Wonderland Creek Part 3

He nodded again, dropped the box on the floor in the foyer where the library patrons would surely trip over it, and returned for another one. I followed him in and out, carrying the magazines and chattering away about our library in Illinois and how much I looked forward to meeting Acorn's librarian. Why wouldn't he answer my question and tell me where she was? Was he deaf, dim-witted, or simply ill-mannered?

When we'd hauled the last box and bag inside, I cleared my throat and spoke loudly and clearly, covering all three possibilities. "Would you kindly tell me where I might find the librarian, Leslie MacDougal?"

"That's me."

"You can't be her. You're a man!"

"What gave it away, lady? The beard?"

"But . . . but I've come to help her. I planned to stay here and-"

"Stay? You can't stay!" At that moment, we both heard the accelerating engine, the crunch of loose gravel beneath the huge car's tires. We looked out the open door in time to see Uncle Cecil's car driving away. "Hey! Where's he going? He can't leave you here!"

The bear-man raced out of the door, nearly tripping over my suitcase, and sprinted up the road behind the car, shouting and waving his arms. "Wait! Stop!" He ran quite fast considering that he was barefooted. With his wild-looking hair and angry shouts, he appeared to be chasing the car away, rather than trying to stop it. I hurried after him, panicked at the thought of being marooned with this wooly lunatic. But my uncle's huge automobile, as soundproof as a casket, disappeared around a curve and vanished in a cloud of dust.

As the dust from Uncle Cecil's car swirled and settled, Leslie MacDougal turned and walked toward me, looking as sinister as a vaudeville villain. He held one hand against his side, panting from his useless sprint. "When is he coming back for you?"

"In two weeks."

"Two weeks!"

I knew it might be longer, considering my aunt's fragile condition, but why make matters worse? I lifted my chin to look up at him, since he was at least a foot taller than me. "I wrote to you and mentioned that I planned to stay and volunteer-"

"And I wrote to you and told you not to come."

"I never received your letter."

"But you came anyway? Without an invitation?"

"I thought you were . . . I mean, your name is Leslie . . . and most librarians are women." And much friendlier and better groomed, I wanted to add as he strode past me, heading toward the house.

"I'm not a woman," he hollered over his shoulder. "That's why I told you to stay home and just ship the books to me."

I cleared my throat and tried to summon a measure of dignity as I followed him back to the library. "I apologize for the misunderstanding, Mr. MacDougal, even though it wasn't entirely my fault." If anyone was to blame, it was this man's parents for giving him a woman's name. I took a deep breath and exhaled. "If you will kindly direct me to the nearest hotel, I'll gladly get out of your . . . hair." He halted on the front porch and turned to face me.

"A hotel?-Ha! Where do you think you are, lady? Back in Chicago?" He shook his head and went inside, leaving the library door wide open.

It seemed that I had baked myself into a jam tart, as Mother would say. What in the world was I going to do? If I had been reading about this disastrous misunderstanding in a book, I would have flipped to the last chapter to see how everything turned out. But it wasn't a story, it was my life-and I had no idea what to do. After gazing down the road for several minutes, praying in vain that my uncle's car would miraculously reappear, I picked up my suitcase and followed Leslie MacDougal into the foyer.

Bookshelves filled the rooms to my right and my left, confirming that what looked like a house from the outside was indeed a library-the tiniest library I had ever seen. I felt like Alice in Wonderland after she had grown to a very large size. The rooms lacked the wonderful bookish aroma of our library back home. Instead, they smelled like fried chicken.

Mr. MacDougal sat cross-legged on the hall floor and was busily unpacking the first box of books. "Wow!" he said when he came to the nearly new World Atlas.

"Isn't it wonderful?" I said. "That atlas came from the collection of a very kind gentleman named Elmer Watson, who used to patronize our library back home. He pa.s.sed away recently, so I took the liberty of speaking with his widow and she very kindly agreed to donate it to your library."

Mr. MacDougal didn't reply. He didn't even nod his head.

The memory of Mr. Watson's funeral and how it had led to my breakup with Gordon made me teary-eyed. When I'd lost my job the following day, I had wanted to get as far away as possible from a town where I was no longer needed or wanted. Instead, I had simply relocated to another town where I wasn't needed or wanted. "Out of the chicken coop and into the stewpot," my mother would say. I did feel as though I'd been wrung, plucked, and scalded.

Mr. MacDougal continued to unpack the books, perusing their contents, piling them haphazardly all around him. He was so absorbed that he seemed to have forgotten me. I watched his face and saw the appreciation in his eyes-what little I could see of his eyes beneath his s.h.a.ggy hair. He ran his hand over the covers the way a man in love might caress his beloved's face, and he even opened one or two of the newer books to inhale their scent before piling them on the floor with the others. I felt justified for the trouble I'd taken to deliver them, even if my arrival had been unexpected and unwelcome.

