Kilo 
 
Kilo 
 
 BEING THE LOVE STORY 
 
 OF ELIPH HEWLITT 
 
 BOOK AGENT 
 
 BY 
 
 ELLIS PARKER BUTLER 
 
 AUTHOR OF PIGS IS PIGS 
 
 New York 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP 
 Publishers 
 
Copyright, 1907, by The McCture Company 
 
 Published, October, 1907 
 
 Copyright, 1905, by Ess Ess Publishing Company 
 
 Copyright, 1906, by The Crowell Publishing Company 
 
 Copyright, 1905, by The Curtis Publishing Company 
 
 Copyright, 1900, 1901, by The Century Company 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. ELIPH HEWLITT . . ^ . . . 
 
 II. SUSAN 12 
 
 III. " How TO WIN THE AFFECTIONS " . . 27 
 
 IV. KILO , . . 44 
 
 V. SAMMY MILLS . ... ... ..... 59 
 
 VI. THE CASTAWAY ........ 80 
 
 VII. THE COLONEL . ... . . . - . . 97 
 
 VIII. THE MEDIUM-SIZED Box ..... 103 
 
 IX. THE WITNESS , ... 115 
 
 X. THE Boss GRAFTER 125 
 
 XI. THE FALSE GODS OF Doc WEAVER . . 145 
 
 XII. GETTING ACQUAINTED 177 
 
 XIII. "SECOND: A SMALL PRESENT" . . . 190 
 
 XIV. SOMETHING TURNS UP ..... 200 
 
 XV. DIFFICULTIES ..... < < 214 
 
 XVI. Two LOVERS, AND A THIRD .... 226 
 
 XVII. ACCORDING TO JARBY S . . ; . . . 238 
 
 XVIII. ANOTHER TRIAL ....... 252 
 
 XIX. PAP BRIGGS HEN FOOD ... 268 
 
 912804 
 
KILO 
 
CHAPTER I 
 ELIPH HEWLITT 
 
 HEWLITT, book agent, seated in his 
 weather-beaten top buggy, drove his horse, Irontail, 
 carefully along the rough Iowa hi 1 ! road that leads 
 from Jefferson to Clarence. The horse, a rusty 
 gray, tottered in a loose- jointed manner from side 
 to side of the road, half asleep in the sun, and was in 
 dolent in every muscle of his body, except his tail, 
 which thrashed violently at the flies. Eliph Hewlitt 
 drove with his hands held high, almost on a level 
 with his sandy whiskers, for he was well acquainted 
 with Irontail. 
 
 The road seemed to pass through a region of 
 large farms, offering few opportunities for selling 
 books, the houses being so far apart, but Eliph 
 knew the small settlement of Clarence was a few 
 miles farther on, and he was carrying enlightenment 
 to the benighted. He glowed with missionary zeal. 
 In his eagerness he thoughtlessly slapped the reins 
 on the back of Irontail. 
 
 Instantly the plump, gray tail of the horse flashed 
 over the rein and clamped it fast. Eliph Hewlitt 
 leaned over the dashboard of his buggy and grasped 
 
4 : \/:\.\. ]KILO 
 
 tJje-. :hstir;pf. -the tail firmly. He pulled it upward 
 with ail* His stfe rfg thj but the tail did not yield. In 
 stead, Irontail kicked vigorously. Eliph Hewlitt, 
 knowing his horse as well as he knew human nature, 
 climbed out of the buggy, and taking the rein close 
 by the bit led Irontail to the side of the road. Then 
 he took from beneath the buggy seat a bulky, oil 
 cloth-wrapped parcel and seated himself near the 
 horse s head. There was no safety for a timid driver 
 when Irontail had thus assumed command of the rein. 
 There was no way to get a rein from beneath that 
 tail but to ignore it. In an hour or so Irontail would 
 grow forgetful, carelessly begin flapping flies, and 
 release the rein himself. 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt unwrapped the oilcloth from the 
 object it enfolded. It was a book. It was Jarby s 
 Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of 
 Literature, Science and Art, Comprising Useful 
 Information on One Thousand and One Subjects, In 
 cluding A History of The World, the Lives of All 
 Famous Men, Quotations From The World s Great 
 Authors, One Thousand and One Recipes, Et Cetera. 
 One Volume, five dollars bound in cloth ; seven fifty in 
 morocco. Eliph Hewlitt passed his hand affection 
 ately over the gilt-stamped cover, and then opened it 
 at random and read. 
 
ELIPH HEWLITT 5 
 
 For years he had been reading Jarby s Encyclo 
 pedia, and among its ten thousand and one subjects 
 he always found something new. It opened now at 
 " Courtship How to Make Love How to Win the 
 Affections How to Hold Them When Won," and 
 although he had read the pages often before, he 
 found in all parts of the book, whenever he read it, 
 a new meaning. It occurred to him that even a book 
 agent might have reason to use the helpful words 
 set forth in clear type in the chapter on " Courtship 
 How to Make Love," and he realized that some 
 time he must reach the age when he would need a 
 home of his own. For years he had thought of 
 woman only as a possible customer for Jarby s En 
 cyclopedia. Every woman, not already married, he 
 now saw, might be a possible Mrs. Eliph Hewlitt. 
 
 Suddenly he raised his head. On the breeze there 
 was borne to him the sound of voices many voices. 
 He closed the book with a bang. His small body be 
 came tense; his eyes glittered. He scented prey. He 
 wrapped the book in its oilcloth, laid it upon the 
 buggy seat, and taking Irontail by the bridle, started 
 in the direction of the voices. 
 
 Half a mile down the road he came upon a scene 
 of merriment. In a cleared grove men, women and 
 children were gathered; it was a church picnic. 
 
6 KILO 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt took his hitching strap from beneath 
 the buggy seat and secured Irontail to a tree. 
 
 " Church picnic," he said to himself ; " one, two, 
 sixteen, twenty-four, and the minister. Good for 
 twelve copies of Jarby s Encyclopedia or I m no 
 good myself. I love church picnics. What so lovely 
 as to see the pastor and his flock gathered together 
 in a bunch, as I may say, like ten-pins, ready to be 
 scooped in, all at one shot?" 
 
 He walked up to the rail fence and leaned against 
 it so that he might be seen and invited in. It was 
 better policy than pushing himself forward, and it 
 gave him time to study the faces. He did not find 
 them hopeful subjects. They were not the faces of 
 readers. They were not even the faces of buyers. 
 Even in their holiday finery, the women were shabby 
 and the men were careworn. The minister himself, 
 white-bearded and gray-haired, showed more signs 
 of spiritual grace than intellectual strength. 
 
 One woman, fresh and bright as a butterfly, ap 
 peared among them, and Eliph Hewlitt knew her at 
 once as a city dweller, who had somehow got into 
 this dull and hard-working community. Almost at 
 the same moment she noticed him, and approached 
 him. She smiled kindly and extended her hand. 
 
 " Won t you come in ? " she asked. " I don t seem 
 
ELIPH HEWLITT 7 
 
 to remember your face, but we would be glad to have 
 you join us." 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt shook his head. 
 
 " No m," he said sadly. " I d better not come in. 
 Not that I don t want to, but I wouldn t be welcome. 
 There ain t anything I like so much as church pic 
 nics, and when I was a boy I used to cry for them, 
 but I wouldn t dare join you. I m a" he looked 
 around cautiously, and said in a whisper " I m a 
 book agent." 
 
 The lady laughed. 
 
 " Of course," she said, " that does make a differ- 
 once; but you needn t be a book agent to-day. You 
 can forget it for a while and join us." 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt shook his head again. 
 
 "That s it," he said. "That s just the reason. I 
 can t forget it. I try to, but I can t. Just when I 
 don t want to, I break out, and before I know it I ve 
 sold everybody a book, and then I feel like I d im 
 posed on good nature. They take me in as a friend 
 and then I sell em a copy of Jarby s Encyclopedia 
 of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Sci 
 ence and Art, ten thousand and one subjects, from 
 A to Z, including recipes for every known use, quo 
 tations from famous authors, lives of famous men, 
 and, in one word, all the world s wisdom condensed 
 
8 KILO 
 
 into one volume, five dollars, neatly bound in cloth, 
 
 one dollar down and one dollar a month until paid." 
 
 He paused, and the lady looked at him with an 
 amused smile. 
 
 " Or seven fifty, handsomely bound in morocco," 
 he added. " So you see I don t feel like I ought to 
 impose. I know how I am. You take my mother now. 
 She hadn t seen me for eight years. I d been travel 
 ing all over these United States, carrying knowledge 
 and culture into the homes of the people at five dol 
 lars, easy payments, per home, and I got a telegram 
 saying, Come home. Mother very ill. " He nodded 
 his head slowly. " Wonderful invention, the tele 
 graph," he said. " It tells all about it on page 562 
 of Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compen 
 dium of Literature, Science and Art who invented ; 
 when first used; name of every city, town, village 
 and station in U. S. that has a telegraph office ; com 
 plete explanation of the telegraph system, telling 
 how words are carried over a slender wire, et cetery, 
 et cetery. This and ten thousand other useful facts 
 in one volume, only five dollars, bound in cloth. So 
 when I got that telegram I took the train for home. 
 Look in the index under T. Train, Railway see 
 Railway. Railway ; when first operated ; inventor of 
 the locomotive engine; railway accidents from 1898 
 
ELIPH HEWLITT 9 
 
 to 1904, giving number of fatal accidents per year, 
 per month, per week, per day, and per mile ; et cetery, 
 et cetery. Every subject known to man fully and 
 interestingly treated, with illustrations." 
 
 " I don t believe I care for a copy to-day," said 
 the lady. 
 
 " No," said Eliph Hewlitt, meekly. " I know it. 
 Nor I don t want to sell you one. I just mentioned it 
 to show you that when you have a copy of Jarby s 
 Encyclopedia of Knowledge you have an entire li 
 brary in one book, arranged r.nd indexed by the 
 greatest minds of the nineteenth and twentieth cen 
 turies. One dollar down and one dollar a month until 
 paid. But when I got home I found mother low 
 very low. When I went in she was just able to look up 
 and whisper, * Eliph ? Yes, mother, I says. * Is it 
 really you at last? she says. Yes, mother, I says, 
 it s me at last, mother, and I couldn t get here 
 sooner. I was out in Ohio, carrying joy to countless 
 homes and introducing to them Jarby s Encyclope 
 dia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, 
 Science and Art. It is a book, mother, I says, suited 
 for rich or poor, young or old. No family is com 
 plete without it. Ten thousand and one subjects, all 
 indexed from A to Z, including an appendix of the 
 Spanish War brought down to the last moment, and 
 
10 KILO 
 
 maps of Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South 
 America and Australia. This book, mother, I says, 
 6 is a gold mine of information for the young, and a 
 solace for the old. Pages 201 to 263 filled with quo 
 tations from the world s great poets, making select 
 and helpful reading for the fireside lamp. Pages 463 
 to 468, dying sayings of famous men and women. A 
 book, I says, * that teaches us how to live and how 
 to die. All the wisdom of the world in one volume, 
 five dollars, neatly bound in cloth, one dollar down 
 and one dollar a month until paid. Mother looked 
 up at me and says, Eliph , put m^ down for one 
 copy. So I did. I hope I may do the same for you." 
 
 The lady was about to speak, but Eliph Hewlitt 
 iield up his hand warningly. 
 
 " No," he said. " I beg your pardon. I didn t 
 mean to say that. I couldn t think of taking your 
 order. I didn t mean to ask it any more than I 
 meant to ask mother. It s habit, and that s what I m 
 afraid of. I d better not intrude." 
 
 The lady evidently did not agree with him. He 
 amused her because he was what she called a " type," 
 and she was always on the lookout for " types." She 
 urged him to join the picnic, and said he could try 
 not to talk books, and reminded him that no one 
 could do more than try. He climbed the fence with a 
 
ELIPH HEWLITT 1! 
 
 reluctance that was the more noticeable because his 
 climbing was retarded by the oilcloth-covered parcel 
 he held beneath L!. arm. The lady smiled as she no 
 ticed that he had not feared his soliciting habits suf 
 ficiently to leave the book in the buggy, and she made 
 a mental note of this to be used in the story she meant 
 to write about this book-agent type. 
 
