author person would have his son out book-peddling, so we a.s.servated back that he wasn't; and him and ma has been having a high-grade talking match all day in the front parlor to convince each other otherwise than what they are convinced of.'

"'Him,' continued the lovely girl, 'says he'll sell ma a book BECAUSE he's the son of the author thereof, and ma says she'll buy a book if he owns up truthful that he ain't the son of the author thereof. She says that if she buys a book off of him when he's making false witness of having a talented dad she'll be encouraging lying, which she can't do, being a full-blood Baptist. So they've got a deadlock, and the jury is hung, and the plurality is equal and unbiased on both sides, and up to date n.o.body wins.'

"'Then,' I says, 'I don't sell no "Wage of Sin" do I?'

"'Not as no author if it,' she says. 'If you want to tackle us as a common book agent, you'll find us right in the market.'

"'Katie,' I says, 'call your ma out here a minute. If I can sell a copy of this volume I am willing to sell my birthmark for a mess of potash any day of the week.'

"'That,' she says, cheerful, 'is spoke like a financier and a gentleman.'

"With that she started for the front room, but just then the door swung open, and out came her ma and Sammy, tired with fatigue, but satisfied.

"'What!' says the young daughter, 'is the tie untied? Is the jawfest concluded?'

"'It is,' says the maternal ancestor of that girl, weak but happy. 'We talked seven miles and six furloughs, but I won. He has renounced his sin. He ain't no son of no author. I've boughten his book.'

"I gazed at Sammy with a moist, reproachful eye.

"'Sammy! Sammy!' I says, shaking my head, 'to think----'

"'Hush!' he says, 'don't say it. I ain't no Sammy. I ain't no Mills.

Them is not my name.'

"'Alas!' I says, mournful, 'am I then deceived since childhood's happy hours?'

"I see the respectable old lady p.r.i.c.king up her ears and getting ready for another season of conversation. Sammy likewise made the same observation, and he fended off the deadly blow.

"'Yes,' he says, 'I have deceived you. My name is----'

"He stopped and looked doubtful and perplexed, and scratched his ear with his forepaw.

"'My name is----' he says, and stops, and then he turns to the elderly female, and asks desperate: 'What in tunket did I say my name was?'

"'Hewlitt,' she says, 'Eliph' Hewlitt.'

"'Oh, yes!' says Sammy, 'that's it. I guess I'll just write that down, so as to have it handy. You know,' he says, looking at me, 'my memory's awful bad since I had the scarlet fever. It's terrible. Why, when I come in here I knowed I had SOMETHING to say about this book, and I tried to remember, and I seemed to remember that I was the son of the author who auth.o.r.ed it. I never come so near lying in my life. I'm all in a tremble over it to think how near to lying I was! An' I got the notion Eliph'

Hewlitt was the name of a horse.'

"'Ma,' says Katie, giving me a wicked smile, 'this here other young man has got a bad scarlet fever memory, too. HE'S come near to lying, likewise. You'd ought to speak a few words of helpfulness with him, too!'

"'Now, here,' I says, 'you pa.s.s that by, Katie. All that that I said was a novel I was thinking of writing out when I got my full growth, which I told you to pa.s.s the time away whiles this What's-his-name was busy. I never wrote nothing!'

"'Well,' she says, 'you don't look as if you had the sense to, so I guess you ain't lying now.'

"But ma lit into me, and spent two hours, steady talk, convincing me I wasn't W. P. Mills, although every time she said I wasn't I said so, too. The more I agreed that I wasn't the more she would fire up and take a fresh hold, and try to bear it home to me that I wasn't. There was never in the world such a long fight, with both sides saying the same thing. Ordinary persons couldn't have done it, but hat lady mother could, an' did, an' every now an' then she would dig into Sammy again.

An' all of it was right near to that enthusiastical stove. So at last she laid a couple of extra hard words against us an' we keeled over, as you might say, an' toppled out of the kitchen. We was dazed with language that was all words, an' when we come to the gate we was so stupefied that we climbed right over it, an' so weak that we fell down off the other side of it, an' Sammy all the time repeatin' 'Eliph'

Hewlitt,' like a man in a dream. By next day he was able to leave the hotel, an' he took the train, an' I ain't seen him until this day, so I guess he stuck right to that name, for fear he might meet the talkin'

lady again. I don't see how he could get the name out of his system when once Katie's ma had talked it in, anyway, for she was a great talker. I ought to know, for I went back an' chinned with Katie as soon as I got the daze out of my head, an' the long-come short-come of it was I married Katie.

"When Sammy comes back I want to ask him if he sold out all them 'Wage of Sin' books. I never sold but one, an' I didn't sell that--I gave it to Katie for a wedding present."