It was hard to tell how old Mr. MacDougal was, but his hands weren't wrinkled and his brown hair and beard didn't have any gray in them. He had lifted the heavy boxes effortlessly and had run pretty fast as he'd chased Uncle Cecil's car, so I judged him to be around thirty. He might be good-looking with a shave and a haircut. And a bath. And a decent suit of clothes. As it was, he looked like one of the raggedy, down-on-their-luck men we had seen along the way, except that Mr. MacDougal had no excuse since he was gainfully employed. I cleared my throat. He looked up, frowning as if annoyed by the interruption.

"I think you'll agree that there are some very nice books in those boxes."

"Very nice. Thanks." He sighed as if I had broken a magic spell and began repacking the books.

"Look, I'm sorry about your name, Mr. MacDougal."

"I've been sorry all my life, but I was too young to object to the name when my parents saddled me with it."

I felt a breeze behind me. We had left the door wide open. "Why was the library closed when it's supposed to be open?" I asked as I turned to shut the door. "The hours on the sign say-"

"I know what the sign says. I'm the one who painted it."

"But it wasn't open when I arrived. The door was locked."

"I got busy."

"But suppose one of your patrons had wanted a book or-"

"You the library police, lady?"

"No . . . and my name is Alice Grace Ripley."

"You see any people lining up out there waiting for books, Alice Grace Ripley?"

"Well, no . . ." He stood and carried one of the boxes into the parlor. I followed him. "Oh, my!" I said when I saw the main desk. At least I a.s.sumed there was a main desk buried beneath all of the books and papers. What in the world did this man do all day? He certainly wasn't keeping the library in order.

"Looks like you could use some help," I said.

"Looks like."

He carried in the rest of the boxes, glancing up the stairs each time he pa.s.sed them as if eager to return to whatever he had been doing up there. When he finished, he stared at me, hands on his hips. From his expression, he might have been waiting for me to say, Well, I'll be going now. But of course I had no place to go. He had already made it clear that the town didn't have a hotel.

"I believe it's lunchtime," I finally said. "If you would be kind enough to direct me to a cafe or a diner, I'll leave you alone."

He attempted a smile, but it was closer to a smirk. "Sure. There's a four-star restaurant down the street, right next door to our sw.a.n.ky four-star hotel. You can buy a four-course gourmet meal. Will that suit you?"

"You don't have to be sarcastic."

He lifted his arms in exasperation and let them slap against his sides. Dust puffed from his pants. "I'm just not prepared to deal with you, that's all."

"You've made that perfectly clear."

He glanced up the stairs again. Sighed again. "Let me see what I can rustle up for lunch. Come on."

He led the way through a door and into a kitchen that looked as though it had been tacked onto the back of the house as an afterthought. Flies buzzed and swarmed around a towering sink full of dishes. More flies encrusted two yellowing strips of flypaper hanging above it. Behind the cookstove, a plaid shirt and two pairs of men's long underdrawers hung on a sagging rope. And judging by the smell, Mr. MacDougal was either manufacturing Limburger cheese or his milk had soured several weeks ago. If he had a wife, she had probably left him. I didn't blame her.

"Excuse the mess," he mumbled. He cleared a place to eat on the round wooden table and motioned to a chair. "Sit down." The chair creaked like a sack of kindling wood as I reluctantly obeyed.

My host took a loaf of homemade bread from the bread box and sawed off several thick, crumbling slices. Then he opened a can of pork and beans and spread the contents on three slices of bread, topping each of them with another slice to make sandwiches. I had never heard of a baked bean sandwich before, but I was hardly in a position to complain. He opened a cupboard door as if searching for a clean plate, then gave up and pushed one of the sandwiches across the bare table to me.

"Thank you," I said, remembering my manners.

"You want coffee?" he asked. "It's mixed with chicory, so it's kind of bitter."

"No thank you." I briefly bowed my head to pray while he poured himself a cup of coffee-and never before had I been so keenly aware of the need for the Almighty to bless a meal. Then I lifted the sandwich, careful not to spill the beans, and took a tentative bite. It was actually very tasty, if a bit unusual.

We ate in silence. Outside, birds chirped and sang and called to each other, and the sound of rushing water gurgled continually as if someone had left a huge tap running. When a train whistle wailed in the far-off distance, it gave me an idea. "Um . . . when does the next bus or pa.s.senger train come through town?"

He laughed out loud and continued laughing until I felt my cheeks burn. "Well, excuse me," I said, "but I've never visited such an uncivilized place before."

"Did you have your eyes closed on your way here?"

"No . . . I was reading a book. A very good one, in fact." If Gordon had been here, he would have rolled his eyes and shaken his head in exasperation. "Listen, Mr. MacDougal, it looks as though I'm going to be stuck here for a while, and I want you to know that I'm willing to pay for my room and board."

"I should hope so. Folks don't have much to spare now that the mines are closed."

We finished eating in silence. When he'd gulped down the last of his coffee, he stood and picked up the extra sandwich. "I need to take this upstairs to Lillie."

Who in the world was Lillie, and why hadn't she come down and introduced herself? How often did people around here get company from Illinois, for goodness' sake? Whatever her reason for staying hidden, I figured she might be as strange as Leslie MacDougal, and the sooner I got out of their way the better. I stood as well, wishing for a napkin to wipe the bean juice off my fingers. He had licked his.