 " My name is Smith," she tolrl him, as she tripped 
 lightly toward the group about the lunch baskets. 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt was a small man and his movements 
 were short and jerky. He drew his hand over his red 
 whiskers and coughed gently when she mentioned 
 her name, and as she hurried on before him he looked 
 at her tall, straight figure ; noticed the stylish mode 
 of her simple summer gown, and caught a glimpse 
 of low, white shoes and neat ankles covered by deli 
 cately woven silk. 
 
 " Courtship How to Make Love How to Win 
 the Affections How to Hold Them When Won," he 
 meditated. " Lovely, but she will not suit. She is an 
 encyclopedia of knowledge and compendium of liter 
 ature, science and art, but she is not the edition I can 
 afford. She is gilt-edged and morocco bound, and an 
 ornament to any parlor, but I can t afford her. My 
 style is cloth, good substantial cloth, one dollar down 
 and one dollar a month until paid. As I might say," 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 SUSAN 
 
 MRS. TARBRO-SMITH had arranged the picnic 
 herself, hoping to bring a little pleasure into the 
 dullness of the summer, enliven the interest in the 
 little church, and make a pleasant day for the people 
 of Clarence, and she had succeeded in this as in 
 everything she had undertaken during her summer in 
 Iowa. As the leader of her own little circle of bright 
 people in New York, she was accustomed to doing 
 things successfully, and perhaps she was too sure 
 of always having things her own way. As sister 
 of the world-famous author, Marriott Nolan Tar- 
 bro, she was always received with consideration in 
 New York, even by editors, but in seeking out a dead 
 eddy in middle Iowa she had been in search of the 
 two things that the woman author most desires, and 
 best handles: local color and types. The editor of 
 Murray s Magazine had told her that his native 
 ground middle Iowa offered fresh material for 
 her pen, and, intent on opening this new mine 
 of local color, she had stolen away without let- 
 
 12 
 
SUSAN TS 
 
 ting even her most intimate friends know where she 
 was going. To have her coming heralded would have 
 put her " types " on their guard, and for that reason 
 she had assumed as an impenetrable incognito one- 
 half her name. No rays of reflected fame glittered 
 on plain Mrs. Smith. 
 
 While her literary side had found some pleasure 
 in studying the people she had fallen among, she 
 was not able to recognize the distinctness of type 
 in them that the editor of Murray s had led her to 
 believe she should find. She had hoped to discover in 
 Clarence a type as sharply defined as the New Eng 
 land Yankee or the York County Dutch of Pennsyl 
 vania, but she could not see that the middle lowan was 
 anything but the average country person such as is 
 found anywhere in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, a 
 type that is hard to portray with fidelity, except 
 with rather more skill than she felt she had, since 
 it is composed of innumqprable ingredients drawn 
 not only from New England, but from nearly every 
 State, and from all the nations of Europe. How 
 ever, her kindness of heart had been able to exert 
 itself bountifully, and she had had enough experience 
 in her sundry searches for local color to know that 
 a lapse of time and of distance would emphasize the 
 types she was now seeing, and that by the middle of 
 
14 KILO 
 
 the winter, when once more in her New York apart 
 ment, her present experiences and observations would 
 have the right perspective, and their salient features 
 would stand out more plainly. So she won the hearts 
 of her hostess, and of the dozen or more children 
 of the house, with small gifts, and overjoyed with 
 this she set about making the whole community hap 
 pier. Little presents, smiles, and kind words meant 
 so much to the overworked, hopeless women, and her 
 cheery manner was so pleasant to men and children, 
 that all worshiped her clumsily and mutely, but 
 whole-heartedly. She was a fairy lady to them. 
 
 The truth was that, in her eagerness to secure the 
 most vivid kind of local color, she had gone a step 
 too far. Clarence, with its decayed sidewalks and 
 rotting buildings, was not typical of middle Iowa 
 any more than a stagnant pool left by a receded 
 river after a flood is typical of the river itself. 
 Before the days of railroads Clarence had been a 
 lively little town, but it was on the top of a hill, and, 
 when the engineer of the Jefferson Western Railroad 
 had laid his ruler on the map and had drawn a 
 straight line across Iowa to represent the course of 
 the road, Clarence had been left ten or twelve miles 
 to one side, and, as the town was not important 
 enough to justify spoiling the beauty of the straight 
 
SUSAN 15 
 
 line by putting a curve in it, a station was marked 
 on the road at the point nearest Clarence, and called 
 Kilo. For a while the new station was merely a side 
 track on the level prairie, a convenience for the men 
 of Clarence, but before Clarence knew how it had 
 happened Kilo was a flourishing town, and the older 
 town on the hill had begun to decay. Even while 
 Clarence was still sneering at Kilo as a sidetrack 
 village, Kilo had begun to sneer at Clarence as a 
 played-out crossroads settlement. Clarence, when 
 Mrs. Tarbro-Smith visited it, was no more typical 
 of middle Iowa than a sunfish really resembles the 
 sun. 
 
 In Clarence Mrs. Smith s best loved and best lov 
 ing admirer was Susan, daughter of her hostess, and, 
 to Mrs. Smith, Susan was the long sought and im 
 possible a good maid. From the first Susan had 
 attached herself to Mrs. Smith, and, for love and 
 two dollars a week, she learned all that a lady s 
 maid should know. When Mrs. Smith asked her if 
 she would like to go to New York, Susan jumped up 
 and down and clapped her hands. Susan was as 
 sweet and lovable as she was useful, and under Mrs. 
 Smith s care she had been transformed into such a 
 thing of beauty that Clarence could hardly recog 
 nize her. Instead of tow-colored hair, crowded back 
 
16 KILO 
 
 by means of a black rubber comb, Susan had been 
 taught a neat arrangement of her blonde locks so 
 great is the magic of a few deft touches. Instead 
 of being a gawky girl of seventeen, in a faded blue 
 calico wrapper, Susan, as transformed by one of 
 Mrs. Smith s simple white gowns, was a young lady. 
 She so worshiped Mrs. Smith that she imitated her 
 in everything, even to the lesser things, like motions 
 of the hand, and tossings of the head. 
 
 When Mrs. Smith broached the matter of taking 
 Susan to New York, she received a shock from Mr. 
 and Mrs. Bell. She had not for one moment doubted 
 that they would be delighted to find that Susan could 
 have a good home, good wages, and a city life, in 
 stead of the existence in such a town as Clarence. 
 
 " Well, now," Mr. Bell said, " we gotter sort o 
 talk it over, me an ma, fore we decide that. Susan s 
 a most our baby, she is. T hain t but four of em 
 younger than what she is in our fambly. We ll let 
 you know, hey? " 
 
 Ma and Pa Bell talked it over carefully and came 
 to a decision. The decision was that they had better 
 talk it over with some of the neighbors. The neigh 
 bors met at Bell s and talked it over openly in the 
 presence of Mrs. Smith. 
 
 They agreed that it would be a great chance for 
 
SUSAN 17 
 
 Susan, and they said that no one could want a nicer, 
 kinder lady for boss than what Mrs. Smith was 
 " but tain t noways right to take no risks." 
 
 " You see, ma m," said Ma Bell, " we don t know 
 who you are no more than nothin , do we? And we 
 do know how as them big towns is ungodly to beat 
 the band, don t we? I remember my grandma tellin 
 me when I was a little girl about the awful goin s 
 on she heard tell of one time when she was down to 
 Pittsburg, and I reckon New York must be twice 
 the size what Pittsburg was them days, so it must 
 be twice as wicked. So we tell you plain, without 
 meanin no harm, that we don t know who you are, 
 nor what you d do with Susan, once you got her to 
 New York." 
 
 " Oh, I know what you want," said Mrs. Smith ; 
 " you want references." 
 
 "Them s it," said Mrs. Bell, with great relief. 
 
 " Well," said Mrs. Smith, " that is easy. I know 
 everybody in New York." 
 
 She thought a moment. 
 
 " There s Mr. Murray, of Murray s Magazine" 
 she suggested, mentioning her friend of the great 
 monthly magazine. 
 
 " Guess we never heard of that," said Mrs. Bell 
 doubtfully. 
 
18 KILO 
 
 " Then do you know the Aeon Magazine? I know 
 the editor of the Aeon." 
 
 The neighbors and Mrs. Bell looked at each other 
 blankly, and shook their heads. 
 
 Mrs. Smith named all the magazines. She had 
 contributed stories to most of them, but not one 
 was known, even by name, to her inquisitors. One 
 shy old lady asked faintly if she had ever heard of Mr. 
 Tweed. She thought she had heard of a Mister Tweed 
 of New York, once. 
 
 Then, quite suddenly, Mrs. Smith remembered her 
 own brother, the great Marriott Nolan Tarbro, 
 whose romances sold in editions of hundreds of thou 
 sands, and who was, beyond all doubt, the greatest 
 living novelist. Kings had been glad to meet him, 
 and newsboys and gamins ran shouting at his heels 
 when he walked the streets. 
 
 " How silly of me," she said. " You must have 
 heard of my brother, Marriott Nolan Tarbro, you 
 know, who wrote The Marquis of Glenmore and 
 6 The Train Wreckers ? " 
 
 Mrs. Bell coughed apologetically behind her 
 hand. 
 
 " I m not very littery, Mrs. Smith," she said 
 kindly, " but mebby Mrs. Stein knows of him. Mrs, 
 Stein reads a lot." 
 
^ rf^PT^Llr V^ f^ 
 
 ^$,//~"^:^^ i 
 
 I 
 
 o 
 
 fi 
 
 I 
 
 ^c 
 
 a 
 
 rO 
 
 1 
 
SUSAN ID 
 
 Mrs. Slein, whose ..! n-:idin;r WMH Hi.- Kihle ainl 
 Midi mlvr.l, ,in;- hnoklels MS came hy m. iil, or HS slio 
 rnuld pick up nn Ihe connler of Ilir drn^.lore, when 
 sin- wenl, l.o Kilo, moved nne. .sily. l r .V " >s s " ll)l(1 
 li.ul ll.r rc|)iil.Mlion of iM-intf a gn-ul n-n.<lrr, niul 
 |,i-(,u M -lil. f/u-c lo f/ic<- willi lln- Kish-r of MII iiullior 
 shr fr- irrd IxT rrfUll.n I ion WJis ;il)nul. In fjill. 
 lt Wlui.1. SM.V liis II/IIIM- WHS? " :.ln- nskcd. 
 " T. irlirn," :.:iil Mrs. Sinilli, M,S one would nirnlion 
 SliHkrspnm- or N. .polco... " I lirhro. MHrriol.l. Nn- 
 lun Tnrbro." 
 
 "Well/ HJiid Mrs. Sl.nn -slowly, hirnin^ ln-r li- .id 
 on one sidr und looking nl. llu- spol on l.li- rcilifig 
 frnm wliich l.ln- plnslrr liud fnllri., " I won t :,ny I 
 ImvcnM. And I won l. sjiy I liavr. VVIin. n. person 
 rc. ids MS nindi /is wlinl. I do, she n-nds so niMiiy n/iines 
 Ihey slip mil. of memory. .Ins!, l.liis ininnle I doiTI, 
 (,uilr ,-n.ll him l.o mind. Mi/dily iirar, Ihon^li; I 
 mind H feller once HIM! peddled nolions lhroii;;h here 
 ly n.-nne of THI-IIOX. Mi;-;hl yon know himP v 
 
 "No," H/iid Mrs. SmiMi, "I li/m-u l. lh- honor." 
 44 I Ilimijdil. mehhy yon mi^hl know him," :.;nd 
 Mrs. Slein. "Hi:, hnsiness look him round coir id 
 cnihlr, mid I l.lion^hl. mehhy il. mi/dil. have look him 
 in New York, MIK! lh:i.l. mehhy yon mi/Hil IIMVC md, 
 Jiim." 
 
