Parnassus on Wheels

I wonder if there isn’t a lot of bunkum in higher education? I never found that people who were learned in logarithms and other kinds of poetry were any quicker in washing dishes or darning socks. I’ve done a good deal of reading when I could, and I don’t want to “admit impediments” to the love of books, but I’ve also seen lots of good, practical folk spoiled by too much fine print. Reading sonnets always gives me hiccups, too.

I never expected to be an author! But I do think there are some amusing things about the story of Andrew and myself and how books broke up our placid life. When John Gutenberg, whose real name (so the Professor says) was John Gooseflesh, borrowed that money to set up his printing press he launched a lot of troubles on the world.

Andrew and I were wonderfully happy on the farm until he became an author. If I could have foreseen all the bother his writings were to cause us, I would certainly have burnt the first manuscript in the kitchen stove.

It was a fine, crisp morning in fall⁠—October I dare say⁠—and I was in the kitchen coring apples for apple sauce. We were going to have roast pork for dinner with boiled potatoes and what Andrew calls Vandyke brown gravy. Andrew had driven over to town to get some flour and feed and wouldn’t be back till noontime.

Being a Monday, Mrs. McNally, the washerwoman, had come over to take care of the washing. I remember I was just on my way out to the wood pile for a few sticks of birch when I heard wheels turn in at the gate. There was one of the fattest white horses I ever saw, and a queer wagon, shaped like a van. A funny-looking little man with a red beard leaned forward from the seat and said something. I didn’t hear what it was, I was looking at that preposterous wagon of his.

It was coloured a pale, robin’s-egg blue, and on the side, in big scarlet letters, was painted:

R. Mifflin’s Travelling Parnassus

Good Books for Sale

Shakespeare, Charles Lamb, R. L. S. Hazlitt, and All Others

Underneath the wagon, in slings, hung what looked like a tent, together with a lantern, a bucket, and other small things. The van had a raised skylight on the roof, something like an old-fashioned trolley car; and from one corner went up a stove pipe. At the back was a door with little windows on each side and a flight of steps leading up to it.

As I stood looking at this queer turnout, the little reddish man climbed down from in front and stood watching me.

“I was wondering whether he wouldn’t buy this outfit,” said the little man, including, with a wave of the hand, both van and white horse. As he spoke he released a hook somewhere, and raised the whole side of his wagon like a flap. Some kind of catch clicked, the flap remained up like a roof, displaying nothing but books⁠—rows and rows of them. The flank of his van was nothing but a big bookcase. Shelves stood above shelves, all of them full of books⁠—both old and new. As I stood gazing, he pulled out a printed card from somewhere and gave it to me:

Roger Mifflin’s Travelling Parnassus

Worthy friends, my wain doth hold Many a book, both new and old; Books, the truest friends of man, Fill this rolling caravan. Books to satisfy all uses, Golden lyrics of the Muses, Books on cookery and farming, Novels passionate and charming, Every kind for every need So that he who buys may read. What librarian can surpass us?

Mifflin’s Travelling Parnassus

By R. Mifflin, Prop’r.

Star Job Print, Celeryville, Va.

While I was chuckling over this, he had raised a similar flap on the other side of the Parnassus which revealed still more shelves loaded with books.

I’m afraid I am severely practical by nature.

“Well!” I said, “I should think you would need a pretty stout steed to lug that load along. It must weigh more than a coal wagon.”

“Oh, Peg can manage it all right,” he said. “We don’t travel very fast. But look here, I want to sell out. Do you suppose your husband would buy the outfit⁠—Parnassus, Pegasus, and all? He’s fond of books, isn’t he?”

“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.

No woman of my bulk has a right to be nervous, I guess, but instantly my security vanished! The patter of the rain seemed menacing, and I imagined a hundred horrors. I was totally alone and unarmed, and Bock was not a large dog. He growled again, and I felt worse than before. I imagined that I heard stealthy sounds in the bushes, and once Peg snorted as though frightened. I put my hand down to pat Bock, and found that his neck was all bristly, like a fighting cock. He uttered a queer half growl, half whine, which gave me a chill. Someone must be prowling about the van, but in the falling rain I could hear nothing.

I felt I must do something. I was afraid to call out lest I betray the fact that there was only a woman in the van. My expedient was absurd enough, but at any rate it satisfied my desire to act. I seized one of my boots and banged vigorously on the floor, at the same time growling in as deep and masculine a voice as I could muster: “What the hell’s the matter? What the hell’s the matter?” This sounds silly enough, I dare say, but it afforded me some relief. And as Bock shortly ceased growling, it apparently served some purpose.

I lay awake for a long time, tingling all over with nervousness. Then I began to grow calmer, and was getting drowsy almost in spite of myself when I was aroused by the unmistakable sound of Bock’s tail thumping on the floor⁠—a sure sign of pleasure. This puzzled me quite as much as his growls.