"Thank you very much for lunch, Mr. MacDougal. If you would kindly direct me . . . somewhere . . . I will leave you to your work."

"Look, Miss Ripley. I have no idea what to do with you. My traveling librarians might have an idea, but they're out delivering books."

"What's a traveling librarian?"

"Just what it sounds like. It's not easy for folks around here to get to town, so our librarians deliver the books to the people."

"In a bookmobile?"

"On horseback."

"Horseback? You're kidding." I tried to imagine Mrs. Beasley or Mrs. Davidson or myself, for that matter, galloping around Blue Island on horses, distributing books like Pony Express riders. I nearly laughed out loud. But Mr. MacDougal was perfectly serious.

"Alma usually rides a mule," he said, "but Marjorie, Cora, and Faye all ride horses."

I had never heard of such a crazy idea. This was 1936, not pioneer days. Again, I felt like Alice in Wonderland, except that when I'd fallen into this rabbit hole I'd ended up in Acorn, Kentucky, with the Mad Hatter. "How far do the librarians travel? And for how long?" I asked, hoping they would return soon.

"Just a day's ride. They'll start coming back in two or three hours."

I had no intention of sitting around and doing nothing for that long. I stood and smoothed my skirt. "Well. I did come here to volunteer, Mr. MacDougal, so if you will kindly give me a quick tour of your library, I'll be happy to get to work."

"You want to work?" He said it as if I had offered to do cartwheels down Main Street.

"Yes, work. It's better than standing here feeling useless. I am an experienced librarian, after all. I can card and shelve books, catalogue the new ones-whatever needs to be done." And from the looks of this place, plenty needed to be done. "Or, if you don't want my help, I'll be content to sit and read a book all afternoon. It's up to you."

"No, it isn't. Do whatever you want, lady."

He went out into the hallway and up the squeaking stairs, taking the third baked bean sandwich and a cup of coffee with him. I went into the main room and looked around. Leslie MacDougal was a disgrace to the library profession. There was no excuse for a library this tiny to be in such a mess.

I didn't need a tour. I easily found the fiction section, the tiny collection of reference books, the even smaller shelf of children's books. The leaning pile of books on the main desk obviously needed to be carded and shelved, so I located the wooden box of cards that had been filed according to their due dates. The messy mound of cards that hadn't been filed must belong to books that were checked out. I went to work, forgetting my uncomfortable predicament, and soon lost myself in the familiar, satisfying task of putting the library in order. Each card I filed represented a book that someone might be reading and enjoying this very minute, transporting him or her to a different place and time. I forgot all about Leslie MacDougal until the creaking stairs announced his return a few hours later.

"Where is everyone?" I asked. "Not a single patron has come in for a book. The town looked deserted when we drove through it."

"The Depression hit us hard down here. Most families depend on coal, one way or another. They lost their jobs in the mines when the factories up north closed."

"Did all the people leave town?"

"Some of the men went on the b.u.m, looking for work. The younger ones signed up for the Civilian Conservation Corps to make a few bucks a day. They send money home whenever they can."

"I saw the WPA sign on the library door. Is this one of their projects?"

He nodded. "Mr. Roosevelt pays Faye and Cora and the other girls to deliver books. n.o.body around here wants to go on the dole, but they're willing to do an honest day's work, if they can get it."

"Don't they have husbands?"

"Some do, some don't."

He didn't have a thick Southern accent like other people I'd met from the South, but he had a way of stretching out certain words as if he was sighing in the middle of them. Library sounded like lah-brary and sign was sah-n and I became ahhh.

"How long have you been the librarian here, Mr. MacDougal?"

"My name is Mack. And you ask too many questions. You're a flatlander. People don't like flatlanders very much to begin with, especially ones who talk us to death and pester us with questions. When you meet Cora and the others, I advise you to mind your own business, not theirs."

"I'm simply making polite conversation."

"There's nothing polite about nosy questions."

"Well. I have one more question and then I'll leave you alone. Where is your card catalogue?"

"Up here," he said, tapping his forehead. "I know every book in this place." He turned his back on me and disappeared up the stairs again, taking them two at a time.

The afternoon pa.s.sed quickly. About the time I was starting to see the wooden desktop, I heard horses plodding up the road and halting out front. The front door squeaked open, and women's voices and laughter echoed in the foyer. The traveling librarians had returned.

A moment later, two women walked into the room, and when they saw me sitting behind the desk they halted as if they'd run into a gla.s.s wall. "Who are you?" the taller one asked.

"I'm Alice Grace Ripley from Illinois." They stared as if they'd never seen a stranger before. Maybe they hadn't.

"Well, what are you doing in our library?" The taller one looked ready to grab me by the arm and toss me out the front door. Luckily, Mack sauntered down the stairs just then.

"She's okay, girls. Miss Ripley's helping us out."

The gla.s.s wall vanished and they resumed their conversation without a word of welcome or how-do-you-do, as if I had vanished, too. They unpacked all the books from their bags-one woman had a pair of leather saddlebags, the other a couple of burlap sacks-and piled them on the newly cleared desk.

"Hey, Cora. Did you get up to the school today?" Mack asked the burlap-bag lady.