20 KILO 
 
 Mrs. Bell sighed audibly. 
 
 "It s goin to be an awful trial to Susan if she 
 can t go," she said ; " but I dunno what to say. 
 Seems like I oughtn t to say * go, an yet I can t 
 abear to say stay. " 
 
 " I must have Susan," said Mrs. Smith, putting 
 her arm about the girl. " I know you can trust her 
 with me." 
 
 " Clementina," said Mr. Bell suddenly, " why don t 
 you leave it to the minister? He d settle it for the 
 best. Why don t you leave it to him ? Hey ? " 
 
 " Well, bless my stars," said Mrs. Bell, brighten 
 ing with relief, " I d ought to have thought of that 
 long ago. He would know what was for the best. 
 I ll ask him to-morrow." 
 
 To-morrow was the picnic day. 
 
 As Mrs. Smith led the way for Eliph Hewlitt, 
 the minister left the group of women who had clus 
 tered about him, and walked toward her. 
 
 " Sister Smith," he said, in his grave, kind way, 
 " Sister Bell tells me you want to carry off our 
 little Susan. You know we must be wise as serpents 
 and gentle as doves in deciding, and " he laid his 
 hand on her arm " though I doubt not all will be 
 well, I must think over the matter a while. Wei- 
 
SUSAN 21 
 
 come, brother," he added, offering his hand to Eliph 
 Hewlitt. 
 
 The little book agent shook it warmly. 
 
 " I was a stranger and ye took me in, " he said 
 glibly. " Fine weather for a picnic." 
 
 His eyes glowed. To meet the minister first of all ! 
 This was good, indeed. Years of experience had 
 taught him to seek the minister first. To start the 
 round of a small community with the prestige of 
 having sold the minister himself a copy of Jarby s 
 Encyclopedia made success a certainty. 
 
 He took the oilcloth-covered parcel from beneath 
 his arm, and handed it to the minister gently, lov 
 ingly. 
 
 " Keep it until the picnic is over," he said. " I m 
 a book agent. I sell books. This is the book I sell. 
 Take it away and hide it, so I can forget it and be 
 happy. Don t let me have it until the picnic is over. 
 Please don t!" 
 
 He stretched out his arms in freedom, and the 
 minister smiled and led the way toward the place 
 where a buggy cushion had been laid on the grass 
 as his seat of honor. 
 
 " I will retain the book," said the minister, with 
 a smile, " although I don t think you can sell a book 
 here. My brethren in Clarence are not readers. I 
 
22 KILO 
 
 read little myself. We are poor; we have no time 
 to read. Except the Bible, I know of but one book in 
 this entire community. Sister Dawson has a copy 
 of Bunyan s sublime work, Pilgrim s Progress. It 
 was an heirloom. Be seated," he said, and Eliph 
 Hewlitt seated himself, Turk-fashion, on the sod. 
 
 The minister took the book carefully on his knees. 
 Even to feel a new book was a pleasure he did not 
 often have, and his fingers itched to open it. 
 
 In three minutes Eliph Hewlitt knew the entire 
 story of Mrs. Smith and Susan, so far as it was known 
 to the minister, and he leaned over and tapped with 
 his forefinger the book on the minister s knee. 
 
 " Open it," he said. 
 
 The minister removed the wrapper. 
 
 "Page 6, Index," said Eliph Hewlitt, turning 
 the pages. He ran his finger down the page, and 
 up and down page 7, stopped at a line on page 
 8, and hastily turned over the pages of the book. 
 At page 974 he laid the book open, and the 
 minister adjusted his spectacles and read where 
 the book agent pointed. Then he pushed his spec 
 tacles up on his forehead and looked carefully at the 
 picnickers. He singled out Mrs. Tarbro-Smith, and 
 waved her toward him with his hand. She came and 
 stood before him. 
 
SUSAN 25 
 
 The minister wiped his spectacles on his handker 
 chief, readjusted them on his nose, and bent over the 
 book. 
 
 " What is your brother s name ? " he asked kindly, 
 but with solemnity. 
 
 " Marriott Nolan Tarbro," she answered. 
 
 He traced the lines carefully with his finger. 
 
 "Born?" he asked. 
 
 "June 4, 1864, at Tarrytown-on-the-Hudson." 
 
 " And is he married? " 
 
 " Married Amanda Rogers Long, at Newport, 
 Rhode Island, June 14, 1895." 
 
 " Where is he living now? " he asked. 
 
 " Last year he was living with me in New York 
 I am a widow, as you know but last fall he went 
 to Algiers." 
 
 " The book says Algiers. What er clubs is he 
 a member of? " 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Mrs. Smith; "The Authors and 
 The Century." 
 
 " I have no doubt," said the minister, " from what 
 the book says, and what you say, that you are indeed 
 the sister of this ah celebrated " he looked at 
 the book " celebrated novelist, who is a man of such 
 standing that he receives ah several more lines 
 in this work than the average, more, in fact, than 
 
24 KILO 
 
 Talmage, more than Beecher, and more than the 
 present governor of the State of Iowa. I think I 
 may safely advise Mrs. Bell to let Susan go with 
 you." 
 
 "One!* 5 said Eliph Hewlitt quickly. "That s 
 just one question that came up flaring, and was 
 mashed flat by Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge 
 and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, a 
 book in which are ten thousand and one subjects, 
 fully treated by the best minds of the nineteenth and 
 twentieth centuries. One subject for every day in 
 the year for twenty-seven years, and some left over. 
 Religion, politics, literature, every subject under 
 the sun, gathered in one grand colossal encyclopedia 
 with an index so simple that a child can understand 
 it. See page 768, < Texts, Biblical ; Hints for Ser 
 mons; The Art of Pulpit Eloquence. No minister 
 should be without it. See page 1046, Pulpit Orators 
 --Golden Words of the Greatest, comprising selec 
 tions from Spurgeon, Robertson, Talmage, Beecher, 
 Parkhurst, et cetery. A book jthat should be in 
 every home. Look at P : * Poets, Great. Poison, 
 Antidotes for. Poker, Rules of. Poland, History and 
 Geography of, with Map. Pomeroy, Brick. Poma 
 tum, How to Make. Ponce de Leon, Voyages and 
 Life of. Pop, Ginger, et cetery, et cetery. The 
 
SUSAN 25 
 
 whole for the small sum of five dollars, bound in 
 cloth, one dollar down and one dollar a month until 
 paid." 
 
 The minister turned the pages slowly. 
 
 " It seems a worthy book," he said hesitatingly. 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt looked at Mrs. Smith, with a ques 
 tion in his eyes. 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "Ah!" he said. "Mrs. Smith, sister of the well- 
 known novelist, Marriott Nolan Tarbro, takes two 
 copies of Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and 
 Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, bound 
 in full morocco, one of which she begs to present to 
 the worthy pastor of this happy flock, with her com 
 pliments and good wishes." 
 
 " I can t thank you," stammered the minister ; 
 "it is so kind. I have so few books, and so few op 
 portunities of securing them." 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt held out his hand for the sample 
 volume. 
 
 " When you have this book," he declared, " you 
 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 
 
26 KILO 
 
 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 in 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 de 
 sired to win. It was not Eliph Hewlitt s way to 
 waste time when making a sale of Jarby s, and he 
 felt that no more delay was necessary in disposing 
 of a heart. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 "HOW TO WIN THE AFFECTIONS" 
 
 MlSS SALLY glanced hurriedly around, seeking 
 some retreat to which she could fly. Mrs. Smith, hav 
 ing introduced Eliph Hewlitt, had turned away, and 
 the other picnickers were gathered around the min 
 ister, 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 re 
 ceived them, nor how she steeled her heart against 
 their plausible words, she always ended by 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 pay- 
 
 27 
 
28 KILO 
 
 ing 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 com 
 plained 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 than 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. 
 
HOW TO WIN AFFECTIONS" 29 
 
 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 Wal 
 ter 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 Encyclo 
 pedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, 
 Science and Art is not needed. It is a book that con 
 tains a noble thought or useful hint for every hour 
 of every day from the cradle to the grave, compris 
 ing 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 that does." 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt s eyes beamed kindly through his 
 spectacles. 
 
 " It is just as useful to them that is traveling as 
 
SO KILO 
 
 to them that is at 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 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, 
 
M HOW TO WIN AFFECTIONS 1 31 
 
 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 from 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 help 
 ful 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 
 
32 KILO 
 
 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, un 
 derneath 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 blow. 
 
 " No you won t ! " he said, with distress. " You 
 don t want one, and I won t sell you one." 
 
 He cast his mind quickly over the chapter on 
 " Courtship How to Win the Affections," and re 
 called its directions. He wished he had the book in 
 his hands, so that he could turn to the chapter and 
 freshen his memory, but the first direction was, cer 
 tainly, to become well acquainted. 
 
 " I don t want to sell you one," he said more 
 gently. " I want to sit down on this nice grass and 
 get acquainted. You and me are both strangers here, 
 and I guess we ought to talk to each other." 
 
 He seated himself as he said the word, and crossed 
 his legs, Turk-fashion, and looked up at Miss Sally, 
 
HOW TO WIN AFFECTIONS 3 33T 
 
 with an invitation in his eyes. For a minute she 
 stood looking down at him doubtfully. She was un 
 able to understand the actions of this new variety 
 of book agent that refused to sell books after talking 
 up to the selling point, and she suddenly remembered 
 that she was away from home, and that the book was 
 sold on installments. She flushed. Did his refusal to 
 sell imply that he thought she might not be able to 
 pay the installments ? 
 
 " I ll take a copy of that book, if you please," she 
 said haughtily. " I guess there ain t no question but 
 what I m able to pay for it. I ve bought books be 
 fore, and paid for them; and I guess I m just as 
 able to pay as most folks you sell to. If you ve any 
 doubt about it, there s references I can give right 
 her in Clarence that will satisfy you." 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt coughed gently behind his hand, 
 and stroked his whiskers, as he looked up at the in 
 dignant Miss Briggs. He did not want to sell her a 
 book ; it would place him in her mind once, and, prob 
 ably, for all, as one of the tribe of book agents, 
 and nothing more. Yet he could not offend her. He 
 might compromise by giving her a copy, but the 
 chapter on " Courtship How to Win the Affec 
 tions," distinctly advised this as a later act. First it 
 was necessary to become well acquainted ; then it was 
 
34 KILO 
 
 advisable to proceed to give small presents, books or 
 flowers or sweets being particularly mentioned, and 
 Eliph Hewlitt would never have thought of doing 
 first the thing Jarby s Encyclopedia advised doing 
 second. He had been selling Jarby s for many years. 
 He had seen the " talking feature " of the colored 
 plates of the Civil War pass, and had seen them suc 
 ceeded by colored plates of the Franco-Prussian War, 
 and had seen these make way for colored plates of 
 one war after another until the present plates of the 
 Spanish War appeared, and through all these 
 changes in the last chapter he had studied the book 
 until he knew its contents as well as he knew his 
 " two-times-two." He could recite the book forward 
 or backward, read it upside down as a book agent 
 has to read a book when it is in a customer s lap 
 or sideways, and could turn promptly to nearly any 
 word in it without hesitation. The more he studied 
 it the more he loved it and admired it and believed 
 in it. It was his whole literature, and he found it 
 all sufficient. If he saw a thing in Jarby s he knew 
 it was so, and if it was not in Jarby s it was not 
 worth knowing. Under such circumstances he could 
 not make Miss Sally a present of the book until 
 he and she had first become well acquainted. Jarby s 
 said so. He scrambled hurriedly to his feet. 
 
