NEED no others. It makes a Carnegie library of the humblest home.”
The entire picnic had gradually gathered around him.
“Ladies and gents,” he said, “I have come to bring knowledge and power where ignorance and darkness have lurked. This volume——”
He stopped and handed his sample to the minister.
“Introduce me to the lady in the blue dress,” he said to Mrs. Smith, and she stepped forward and made them acquainted.
“Miss Briggs, this is Mr——”
“Hewlitt,” he said quickly, “Eliph' Hewlitt.”
“Mr. Hewlitt,” said Mrs. Smith. “Miss Sally Briggs of Kilo.”
“I'm glad to know you, Miss Briggs,” said Eliph' Hewlitt. “I hope we may become well acquainted. As I was sayin' to Mrs. Smith, I'm a book agent.”
For the chapter on Jarby's Encyclopedia that dealt with “Courtship—How to Win the Affections,” said that the first step necessary was to become well acquainted with the one whose affections it was desired to win. It was not Eliph' Hewlitt way to waste time when making a sale of Jarby's, and he felt that no more delay was necessary in disposing of his heart.
CHAPTER III. “How to Win the Affections”
Miss Sally glanced hurriedly around, seeking some retreat to which she could fly. Mrs. Smith, having introduced Eliph' Hewlitt, had turned away, and the other picnickers were gathered around the minister, looking over his shoulders at the copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia. Although she could have no idea, as yet, that Eliph' Hewlitt had decided to marry her, Miss Sally was afraid of him. She was a dainty little woman, with just a few gray hairs tucked out of sight under the brown ones, but although she was ordinarily able to hold her own, each year that was added to her life made her more afraid of book agents.
Time after time she had succumbed to the wiles of book agents. It made no difference how she received them, nor how she steeled her heart against their plausible words, she always ended buying whatever they had to sell, and after that it was a fight to get the money from her father with which to pay the installments. Pap Briggs objected to paying out money for anything, but he considered that about the most useless thing he could spend money for was a book. Whenever he heard there was a book agent in Kilo he acted like a hen when she sees a hawk in the sky, ready to pounce down upon her brood, and he pottered around and scolded and complained and warned Miss Sally to beware, and then in the end the book agent always made the sale, and Miss Sally felt as if she had committed seven or eight deadly sins, and it made her life miserable. Only a few months before she had fallen prey to a man who had sold her a set of Sir Walter Scott's Complete Works, two dollars down, and one dollar a month, and she felt that the work of urging the monthly dollar out of her father's pocket was all she could stand.
Why and how she bought books always remained a mystery to her; it is a mystery to many book buyers how they happen to buy books. Book agents seemed to have a mesmerizing effect on Miss Sally, as serpents daze birds before they devour them. The process applied between the time when she stated with the utmost positiveness that she did not want, and would not buy, a book, and the time, a few minutes later, when she signed her name to the agent's list of subscribers, was something she could not fathom.
And now she had been left face to face with a book agent, actually introduced to him, and her father still under monthly miseries on account of Sir Walter Scott's Complete Works.
“I don't want any books to-day,” said Miss Sally nervously, when she saw that she could not run away.
“And I'm not going to sell you any,” said Eliph' Hewlitt cheerfully. He had studied Miss Sally thoroughly, with the quick eye of the experienced book agent who has learned to read character at sight, and he had decided that no more suitable Mrs. Hewlitt was he apt to find. “And I'm not going to SELL you any,” he repeated. “This is picnic day, and I'm not selling books, although I may say there is no day in the whole year when Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art is not needed. It is a book that contains a noble thought or useful hint for every hour of every day from the cradle to the grave, comprising ten thousand and one subjects, neatly bound.”
“I don't want one,” said Miss Sally, backing away. “I don't live here, and you might do better selling it to someone who does.”
Eliph' Hewlitt's eyes beamed kindly through his spectacles.
“It is just as useful to them that is traveling as to them that is home,” he said, “if not more so. If you ever took a copy along with you on your travels you would never travel again without it. Take the chapter on 'Traveling,' for instance, page 46.” He looked around, as if he would have liked to get his sample copy, but it was in such a number of eager hands that he turned back to Miss Sally. “Take the directions on Sleeping Cars,” he said. “For that one thing alone the book is worth its price to anyone going to travel by rail. It gives full instructions how much to give the porter, how to choose a berth, how to undress in an upper berth without damage to the traveler or the car, et cetery. And, when you consider that that is but one of the ten thousand and one things mentioned in this volume, you can see that it is really giving it away when I sell it, neatly bound in cloth, for five dollars.”
“I don't think I want one,” said Miss Sally doubtfully, for she was beginning to fall under the spell.
“No!” said Eliph' firmly. “No! You don't. And I don't want to SELL you one. Nothing ain't farther from my mind than wanting to sell you a copy of that book. Just rest perfectly easy about THAT, Miss Briggs. We'll put 'Literature, Science, and Art' to one side and enjoy the delights of the open air, and, if I happen to say anything that sounds like book, just you excuse me, for I don't mean it. Mebby I DO get to talking about that book when I don't mean to, for it is a book that a man that knows it as well as I do just can't HELP talking about. It's a wonderful book. It is a book that has all the wisdom and knowledge of the world condensed into one volume, including five hundred ennobling thoughts form the world's great authors, inclusive of the prose and poetical gems of all ages, beginning on page 201, sixty-two solid pages of them, with vingetty portraits of the authors, this being but one of the many features that make the book helpful to all people of refinement and mind. Now, when you take a book like that and bind it in a neat cloth cover, making it an ornament to any center table in the country, and sell it for the small price of five dollars, it is not selling it; it is giving it away. Five dollars, neatly bound in cloth, one dollar down, and one dollar a month until paid.”
Miss Sally looked hopelessly toward the sample copy, which the minister was still exhibiting to the picnickers with real pleasure. She was enthralled, but she was puzzled. Never had she bought a book that she had not first looked through. Invariably the agent had begun his dissertation on the book's merits by an explanation of the illuminated frontispiece—if it had one—and ended by turning the last page to show the sheet where she must sign her name, underneath those of “the other leading citizens of this town.” There was something wrong, but she was not quite sure what it was. She glanced back at the eager face of Eliph' Hewlitt, and mistook the glow of “Affection, How to Hold it When Won,” for the intense glance of the predatory book seller.
“I'll take a copy,” she said recklessly.
Eliph' Hewlitt's face clouded, and he put out his hand as if to ward off a