"You done right when you gave up the book agent business, Jim," said Pap Briggs. "There ought to be a license agin all of 'em."

CHAPTER VI. The Castaway

Eliph' Hewlitt, when he reached the large, yellow house, found the door open. The sale was well over. The gingham ap.r.o.ns and the cat-st.i.tched dusting cloths were all sold, and only a few crocheted slipper-bags and similar luxuries remained, and these were being offered at greatly reduced prices, much to the chagrin of the ladies who had contributed them. The cashiers were counting the results of the evening's business, and the other ladies were grouped about the minister, who stood in the middle of the parlor, laughingly explaining the merits of a plush-covered rolling-pin he had purchased in a moment of folly.

Eliph' Hewlitt tapped on the door to call attention to his presence, and walked into the parlor. Mrs. Doctor Weaver came forward, a shade of anxiety on her face.

"Mrs. Doctor Weaver, I suppose," said Eliph' Hewlitt. "Well, my name is Hewlitt, Eliph' Hewlitt, and I heard of this sale at the hotel. The landlord said strangers were welcome----"

"Of course they are!" exclaimed Mrs. Doctor Weaver. "I'm afraid all the best things are gone, they went off so quickly to-night; but you're just as welcome, I'm sure, an' mebby you'll find something you'd like, though I suppose you're a travelin' man, an' I don't see what you'd do with a knit tidy, or a rickrack pin cushion, unless you've got a sister or a wife to send it to. But mebby you ain't a drummer after all?"

"Well, yes, I'm a sort of a drummer," said Eliph', tapping his parcel.

"Book agent, you know. That the minister?"

Mrs. Weaver drew back when Eliph' mentioned his occupation. She did not consider a book agent any less worthy than another man, but she had been obliged to miss the last payment on Sir Walter Scott, and she had an ill-defined feeling of guilt. To miss a payment was almost as hideous in her eyes as to neglect to put a dime in the contribution plate each Sunday would have been. Her first thought was that Eliph' had come to rudely bear away the ten volumes of Sir Walter before the eyes of all the women of Kilo, and she gladly grasped at his last words.

"Yes," she said quickly, "that's him. Let me introduce you. He--he likes books."

"I'm not selling books to-night," explained Eliph' Hewlitt, for her words seemed one form of the usual reception of a book agent, and to indicate a desire to be rid of him as quickly as possible; "but I don't mind meeting him."

As Mrs. Weaver led the way to the center of the group, Eliph' Hewlitt followed her, but his eyes quickly made a circle of the room, and rested a moment on Sally Briggs, who was one of the cashiers.

She saw him and caught her breath, as if the sight had frightened her, but when he nodded she could not refuse to return the salutation. She nodded as coldly as she knew how, and hurried to the most distant corner of the room. Eliph' was well enough pleased with this reception, for he would hardly have know what to do with a warmer one; in many years he had received only the book agent's usual greeting, which is far from cordial. She had nodded to him, at any rate, and he felt a glow of satisfaction.

When Mrs. Weaver introduced him to the minister she added that he was a book agent. She may have done this as an explanation, for Kilo, and even Kilo's minister, craved details, or she may have done it to give fair warning to all concerned. The effect was instantaneous, and the smiles of welcome faded. The minister shook hands gravely, and the ladies who had run forward with shoe bags and tidies turned and walked coldly away.

Eliph' Hewlitt smiled.

"Funny how that name makes a man unpopular, ain't it?" he said, addressing the minister. "But I ain't going to talk books in Kilo. The landlord down at the hotel told me it was a bad time, so I'm going to pa.s.s it by. Well, I guess we deserve all the blame we get. Some of us do pester the life out of people--don't know when to stop. Now, when I see a man don't want my book, or when I see a town ain't ready for it, I drop books and go off, and leave them alone. I could have stayed down there at the hotel and bothered the landlord into taking my book. He'd have too it, because everybody that sees this book, and understands it, does take it; but I said, 'Why bullyrag the life out of the poor man when there's a missionary sale going on in town, and he don't want a book, and I do want to see the sale? I am interested in missions."

"It's a great field," said the minister, with a sigh of relief; for, as the literary head of Kilo, he was always the first and most strongly contested goal of the book agents. The subscription list that did not bear his name at the head bore few others, and he appreciated the self denial of Eliph' Hewlitt in pa.s.sing such a good opportunity to talk business.

"Are you deeply interested in the field?" he inquired graciously.

"Well, you se," said Eliph' Hewlitt, "I was cast away on one of those desert islands myself once, and I know what those poor heathen must suffer for lack of churches and civilization, and good books to read. I can feel for them."