"HOW TO WIN AFFECTIONS 5 35 
 
 " Miss Briggs," he said earnestly, " you ain t near 
 guessing the reason why I don t want to sell you a 
 copy of that world-famous volume. You ain t no 
 where near it at all. If I was to tell you what the 
 reason was I guess you d be surprised. But I ain t 
 going to tell you. It ain t because you can t pay for 
 it, for if it was a library of one thousand volumes 
 at ten dollars a volume, ten dollars down and ten 
 dollars a month, I d be glad to take your order. And 
 it ain t because I ain t going to sell any more copies 
 here, because I am, and I m going to sell all I can, 
 right here at this picnic, just to show you what I 
 can do when I try. But I ain t going to sell you one. 
 I ve got a good reason." 
 
 Miss Sally was not fully pacified by this, for now 
 she was sure she had guessed the reason Eliph Hew- 
 litt did not want to sell her a copy. She imagined 
 now that some book agent had told him of her fa 
 ther s aversion to books when they had to be paid 
 for and that Eliph Hewlitt was willing to forego 
 a sale rather than lead her into new trouble with her 
 father. Possibly he had met the Walter Scott man. 
 She turned away. 
 
 "I guess I ll go and help Mrs. Smith lay out the 
 lunch," she said, as the easiest way to be rid of the 
 annoyance. 
 
36 KILO 
 
 "I guess I ll go, too," said Eliph Hewlitt 
 promptly and cheerfully. " I m a good hand at that. 
 It tells all about it in Jarby s Encyclopedia. Look 
 under * P : Picnic Lunches. Picnic, How to Organ 
 ize and Conduct. Picnic, Origin of, et cetery, et 
 cetery. A book that contains all the knowledge in 
 the world, condensed into one volume, with lives of 
 all the world s great men, from Adam to Roosevelt, 
 and the dying words of them that is dead." 
 
 Miss Sally turned on him sharply. 
 
 " Goodness sakes ! " she exclaimed, " I wish you 
 would either sell me a copy of that book or keep 
 still about it. Ain t I going to have no peace at all ? " 
 
 "I didn t mention it, did I? " asked Eliph Hew 
 litt innocently, and he did not know that he had. 
 * c I was speaking of this happy gathering. Ain t it 
 pretty to see all kinds of folks gathered together 
 this way to make each other happier? It s like a liv 
 ing Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Com 
 pendium of Literature, Science and Art, a little of 
 everything in one volume, and all of it good. All the 
 good things from parson to pickles. I suppose you 
 put up your own pickle?, don t you? " 
 
 " Yes, I do," said Miss Sally, who was now walk 
 ing toward where the ladies were unpacking the 
 lunch. "Why do you ask it? " 
 
"HOW TO WIN AFFECTIONS 3 37 
 
 " It called to my mind the recipe for making 
 pickles that is in Jarby s Encyclopedia," said Eliph , 
 unmindful of the look of anger that flushed Miss 
 Sally s face at the mention of that book. "Them 
 that has tried it says it is the best they have ever 
 used. That and seven hundred and ninety-nine other 
 tested recipes, all contained in the chapter called 
 The Complete Kitchen Guide, see page 100, in 
 cluding roasts, fries, pastry, cakes, bread, puddings, 
 entrees, soups, how to make candy, how to clean 
 brass, copper, silver, tin, et cetery, et cetery. Them 
 that uses Jarby s tested recipes as given in this 
 volume, uses no other." 
 
 There was a stiffening of Miss Sally s back as she 
 walked ahead of him, and even Eliph Hewlitt could 
 not fail to observe it. It told plainly that if he 
 could have seen her lips he would have seen them 
 close firmly, and he made haste to reassure her. 
 
 " I ain t trying to sell you a book," he said, tak 
 ing a quicker step to reach her side, but she hurried 
 the more as he did so, and crowded in among the 
 other women so that he could not follow. He stood 
 a moment watching her, but she began talking rapidly 
 to one of the women, ignoring him conspicuously, 
 and he coughed gently behind his hand, as if to 
 apologize for her affront, and then walked away. 
 
38 KILO 
 
 He could not account for his poor success in get 
 ting well acquainted with Miss Sally, and he began 
 to fear that he had not fully understood the direc 
 tions given by Jarby s Encyclopedia in the chapter 
 on " Courtship How to Win the Affections." He 
 realized that he had used that chapter less often in 
 talking up a sale than he had used any other, and 
 that for that reason he had studied it less closely, 
 and he saw now, more than ever, that there was no 
 chapter in the whole book that a possessor could 
 afford to neglect. He walked over to where the min 
 ister was still holding the book, but now holding it 
 closed on his lap, and he asked politely if he might 
 have it for a few minutes. The minister handed it 
 to him, and Eliph , walking to where one of the 
 smaller trees of the grove made a spot of shade, seated 
 himself, and fixed his eyes on the chapter on " Court 
 ship How to Win the Affections." 
 
 For the first time in his life he was unable to fix 
 his attention firmly on the pages of Jarby s Ency 
 clopedia. His eyes insisted on turning to where Miss 
 Sally moved about the cloth spread on the grass; 
 the tablecloth on which green bugs and black bugs 
 and brown bugs were already parading, as bugs al 
 ways do at a picnic. Occasionally he stroked his 
 sandy-gray whiskers, and whenever she turned her 
 
"HOW TO WIN AFFECTIONS 1 39 
 
 face in his direction he cast his eyes upon his book, 
 but he could not read. 
 
 He hoped he would have the good fortune to be 
 seated next to Miss Sally when the lunch time came, 
 and he had little doubt that he would be near her, 
 for it was likely that he and she, being strangers, 
 would be put near the minister. He closed the book, 
 seeing at length that it was impossible for him to 
 read it, and, as the men began to bring the cushions 
 from the buggies and place them around the cloth, 
 he arose and went to bring his own to add to the 
 supply. As he reached the fence, a barefoot boy, 
 mounted on a horse with no other saddle than a 
 blanket, came galloping down the road, and stopped 
 before him. 
 
 " Say," said the boy, wide-eyed with importance, 
 " is Sally Briggs in there? " 
 
 Eliph said she was. 
 
 " Well, say," said the boy, " she s got to go home 
 to Kilo, right away. Her dad telephoned up, and he 
 don t know whether he s dying or not, and she s 
 got to go right home." 
 
 Eliph turned and hurried to where Miss Sally was 
 standing. 
 
 " I hope it ain t nothing serious, Miss Briggs," 
 he said, " but that boy has come to give you a mes- 
 
40 K I L O 
 
 sage that come by telephone. I think your father 
 ain t well." 
 
 Miss Sally dropped the cake she was holding, and 
 ran to the fence. 
 
 "What is it?" she gasped. 
 
 " Well," said the boy, " my dad was in the post 
 office just now, and the telephone bell rang, and he 
 looked around to see where Julius was, and Julius 
 he had gone outside to see what Mr. Fogarty, from 
 up to the Corners, wanted. I don t know what he 
 wanted. Pa didn t tell me. I don t know as pa knew, 
 anyway, but I guess he wanted something, or else 
 he wouldn t have motioned Julius to go out, unless 
 he just wanted to talk to Julius. Mebby he just 
 wanted to ask Julius if there was any mail for him. 
 So pa answered the telephone." 
 
 "Well, what did it say?" asked Miss Sally im 
 patiently. 
 
 "You ve got a pa, haven t you? " asked the boy. 
 
 "Yes," said Miss Sally. 
 
 " Well, has he got false teeth? " asked the boy. 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Sally more impatiently. 
 
 " Well, that s all right, then," said the boy. " Pa 
 couldn t tell exactly whether it was false teeth or 
 not, the telephone in the post office works so poor, 
 and pa ain t no hand at it, anyhow. He said it 
 
"HOW TO WIN AFFECTIONS" 41 
 
 sounded like false teeth. So your pa wants you to 
 come right home to Kilo. Mebby he s dying." 
 
 " Dying ! " cried Miss Sally, as white as a sheet. 
 
 " Yes, mebby he is," continued the boy. " He ain t 
 right sure, but he says you d better come right home, 
 so if he is dying you ll be on hand. And, if he ain t, 
 you can help him hunt for them. He says he went 
 to bed last night, same as alwaj-, but he don t recall 
 whether he took out his false set of teeth or left 
 them in, and he ain t sure whether he swallowed them 
 last night, or put them down somewheres and lost 
 them. He says he s got a pain like he had swallowed 
 them, but he ain t sure but what it s some of the 
 cooking he s been doing that give him that, and 
 anyway he wants you to come right home." 
 
 " Goodness sakes ! " exclaimed Miss Sally, " why 
 don t he go see Doc. Weaver? " 
 
 The boy shook his head. 
 
 " I don t know," he said. " I guess pa didn t think 
 to ask him that. I ll have him ask him when I git 
 back." 
 
 The departure of Miss Sally made a break in the 
 orderly progress of the picnic, for it not only ter 
 minated her part of the day s pleasures, but also 
 cut short her visit in Clarence, and she had to say 
 farewell to all the picknickers before she could go. 
 
42 KILO 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt offered to drive her to Clarence, but 
 she refused him, and arranged to have one of the 
 young boys, who had a faster horse, drive her to 
 Kilo. The whole picnic leaned over the rail fence 
 and watched until she was out of sight, and then 
 went on with the lunch, which was just ready when 
 her summons came. 
 
 It was a severe blow to Eliph Hewlitt. He had 
 hoped to have carried his courtship so far during 
 the day that it would have been at least to the third 
 paragraph of the first page of " Courtship How 
 to Win the Affections," and now Miss Sally had left, 
 and he had not progressed at all. It reminded him 
 of the quotation in the Alphabet of Quotations, in 
 Jarby s Encyclopedia, "The Course of True Love 
 Never Did Run Smooth." 
 
 Miss Sally s departure, however, and the strange 
 circumstance of it, allowed him to ask questions about 
 her and about Kilo that he could not otherwise have 
 asked. He learned how far she would have to travel to 
 reach Kilo, who her father was, and all that he wished 
 to know. He decided that the only course for him 
 to follow was to omit his canvass of the interlying 
 farms and of the town of Clarence for the present, 
 and follow Miss Sally to Kilo. 
 
 When the picnic ended, Irontail had released the 
 
"HOW TO WIN AFFECTIONS" 43 
 rein, and Eliph Hewlitt drove off, well pleased with 
 his day s work. He had not only secured a wife for 
 he had no doubt that it only needed an application 
 of the rules set forth in Jarby s Encyclopedia in 
 order to " Win the Affections " of Miss Sally, and 
 " Hold Them When Won," but he took with him sub 
 scriptions for sixteen volumes of Jarby s Encyclope 
 dia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, 
 Science and Art, bound in cloth, five dollars, and two 
 bound in morocco, at seven fifty. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 KILO 
 
 THE next evening Jim Wilkins, landlord of the 
 Kilo House, and proprietor of the Kilo Livery, Feed 
 and Sale Stable, was sitting in front of his hotel, 
 with his chair tipped back against the wall, trading 
 bits of indolent gossip with Pap Briggs, when Eliph 
 Hewlitt drove his horse Irontail down Main Street, 
 and pulled up before the hotel. Pap Briggs had not 
 swallowed his store teeth; he had not even worn 
 them to bed, and Miss Sally found them on top 
 of the pump in the back yard, where Pap had doubt 
 less put them when he went to pump himself a drink. 
 He often lost them, as he wore them more for orna 
 ment than for use, and commonly removed them 
 when he wished to talk, eat, or laugh. It was Sally 
 who made him buy them, and he wore them more for 
 her sake than for any other reason, and he was al 
 ways uncomfortable with them, for they were a plain, 
 unmistakable misfit, and felt, as he said, " like I got 
 my mouth full o tenpenny nails." When out of 
 Sally s sight he avoided this feeling by carrying them 
 in his hand, hidden in his red bandanna handkerchief. 
 
 44 
 
KILO 45 
 
 About town he used to show them with a great deal 
 of pride, and openly boasted of their cost and 
 beauty. On Sunday he wore them all day. 
 
 Whenever Eliph Hewlitt drove into a town he 
 looked about with a seeing eye, for he had learned 
 to judge the capacity of a place for Jarby s Ency 
 clopedia by the appearance of the town, but as he 
 drove into Kilo he was more than usually interested. 
 If this was the home of Miss Sally Briggs, it followed 
 that when he had completed his courtship, and had 
 won her affections and held them, it would be his 
 home, also, and he was curious to see whether it was 
 a town he would like or not like. He liked it. It was 
 a real American town, and it looked like a good busi 
 ness town, because there could be no possible reason 
 for people building a town on that particular situa 
 tion unless it was for business. 
 
 The town was built on a flat space, and the country 
 was flat on all sides of it. It was on no river, brook, 
 or creek. It was as unbeautiful in location as it was 
 in architecture. It was just a homely, common, busy 
 little Iowa village, and even so late in the evening it 
 was as hot as Sahara; but Eliph Hewlitt knew it 
 at once for a good town, for the street was knee 
 deep in dust, which meant much trade, and the four 
 buildings at the corners of Main and Cross Streets 
 
46 KILO 
 
 were of trick, which meant profitable business. There 
 were a couple of other brick buildings on Main 
 Street, and one or two with " tin " fronts, and of 
 the other business places only one or two were so 
 ramshackle that they looked as if their firmer neigh 
 bors were holding them up, letting the weaker struc 
 tures lean against them as a strong man might sup 
 port an invalid. 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt liked the town ; it was just his idea 
 of what a town should be, not much as to style, but 
 business-like. There were two full blocks of Main 
 Street devoted to business, and nearly half a block 
 of Cross Street was given over to the same purpose, 
 and the dwellings were well scattered over the sur 
 rounding level tract. Three or four of the dwellings 
 " out Main Street " had conspicuous lawns that had 
 felt the blades of a lawn mower, but most of the 
 yards were merely grass, with flower beds filled with 
 the more hardy kinds of flowers, such as would grow 
 tall and show over the top of the surrounding grass. 
 The plank walks, which on Main and Cross Streets 
 were made of boards laid crossways, tapered down 
 into narrow walks with the boards two of them 
 laid lengthways very soon after the stores were 
 passed, and a little farther out became dirt paths 
 alongside the fences, and beyond f hat pedestrians, 
 
KILO 47 
 
 were supposed to walk in the road. But most of the 
 houses were painted, either freshly, or at least not an 
 ciently. 
 
 The corner of Main and Cross Streets, the busi 
 ness center of Kilo, was like the business centers of 
 other small country towns. A long hitching rail ex 
 tended at the side of the street before the buildings 
 on each corner, and the dirt beneath was worn away 
 by the scraping of the feet of the many horses that 
 had been tied to the rails. Just below the corner, 
 on Cross Street, were other holes worn by tossing 
 horseshoes at pegs, which, if America was composed 
 of small towns only, would be our national game. 
 
 It was a good little town, and Eliph Hewlitt was 
 pleased. 
 
 On one of the corners of Main Street stood the 
 Kilo Hotel, and before it Eliph checked the slow 
 gait of Irontail. 
 
 Jim Wilkins, the landlord, tipped his chair for 
 ward, and got out of it with a grunt of laziness. 
 
 "Hotel running?" asked Eliph Hewlitt briskly. 
 
 " You might call it runnin if you wasn t diction 
 ary-particular what you called it," said the landlord. 
 " If you had to keep it you d more likely say it was 
 tryin to learn to walk. But it s open for business. 
 Want your rig put up? " 
 
48 KILO 
 
 " Yes," admitted Eliph . " I ve had my supper." 
 
 " That s all right," said the landlord cheerfully. 
 " I m sort of glad of it ; save the old lady gittin up 
 a meal. I was just tellin Pap Briggs here that I fig- 
 gered Kilo had the hottest mean summer temperature, 
 and the meanest hot summer temperature on earth, 
 and it s hotter over a kitchen stove than anywheres 
 else. We generally have cold suppers in this here 
 hotel, unless some guest happens in. Hey, S. Potts! 
 Come here and git this feller s horse ! " 
 
 The livery stable was convenient, just around the 
 corner on Cross Street, and S. Potts came lankly 
 and lazily around the corner. He stood and looked 
 at Irontail a minute critically, and then felt the 
 horse s hocks and shook his head at the result of his 
 investigation. Then he opened Irontail s mouth and 
 looked at his teeth. 
 
 "Well, I ll be hanged!" he said, and he called 
 around the corner, " Hey, Daniel ! " and from the liv 
 ery stable came a very old man. 
 
 " Look at this," said S. Potts, opening Irontail s 
 mouth again, and Daniel looked and shook his head, 
 as S. Potts had done. 
 
 " And feel this," said S. Potts, putting his hand 
 on Irontail s hock again. Daniel felt as he was told, 
 and again shook his head. 
 
KILO 49 
 
 " Now, what do you make of that? " asked S. 
 Potts triumphantly. 
 
 " I dunno what to make of it, S. Potts," said the 
 old man, shaking his head. " What do you make of 
 it?" 
 
 The landlord broke in upon the conversation with 
 
 sudden energy. 
 
 " Look here," he said, " you git that horse around 
 to the stable, and shut up," and S. Potts and Daniel 
 hastily clambered into the buggy and drove around 
 the corner. 
 
 " I wonder if anything s the matter with my 
 horse?" said Eliph . 
 
 "Matter?" laughed Jim Wilkins. "That s just 
 S. Potts tryin to show off before strangers, like he 
 always does. He don t mean no harm, but he can t 
 be satisfied to just come around and git a horse and 
 lead it to the stable. He s got to draw attention to 
 hisself or he ain t happy. He s harmless, but he s 
 just naturally one of the know-it-all kind, and he s 
 got to show off." 
 
 There is no man in a small town who can give such 
 a satisfying and official welcome to a stranger as 
 that given by the liveryman, and when the landlord 
 of the hotel and the owner of the livery stable are 
 combined in one man he is better than a reception 
 
50 KILO 
 
 committee composed of the mayor and the leading 
 citizens. He is glad to see the stranger, and he lets 
 him know it. He has a gruff, hearty, and not too 
 servile manner, and a way of speaking of the men 
 of the town and the farmers of the surrounding 
 country as if he owned them. Having bought horses 
 of many of then, he knows their bad traits, and he 
 has an air of knowing much more than he would will 
 ingly tell regarding them. He is not inquisitive about 
 the stranger s business, and is willing to give him in 
 formation. Probably it is his trade of buying and 
 selling and renting horses that gives him such a flavor 
 of his own, for he knows that the horses he lets out 
 on livery are often as intelligent as the men who hire 
 them. He comes as near the chivalric model of the 
 old Southern planter as a Northern business man can, 
 but his slaves are horses, and his overseer the hostler. 
 He is a man in authority, even though his authority 
 is over horses. 
 
 Modern civilization has few finer sights and sounds 
 than the liveryman when he is asked if he has a horse 
 he can let out for a ten-mile drive into the country. 
 He looks at the supplicant doubtfully ; " Well, I 
 dunno," he says, " where was it you wanted to drive 
 to ? " He receives the answer with a non-committal 
 air. " That s nearer fourteen mile than ten," he says, 
 
KILO 51 
 
 and then turns to the hostler. " Say, Potts, Billy s 
 out, ain t he? " Potts growls out the answer, " Doc 
 Weaver s got him out. Won t be back till seven." 
 The liveryman pulls slowly at his cigar, and runs his 
 hand over his hair. " How s the bay mare s hoof to 
 day?" he asks. Potts shakes his head. "That s 
 right," says the liveryman, " it don t do to take no 
 chances with a hoof like that. And we haven t got a 
 thing else in the barn except that black horse, have 
 we, Potts ? " " Everything else out," says Potts. 
 The liveryman walks away a few steps, and then 
 turns suddenly. " Hitch up the black, Potts," he 
 says, with an air of sudden recklessness. " Put him 
 in that light, side-bar buggy of Doc. Weaver s. 
 Want a hitching strap? Put in a hitching strap, 
 Potts. And that new whip." 
 
 The result is that you get the horse and buggy 
 the liveryman intended you to have from the minute 
 he saw you coming toward him down the street, but 
 you get it with a fine touch of style that is worth 
 much in this dollar and cent world. Potts drives the 
 rig around to where you are standing, and the liv 
 eryman sends Potts back to get a clean laprobe in 
 stead of the one that is in the buggy. He pats the 
 horse on the neck as you climb in, and as you pick up 
 the reins he says, as if conferring a parting favor 
 
52 KILO 
 
 that money could not repay, " Keep a fair tight rein 
 on him; it s the first time he has been out of the 
 stable to-day." 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt, in his travels, had learned the 
 value of the liveryman. He used him as friend and 
 directory. None else could tell him so well where tK* 
 prosperous farmers lived, nor who was most likely 
 to fall a victim to Jarby s Encyclopedia in the town 
 itself. From the liveryman he could learn which min 
 ister, if there were more than one, would be the best 
 to have head his list of subscribers, which lady was 
 head of the Society, and what society she was head 
 of. He took one of the chairs that were ranged along 
 the side of the hotel, and laid his sample across his 
 knees. He chose the chair that was next to Pap 
 Briggs, for he was ready to become acquainted with 
 the man he intended soon to have for a father-in-law. 
 
 " Nice town you got here," he said. 
 
 " She s purty good," agreed Pap, " except for 
 taxes. Taxes is eternal high, and it s all us propputy 
 owners can do to keep em from goin clean out o 
 sight. City council don t seem to care a dumb how 
 high they git. I wish t I d stayed on my farm." 
 
 " Taxes ain t so high here as what they are in 
 Jefferson, Pap," suggested the landlord. " If you 
 lived down there they d make you holler, all right." 
 
KILO 53 
 
 " Well, Jim," said Pap, " they ain t much choice. 
 If these here young fellers git their way taxes will 
 go right up. What do they want to decorate this here 
 town all up for, anyhow? What you think young 
 Toole was sayin to me to-day? He was sayin it 
 was a disgrace to Kilo to have the public square 
 rented out an a crop o buckwheat growin in it. 
 He says we ought to plant it in grass an stick a 
 fountain in the middle. But that s the way she goes ; 
 anything to raise up the taxes. All I says to him 
 was, All right, who ll pump water to make the foun 
 tain squirt? Suppose the taxpayers 11 take turns, 
 hey? " 
 
 " Well," said the landlord, " I ain t in favor of a 
 fountain, myself. I reckon a nice piece of statuary 
 would look better, so long as we ain t got water 
 works to make the fountain fount out water. But it 
 don t look right to have a public square rented out 
 to grow buckwheat in. It ain t city-like." 
 
 " It brings in seven dollars a year to the town," 
 said Pap, " an that s better than payin out good 
 money for statuary. I m agin high taxes every time. 
 It costs too much to live, anyhow, especially when 
 you ve got a daughter to support, and no money 
 comin in, to speak of. And just when some does 
 come in, along comes a pesky book agent or somethin 
 
54 K I L O 
 
 and fools the women out of the money. They ought 
 to be a law agin book agents. City council ought 
 to put a license on em, and keep em out of town." 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt coughed gently behind his hand. 
 
 " Some towns," he said softly, " do have licenses 
 against book agents. One of the relics of the dark 
 ages, but abolished wherever the light o culture is 
 loved and esteemed. What so helpful as the book? 
 What so comforting? What so uplifting? And who 
 but the book agent carries help and comfort and up 
 lift, and leaves it scattered around, one dollar down 
 and one dollar a month until paid ; who but the hum 
 ble but useful book agent? To mention but one book, 
 Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium 
 of Literature, Science, and Art has carried wis 
 dom into a million homes, making each better and 
 brighter. It is a book that makes the toil of the day 
 easy, by giving one thousand and one hints and helps, 
 and that sweetens rest after toil, by quotations from 
 all the world s great authors. In this one book " 
 
 Pap Briggs had put his hands on the arms of his 
 chair, preparing to run away, but the landlord leaned 
 forward and looked in Eliph Hewlitt s face. 
 
 " Say," he said, " is your name Mills? " 
 
 "Hewlitt," said the book agent, "Eliph Hew 
 litt." 
 
KILO 55 
 
 He turned to the landlord and looked him fairly 
 in the face, and as he looked the air of suspicion 
 that had suddenly shone in his eyes vanished. 
 
 "Jim Wilkins!" he exclaimed. "Isn t it Jim 
 Wilkins?" 
 
 " Ain t it ! " cried the landlord. " Well, I should 
 say it is ! And to think, you little, sawed-off propa 
 gator of human knowledge didn t recognize your 
 old side pardner in the field of sellin improvin and 
 intellectooal works of genius ! Don t say you don t 
 remember the * Wage of Sin, Sammy ! Don t say 
 you don t remember Kitty ! " 
 
 " Kitty? " asked Eliph doubtfully. 
 
 " Well, if the little red-head ain t forgot Kitty ! " 
 exclaimed Wilkins. " Why, I married Kitty, Sammy. 
 For an actual, truthful fact I did. And to think I 
 should run across Sammy Mills after all these years." 
 
 "Hewlitt," said Eliph . "Eliph Hewlitt is the 
 name I m known by." 
 
 " And to think you stuck by that name all these 
 years ! " said Wilkins. " And still sellin works of 
 literatoor, are you? Pap, this is my old boylio 
 chum come meanderin backwards out of the ; ti 
 And still sellin books ! Well, I don t want to disc 
 age your ambitiousness, but I guess you ve struck 
 Kilo about the worst time in the century. Ever hear 
 
56 KILO 
 
 of a literary writer called Sir Walter Scott? Well, 
 sir, Kilo is chuck full of Sir Walter ; full as a goat. 
 She ain t begun to near git through with Sir Walter 
 yet, and I don t figger she ll take in no more libraries 
 just now. Sir Walter hit her pretty hard." 
 
 " Ten volumes, fifteen dollars cloth, twenty dol 
 lars half morocco?" inquired Eliph Hewlitt. 
 
 " The identical same," said the landlord. " I pur 
 chased a group of Sir Walters in red leather myself. 
 So did everybody in Kilo ; at least I ain t found any 
 body that s been missed yet. Pap here got some." 
 
 " My daughter Sally " began the old man. 
 
 " Same thing," said Wilkins; " you pay just the 
 same as if you bought the books. Why, Sammy, 
 there s enough Sir Walter right here in Kilo now to 
 start up a book business. Kilo s light on literatoor 
 generally, but when she goes in, she goes in heavy. 
 There ain t many towns where you ll find every livin 
 soul ready to swaller down fifteen dollars worth of 
 Sir Walter Scott, two dollars down and one dollar a 
 month until paid; but I calculate them ten volumes 
 will last Kilo quite a spell, and if worst comes to 
 worst she won t buy no more literatoor till she gits 
 paid up on Sir Walter. I figger from my own sense 
 of feelin s that about the worst time to sell a feller 
 books is when he is still payin once a month on the 
 
KILO 57 
 
 old lot. About the second time the collector drops in 
 to collect on a set of works of literatoor, a man feels 
 like he had been foolish, but he grins cheerful, and 
 pays up, but if another man drops in about then to 
 sell another set of the world s great masterpieces it 
 is pretty near an insult to human intelligence." 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt drew his hand across his whiskers 
 and coughed gently. 
 
 " They told me in Jefferson," he said softly, " that 
 Kilo was the most intellectual town in central Iowa." 
 
 " Everybody says the same," said Wilkins with a 
 touch of pride. " The Sir Walter Scott man said it, 
 and I guess it s so. But there s other things besides 
 books. Kilo may be strong and willin on books, but 
 she s strong other ways, too, and just now she is 
 lookin at another kind of horse, and that s why I 
 say you ve miscalculated your comin . If I was you 
 I d go elsewhere and come back later. Kilo has got 
 more books now than she can handle without strain 
 ing something, and just now her mind s off on an 
 other tack. We struck a big missionary revival here 
 last week, and you can bet a wager that every dollar 
 that goes out of Kilo these days, except what goes 
 for dues on Sir Walter, is goin ? for the heathen. 
 The women folks is havin a sale this very evenin to 
 raise cash to help the heathen." 
 
58 KILO 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt arose from his chair and tucked the 
 oilcloth-covered parcel that had been lying on his 
 knees under his left arm. He was a small man, and 
 his movements were apt to be short and jerky. 
 
 " Missionary sale? " he said briskly. " I guess I ll 
 go around and look in on it. Strangers welcome, I 
 suppose? I m rather fond of missionary sales, and I 
 think the world and all of the heathen. Think the 
 ladies would like to see a stranger ? " 
 
 Wilkins grinned. 
 
 "Pap," he said, "what you think? Think they ll 
 fall on his neck if he has any money? From what I 
 have experienced of them sales I figger to calculate 
 that anybody that is anxious to buy gingham aprons 
 an sofa pillows is sure to be took by the hand and 
 given a front seat. I d go around with you, but I ve 
 got my taxes to pay, like Pap here, and I don t actu 
 ally need any pink tidies. It ain t far ; just up to Doc 
 Weaver s; two blocks up, and you can t miss the 
 house. It s the yeller mansion, this side the road, an 
 the gate s off the hinges and laid up alongside the 
 fence. But I guess if them s your samples in that 
 there package, you might as well leave them here." 
 
 But Eliph Hewlitt did not leave them there; he 
 tucked them under his arm, and hurried away with 
 brisk little steps. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 SAMMY MILLS 
 
 THERE ought to be a license agin book agents," 
 said Pap Briggs spitefully, when Eliph Hewlitt had 
 hurried away. 
 
 " It wouldn t harm that feller," said Wilkins. 
 " He s a red hot one at book-agenting, he is, an 
 he d find out some way to git round it. I hear lots 
 of book agents that come round this way tell of him. 
 He s got a record of sellin more copies of that ency 
 clopedia book of his than any one man ever sold of 
 any one book, an he s a sort of hero of the book- 
 agenting business. It makes me proud to call to re 
 membrance that him an me was kids together down 
 at Franklin, years ago. Him an me took to the book- 
 agentin biz the same day, we did. I needed cash, like 
 I always do, and he had literatoor in the family. So 
 we went an did it. We did it to Gallops Junction 
 first, and after that Eliph sowed literatoor pretty 
 general all over Iowa, an next I heard of him all 
 over the United States. Iowa is now a grand State, 
 and as full of culture as a Swiss cheese is full of 
 holes, an I don t take all the credit for it; I give 
 
60 KILO 
 
 Eliph his share. Hotels help to scatter the seed, but 
 literatoor scatters more. 
 
 " One day, down there at Franklin, Eliph says to 
 me, Jim, you know that book pa wrote? That s 
 what Eliph remarked to me on the aforesaid day, but 
 I wish to state his name wasn t Eliph on that date, 
 an it wasn t Hewlitt, neither. It was plain Sammy ; 
 Sammy Mills. Eliph Hewlitt was a sort of fancy 
 name my pa had give to a horse he had that he 
 thought was a racer, but wasn t. It was a good 
 enough horse to enter in a race, but not good enough 
 to win. It was the kind of race horse that kept pa 
 poor, but hopeful. 
 
 " Why, yes, Sammy, I says, * I ve heard tell of 
 that grand literary effort of your dad. 
 
 " Well, he says we was sittin on the porch of 
 his pa s house Pa he had a thousand of them 
 printed. 
 
 " Dickens he did ! I remarked, supposin it was 
 up to me to do some remarkin . 
 
 " And, says Sammy, he s got eight hundred an 
 sixty-four of them highly improvin an intellectooal 
 volumes stored in the barn right now. 
 
 " Quite a lib ry, I says, off-hand like. 
 
 " Numerous, but monotonous, says Sam. As a 
 lib ry them books don t give the variety of topics 
 
S A M M Y M I L L S 61 
 
 they oughter. They all cling to the same subject too 
 faithful. Eight hundred an sixty-four volumes of 
 the " Wage of Sin," all bound alike, don t make 
 what I call a rightly differentiated lib ry. When 
 you ve read one you ve read all. 
 
 " c Alas ! I says, or somethin like that, sympa 
 thetic an attentive. 
 
 " 6 Likewise, says Sam, they clutter up the barn. 
 They ought to be got out to make room for more 
 hay. 
 
 " This was indeed true. I saw it was all good 
 sense. Horses don t take to literatoor like they does 
 to hay. 
 
 " * Well, says Sammy, what s the matter with 
 chuckin them eight hundred an sixty-four " Wages 
 of Sin " into the rustic communities of this common 
 wealth of Iowa, U. S. A.? Here we ve got a barnful 
 of high-class, intellectooal poem, an yon we have a 
 State full of yearnin minds, clamorous for mental 
 improvement at one fifty per volume. It s our duty 
 to chuck them poems into them minds, an to intel- 
 lectooally subside them clamors. 
 
 " I shook my head quite strenuous. 
 
 " Nix for me ! I remarked ; no book-agenting 
 for me. 
 
 " 6 Who said book-agenting, asked Sammy, deeply 
 
62 KILO 
 
 offended. Do you calculate that the son of a high- 
 class author of a famous an helpful book would turn 
 book agent? Never! 
 
 " What then? I asks him. 
 
 " * Just a little salubrious an entertainin canvas- 
 sin for a work of genius, he says. A few heart-to- 
 heart talks with the educated ladies of Gallops Junc 
 tion an Tomville on the beauties of the " Wage of 
 Sin." That ain t no book-agenting, says he, that s 
 pickin money off the trees. It s pie ready cut an 
 handed to us on a plate with a gilt edge. All we ve 
 got to do is to bite it. 
 
 " Now, let me tell you right here, Pap, that the 
 * Wage of Sin was a thoroughbred treat to read. 
 It was a moral book. Next to the Bible it was the 
 morallest book I ever tackled, an when W. P. Mills 
 wrote that book he gave the literatoor of the U. S. A. 
 a boost in the right direction that it hasn t recovered 
 from yet. It was the champion long distance poem 
 of the nineteenth century. That book showed what 
 a chunky an nervous mind old W. P. Mills had. 
 There was ten thousand verses to that book of poem, 
 partitioned off into various an sundry parts so the 
 reader thereof could sit up an draw breath about 
 every thousand verses, an get his full wind ready for 
 the run through the next slice. 
 
S A M M Y M I L L S 63 
 
 " That * Wage of Sin book was surely for to ad 
 mire, any way you looked at it. Take the subject; 
 it wasn t any of your little, sawed-off, one-year 
 sprints. No, siree! W. P. Mills started away back 
 in the front vestibule of time. He said, right in the 
 preface an that was all poetry, too 
 
 Now, reader, go along with me 
 Away back to eternity, 
 A hundred thousand years, and still 
 Keep backing backwards if you will. 
 
 An when he got away back there he sort of expec 
 torated on his hands an started in at Genesis, Chap 
 ter One, Verse One, an went right along down 
 through the Bible like a cross-cut saw through a 
 cottonwood log. He never missed a single event that 
 was important, if true. He got all them old fellers 
 rhymed right into that book Jereboam, Rehoboam, 
 Meschach, Shadrach, an Abednego, an all the whole 
 caboodle, from Adam with an A to Zaccheus with a Z. 
 " That certain was a moral tome, an no prevari 
 cation. It was plumb drippin with moral from start 
 to finish. You see Eve she set the ball a-rollin when 
 she swiped them apples. That was where she done 
 dead wrong, and that was the Sin as mentioned in 
 the name of the book, an old W. P. Mills he showed 
 in that literary volume how everybody has had to 
 
64 KILO 
 
 pay the Wages ever since. It was great. I never 
 read anything else moral that I could say I really 
 hankered for, but I sure did enjoy that book. Old 
 W. P. Mills was a wonder at poetry. 
 
 " It beat all how vivid he made all them Old Testa 
 ment people, an the things they did. Why, I never 
 cared two cents for Shadrach, Meshach, an Abed- 
 nego before I read that book, but after I did read it 
 I never could git them lines of W. P. s out of my ; 
 
 head 
 
 The King perhaps that moment saw 
 A thing that filled his soul with awe 
 Shadrach and Meshach, to and fro, 
 Walked and talked with Abednego. 
 
 I tell you, you can t obliterate them three men out of 
 your mind when you read that verse once. You see 
 them walkin in that fiery furnace, even when you re in 
 your little bed ; walkin an carryin on a conversation, 
 which, when you come to think of it, was the most 
 natural thing for them to be doin . You wouldn t look 
 to see them sit down on a hot log, or to stand still 
 sayin nothin . Walk an talk, that s what they did, 
 an it s what anybody would do in similar circum 
 stances. I guess fiery furnaces has that effect all the 
 world over, but it took W. P. Mills to see it with his 
 mind s eye, an put it into verses. 
 
SAMMY MILLS 65 
 
 " So, when Sammy gently intimated to me that it 
 was his pa s book we was to canvass, the job looked 
 different. I might shy at an encyclopedia, or at a 
 life of Stephen A. Douglas, but to handle a moral 
 volume like the Wage of Sin sort of appealed to 
 the financial morality of my conscience. So I asked 
 Sammy what the gentlemanly canvassers would get 
 out of it. 
 
 " Pa had a lot of faith in that lyric poem, says 
 Sammy to me, * an no one had a better right to, for 
 he wrote it himself, but the publishing game was dull 
 an depressed about the time he got ready to issue it 
 forth, an he was necessitated to compensate the cost 
 of printing it himself. And, he says, the rush an 
 hurry of the public to buy that book is such it re 
 minds me of the eagerness of a kid to get spanked. 
 So I figger we can get several wagon-loads of " Wage 
 of Sin " at fifty cents per volume. 
 
 " That s a cheap price, I says, c that s two hun 
 dred verses for one cent, an the cover free. 
 
 " Sammy was one of the confidential kind that gets 
 close up to your ear and whispers, even if he is only 
 tellin you that it looks like rain, so he looks all 
 around and whispers to me: 
 
 " We ll make our initiative beginnin first off at 
 
66 KILO 
 
 Gallops Junction, he says, where we ain t known, 
 an where pa ain t known, an where the book ain t 
 known. I ve a premonition, he says, * that twould 
 be better so. If we was to start in here we would 
 get discouraged, for the folks ain t used to buyin 
 " Wage of Sin." They ve been given it so bountiful 
 an free that pa can t give away another copy to the 
 poorest man in town. They ve got so that they run 
 when they see pa cominV 
 
 " * You ve got sense in that red head of your n, I 
 says. 
 
 " 6 For me, he says, 4 it will be merely a voluptu 
 ous excursion. It will be pie to sell that book, be 
 cause I am the son of its author. Filial relationship 
 to genius, he says, will make them overawed, an 
 grateful to be allowed to buy of me, but you will 
 have it harder. You can t claim nearer kin to genius 
 than that you helped the son of it chop wood at vari 
 ous and sundry times. 
 
 " And gave him a handsome black eye one time, 5 
 I says reminiscently. * I ll make the most of that. 
 The public likes anecdotes. 
 
 * No, says Sammy, * you can omit to mention 
 that black-eye business. That kind of an anecdote 
 would be harrowing to the minds of literary inclined 
 gentlefolks. You can reminisce about how you helped 
 
I recognized her immediate as the prettiest girl of 
 my acquaintance 
 
S A M M Y M I L L S 67 
 
 me carry wood while I recited passages of poem out, 
 of that book at you. 
 
 " What I would have spoke next don t matter, be 
 cause I omitted to speak it. I was gettin a glimmer 
 of an idea into my head, and I wanted to get it clear 
 in and settled down to stay before I lost it. It got 
 in, an I had a realization that it was an O. K. idea, 
 an that it beat Sammy s son-of-his-father idea 
 quite scandalous. 
 
 " When me an Sammy got down to Gallops Junc 
 tion we found that as a municipality of art an beauty 
 it was a red-hot fizzle, but as a red-hot, sizzling sand- 
 heap it was the leader of the world. As near as we 
 could judge from a premature look at the depot 
 platform the principal occupations of the grizzly in 
 habitants was pickin sand burrs from the inside rim 
 of their pants-leg. It was a dreary village, but 
 Sammy restrained my unconscious impulse to get 
 right aboard the train again. He had that joyful 
 light of combat in them blue eyes of his, an he 
 looked at that bunch of paintless houses that was 
 dumped around the Gallops Junction Hotel like 
 Columbus must have looked at Plymouth Rock when 
 he landed there. 
 
 " I had an immediate notion that the thing for me 
 to do was to go over to the hotel, an sit in the shade 
 
68 KILO 
 
 there, an study the inhabitants a while, an get the 
 gauge of em, an learn their manners an customs, 
 before harshly thrustin myself into their bosoms, so 
 I went an did it ; but Sammy proceeded immediate to 
 visit their homes with the Wage of Sin in one hand 
 an the torch of culture in the other. 
 
 " The more I set under the board awning of that 
 hotel the less I felt like goin forth to uplift the popu 
 lace, so I went calmly an respectfully to sleep, like 
 everybody else in sight, an the gentle hours sizzled 
 past like rows of hot griddles. 
 
 " It was contiguous to five o clock when I woke up, 
 an I had put three hours of blissful ignorance into 
 the past, an I seen it was too late to begin my labors 
 of helpfulness that day. I crossed my legs the other 
 way from what they had been crossed, an I was about 
 to extend my ruminations to other thoughts, when I 
 noticed a young female exit out of a grocery store 
 across the road. She had a basket of et ceterys on 
 her arm, an a face that was as beautiful as a ham 
 sandwich looks to a man after a forty days fast. 
 I recognized her right away as the prettiest girl of 
 my life s experience, an as she stepped out I slid 
 out of my chair an made up my mind to make a dis 
 posal of one copy of that book as soon as she struck 
 home. 
 
SAMMY MILLS 69 
 
 " She went into her house at the back door, as most 
 folks do, an before she slid the basket off her plump 
 but modest arm, she looked up with surprise to see 
 what gentlemanly visitor was knockin the paint off 
 the screen door with his knuckles. The glad object 
 that her eyes beheld was me, smilin an amiable, with 
 one hand shyly feeling if my necktie was loose, while 
 the other concealed behind my back the interesting 
 volume entitled the Wage of Sin. 
 
 " I won t circumlocute about how I got in and got 
 set down on a chair alongside of the kitchen stove. 
 Approaching the female species promptly and slick 
 was my high card always. So there I set, face to face 
 with that beautiful specimen of female bric-a-brac, 
 and about two inches from a ten-horse-power cook 
 stove in full blossom. It was a warm day, and extry 
 warm on the side of me next that stove. The nigh side 
 of me felt like sudden fever aggravated by appli 
 cations of breaths from the orthodox pit of brim 
 stone, and even my off side was perspirating some. 
 
 " Thus situated before that young female lady, I 
 was baked but joyous, and I set right in to sell her a 
 < Wage of Sin. 
 
 " Ma genully buys books when we buy any, but 
 we never do, she says. 
 
 " Your ma in now? I asks, respectful, but in a 
 
70 KILO 
 
 way to show that her eyes and hair wasn t being 
 
 wasted on no desert hermit. 
 
 66 * Yes, she s in, she says. * Looks like it s guna 
 rain. 
 
 " * It s some few warm, I says, shifting my most 
 cooked side a little. Can I converse with your ma? 
 
 " * Only in spirit, she says. * Otherwise she s en 
 gaged. 
 
 " Dead? I asks, her words seeming to imply her 
 ma s having departed hence. 
 
 " 4 Oh, no, she says, smiling. c She s in the front 
 room, talking. She has a very previous engagement 
 with a gent, and can t break away. 
 
 " You ll do just as well, I says, * if not better. 
 You have that intellectooal look that I always spot 
 on the genooine lover of reading matter. 
 
 " c If you are gun to talk book, you better git 
 right down to business and talk book, she says, be 
 cause when I whoop up that stove to git supper, as 
 I m gun to soon, it s liable to git warm in this 
 kitchen. 
 
 " I took a look at the cooking apparatus, and de 
 cided that she knew what she was conversing about. I 
 liked the way she jumped right into the fact that 
 I had a few things to say about books, too. She was 
 an up-and-coming sort, and that s my sort. It s up- 
 
S A M M Y M I L L S 71 
 
 and-comingness that has made the Kilo Hotel what 
 it is. 
 
 " fi All right, sister, I says, this book is the 
 famous " Wage of Sin." 
 
 " No? she exclamates. 6 Not the "Wage of 
 Sin"? The celebrated volume by our fellow lowan, 
 Mr. What s-his-name? 
 
 " * The same book ! I says, glad to know its 
 knowledge had passed that far down the State. 
 * Price one-dollar-fifty per each. A gem of purest 
 razorene. A rhymed compendium of wit, informa 
 tion, and highly moral so-forths. Ten thousand 
 verses, printed on a new style rotating duplex press, 
 and bound up in pale-gray calico. Let me quote you 
 that sweet couplet about the flood: 
 
 I hear the mother in her grief 
 Imploring heaven for relief 
 As up the mountain-side she drags 
 Herself by mountain peaks and crags. 
 
 When I wrote that 
 
 " When you wrote that! she cries joyous, stop 
 ping to gaze at me. * What ! Do I see before me a 
 real, genooine author? Do I see in our humble but 
 not chilly kitchen a reely trooly author? 
 
 " e Yes m, I says, modest, like G. W. when his papa 
 caught him executing the cherry tree. * I wrote it. I 
 
72 K I L 
 
 am the author. Here, as you see me now, in tropical 
 but dripping diffidence, I am the author of that tome. 
 It s a warm day. 
 
 " She stood in my proximity and explored me with 
 her eyes. 
 
 " An author ! she says, stunned but pleased. A 
 real live author ! My ! but it is hard for me to grasp 
 a realization of that fact. So you wrote it? 
 
 " * Yes m, I says again. I done it. 
 
 " * So young, too, she says. Genius is cert nly 
 a wonderful phenomenus. 
 
 " It s easy when you know how, I says off-hand 
 like. * Book-writing is born in us. When we get 
 warmed up to it it s no trick at all. An author can t 
 no more help authorizing than a stray pup can help 
 scratching. 
 
 " But, she says, 6 it must be true what I ve heard 
 about authorizing being a poor paying job. 
 
 " * Why? I asks, being suspicious. 
 
 " Because, she says, if it wasn t you wouldn t be 
 touring around to sell your own books after you ve 
 wrote them. That is hard work. Now, I have to stay 
 in this kitchen and perspire because I have to, but if 
 you was rich off your books you wouldn t sit on that 
 chair and get all stewed up. I can see that. 
 
 " What you can t see, I says, is that I came here 
 
SAMMY MILLS 73 
 
 just because I was the writer of this here composition. 
 Money I don t desire to wish for. Being a rich man 
 and a philanthropist, I give all I make off of this 
 book to the poor. But it ain t everybody can experi 
 ence the satisfiedness of seeing a reely genooine 
 author. So I travel around exhibiting myself for the 
 good of the public. And as a special and extraordi 
 nary thing a sort of guarantee to one and all that 
 they have seen a genooine living author I write 
 my autograph in each and every volume of this book 
 that I sell at the small sum of one-fifty per. Think 
 of it ! Ten thousand verses ; moral, intellectooal, and 
 witty; cloth cover, and the author s own autograph 
 written by himself, all for one-fifty. The autograph 
 of the famous boy author. 
 
 " * That s a big bargain, she says, thoughtful. 
 
 " Jigantic, I says. 
 
 " * Genius is cert nly a wonderful phenomenus, 
 she repeats again, dreamy. 
 
 " Ain t it ! I responds, sniffing to see if it was my 
 pants that was scorching. * Will you have one 
 vol.? 
 
 " She hesitated, and then she says, * No. No, I 
 don t dast to. Not yet. Not till I see how ma comes 
 out. Mebby she ll purchase one before she gits 
 through being talked to. 
 
74 KILO 
 
 " I set straight upward on my hotly warmed chair. 
 4 Being talked to ! I says, astonished. 
 
 " Yes, says that sweet sample of girl. * Your 
 son, you know, Mister Samuel Mills ; he s in the front 
 room interviewing ma. 
 
 " * My son! I ejaculates weakly, the thermometer 
 in my spinal backbone going up ten thousand degrees 
 hotter. 
 
 " Such an oldish son, too, she says, sinfully joy 
 ous, * for such a youngish father. He must have been 
 two years old the day you were born. Genius is cer- 
 t nly a wonderful phenomenus ! 
 
 " I set there a minute, wilted, but nervous. Then 
 I got hot, and arose in anger. 
 
 " My son ! I says, scornful. So that s what he 
 says, is it? Disgracing his father in that way! All 
 right for him ! I disown him out of my family. And 
 I furthermore remark that he ain t my son, nor never 
 was. 
 
 " * Well, she says, you needn t get so hot 
 about it. He s a hard worker. He s been here all 
 day. 
 
 " * I ain t hot, I says, forgetting that my tempera 
 ture was torrid plus glowing, but I m mad to think 
 that that boy which I hired to sell my book should 
 pass himself off as my son, and then stay talking all 
 
SAM MY MILLS 75 
 
 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 there 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 
 asservated 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. 
 
 " e 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 en 
 couraging 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 nobody wins. 
 
 " < Then, I says, < I don t sell no " Wage of Sin," 
 do I? 
 
76 KILO 
 
 " Not as no author of 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 
 in the week. 
 
 " That, she says, cheerful, is spoke like a finan 
 cier and a gentleman. 
 
 " With that she started for the front room, but 
 just then the door swung open, and out come 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. 6 We talked seven miles and six fur 
 loughs, 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, fi 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 ? 
 
SAMMY MILLS 77 
 
 " I see fhe respectable old lady pricking up her 
 ears and getting ready for another season of conver 
 sation. 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: 
 6 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 authored 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. 
 
 " c 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. 
 
78 KILO 
 
 You d ought to speak a few words of helpfulness 
 with him, too ! 
 
 " Now, here, I says, * you pass 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 pass 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. Ordi 
 nary persons couldn t have done it, but that lady 
 mother could, an did, an every now an then she 
 would dig into Sammy again, just to keep him con 
 vinced that he wasn t Sammy. 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 
 
SAMMY MILLS 79 
 
 off the other side of it, an Sammy all the time re- 
 peatin 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 give 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 aprons and the cat-stitched dust 
 ing 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 par 
 lor, laughingly explaining the merits of a plush-cov 
 ered 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 Hew 
 litt, and I heard of this sale at the hotel. The land 
 lord said strangers were welcome " 
 
 80 
 
THE CASTAWAY 81 
 
 " 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 vol 
 umes 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 in 
 troduce you. He he likes books." 
 
82 KILO 
 
 " 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 dis 
 tant corner of the room. Eliph was well enough 
 pleased with this reception, for he would hardly have 
 known 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 minis 
 ter 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 CASTAWAY 83 
 
 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 pass 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 took 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 ap- 
 
84, KILO 
 
 predated the self denial of Eliph Hewlitt in passing 
 such a good opportunity to talk business. 
 
 " Are you deeply interested in the field ? " he in 
 quired graciously. 
 
 " Well, you see," 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." 
 
 Someone pushed a chair gently against Eliph s 
 legs, in gentle invitation for him to be seated, and 
 he took the chair, and laid his package across his 
 knees. Those who had drawn away from him now 
 gathered closer, and all gazed at him with interest. 
 Miss Sally alone remained at the other end of the 
 room. 
 
 " Well, I never expected to live to see a man that 
 had been shipwrecked," said Mrs. Weaver, " let alone 
 shipwrecked on a desert island an a book agent at 
 that!" 
 
 Eliph smiled indulgently. 
 
 " I wasn t a book agent in them days," he said ; 
 " it was that made me a book agent. If I hadn t been 
 shipwrecked on that island I wouldn t be here now 
 with this book on my knees." 
 
 Mrs. Weaver s face flushed. 
 
THE CASTAWAY 85 
 
 " I m sure I ask you to excuse me," she exclaimed. 
 " I don t know what I was thinkin of not to ask 
 to take your package. Let me put it aside for you. 
 They ain t no use for you to be bothered with it." 
 
 "Thank you, ma m," said Eliph , "but I ll just 
 keep it. No offense, but I never let it go out of my 
 hands, day or night. It saved my life, not once, but 
 many times, this book did, and I keep it handy. But 
 for this book that shipwreck would have been my last 
 day." 
 
 " Land sakes, nov, " cried Mrs. Weaver, " won t 
 you tell us about it? " 
 
 " Well, as I said, but for this book I d be bones 
 at the bottom of the sea. Yes, ladies and gents, bones, 
 of which there is one hundred and ninety-eight in the 
 full grown human skeleton, composed of four-fifths 
 inorganic and one-fifth organic matter." 
 
 " How dreadful ! " exclaimed Mrs. Weaver, who, 
 being a doctor s wife, had a particular dislike for 
 bones, as for useless things that cluttered up the 
 house, and were not ornamental. " But how come 
 you to get wrecked ? " 
 
 " Five year ago," said Eliph Hewlitt, " I was a 
 confidence man in New York. New York is the largest 
 city on the Western Hemisphere; population esti 
 mated over three million ; located on the island of 
 
86 KILO 
 
 Manhattan, at the mouth of the Hudson River. And, 
 if I do say it myself, I was a good confidence man. 
 I was a success; I got rich. And what then? The 
 police got after me, and I had to run away. Yes, 
 ladies and gents, I had to fly from my native land. I 
 took passage on a ship for Ceylon. Ceylon," he 
 added, " is an island southeast of India ; population 
 three millions ; principal town, Colombo ; English 
 rule; products, tea, coffee, spices, and gems. 
 
 " We had a good trip until we almost got there, 
 and then a big storm come up, and blew our ship 
 about like it was a peanut shell, tossing it up and 
 down on the mighty waves, and round and back ; and 
 the third day we bumped on a rock, and the ship be 
 gan to sink. In the hurry I was left behind when the 
 crew and passengers went off in the boats. Think of 
 it, ladies and gents, not even a life preserver to save 
 me, and the ship sinking a foot a minute." 
 
 " Goodness me ! " said Mrs. Weaver, " you wasn t 
 drowned, was you? " 
 
 " No," said Eliph Hewlitt, " or I wouldn t be here 
 to tell it. I rushed to the captain s cabin. I thought 
 maybe I would find a life preserver there. Alas, no ! 
 But there, ladies and gents, I found something bet 
 ter. When I didn t find a life preserver I was stunned 
 yes, clean knocked out. I dropped into a chair, 
 
THE CASTAWAY 87 
 
 and laid my head on the captain s table. I sat there 
 several minutes, the ship sinking one foot per minute, 
 and when I come to my senses, and raised my head, 
 my hand was laying on this." 
 
 Reverently he raised the volume from his knees 
 and unwrapped it, and the Ladies Foreign Mission 
 Society leaned forward with one accord to catch a 
 glimpse of the title. Eliph Hewlitt opened the book 
 and flipped over the pages rapidly with the moistened 
 tip of his third finger. 
 
 " It was this book, ladies and gents, and it was 
 open here, page 742. Without thinking, I read the 
 first thing that hit my eye. * How to Make a Life 
 Preserver, it said. * Take the corks from a hundred 
 champagne bottles; tie them tightly in a common 
 shirt; then fasten the arms of the shirt about the 
 body, with the corks resting on the chest. With this 
 easily improvised life preserver drowning is impossi 
 ble. I done it. The captain of that ship was a high 
 liver, and his room was chuck full of champagne bot 
 tles. I put in two extry corks for good measure, 
 and when the ship went down, I floated off on the 
 top of the ocean as easy as a duck takes to a 
 pond." 
 
 " My sakes ! " exclaimed Mrs. Weaver, " that cap 
 tain must have been an awful hard drinker ! " 
 
88 KILO 
 
 " He was," said Eliph Hewlitt " fearful. I was 
 really shocked. But, there I was in the water, and 
 not much better off for it, neither, for I couldn t 
 swim a stroke, and as soon as I got through bobbing 
 up and down like your cork when you ve got a sunfish 
 on your line, I stayed right still, just as if I d been 
 some bait-can a boy had thrown into an eddy, and I 
 figgered like as not I d stay there forever. Then I 
 noticed I had this book in my hand, and I thought, 
 * While I m staying here forever, I ll just take an 
 other peek at this book, and I opened her. Page 
 781," said Eliph , turning quickly to that page, " was 
 where she opened. 6 Swimming ; How to Float, Swim, 
 Dive, and Tread Water Plain and Fancy Swim 
 ming, Shadow Swimming, High Diving, et cetery. 
 There she was, all as plain as pie, and when I read it 
 I could swim as easy as an old hand. The directions 
 all through this book is plain, practical, and easily 
 followed. 
 
 " I at once swum off to the south, for there was 
 no telling how long I d have to swim, and as the water 
 was sort of cool, I thought best to go south, because 
 the further south you go the warmer the water gets. 
 When I had swum two days, and was plumb tuckered 
 out, I come to an island. The waves was dashing on 
 it fearful, and I knew if I tried to land I d be dashed 
 
THE CASTAWAY 89 
 
 to flinders. It knocked all the hope out of me, and I 
 made up my mind to take off my life preserver and 
 dive to the bottom of the sea to knock my brains 
 out on the rocks. But, ladies and gents, before I 
 dived I had another look at my book, hoping to find 
 something to comfort a dying man. I turned to 
 page 201." 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt found the page, and pointed to the 
 heading with his finger. 
 
 " Five Hundred Ennobling Thoughts from the 
 World s Greatest Authors, including the Prose and 
 Poetical Gems of All Ages, " he read. " There they 
 were sixty-two solid pages of them, with vingetty 
 portraits of the authors. I read No. 285 : 
 
 "As Thou hast made Thy world without, 
 Make Thou more fair my world within, et cetery. 
 
 * Whittier, J. G., commonly called the poet of liberty, 
 born 1807, died 1892 with a complete sketch of 
 his life, a list of his most popular pieces, and a his 
 tory of his work on behalf of the slave. 
 
 " I was much comforted by this," said Eliph Hew 
 litt, " and I run over the pages this way, thinking of 
 what I had read, when I hit on page 927 : Geography 
 of Land and Sea. I skipped ten pages telling in an 
 interesting manner of the five great continents, their 
 
90 KILO 
 
 political divisions, mountains, lakes, and plains, their 
 vegetable inhabitants and animals, their ancient and 
 modern history, et cetery, and I come to * Islands, 
 Common, Volcanic, and Coral ; and on page 940 I 
 read that coral islands are often surrounded by a 
 reef on which the waves dash, but that there is usu 
 ally a quiet lagoon between the reef and the island, 
 with somewhere an opening from the sea into the la 
 goon. 
 
 " When I read that," said Eliph , closing the 
 book, " I shut up my book and swum round until 
 I come to the opening, which was there, just like 
 the book said it would be, and I swum across the 
 lagoon, and fell exhausted on the beach. I was played 
 out, and I had swallered too much water. I would 
 have died right there, but I thought of my book, and 
 I turned to the index, where every subject known to 
 the vast realm of knowledge is set down alphabet 
 ically, from * A * to Z, twenty thousand references 
 in all, dealing with every subject from the time of 
 Adam to the present day, including, in the new and 
 revised edition just from the press, a history of the 
 war with Spain, with full page portraits of Dewey, 
 Sampson, Cervera, and the boy king, and colored 
 plates of the battles of Manila Bay and Santiago. 
 I run my eye down the page till I came to * Drowned, 
 
THE CASTAWAY 91 
 
 How to Revive the, page 96 ; and what I read there 
 saved my life." 
 
 The ladies sighed with relief. 
 
 " What shall I say about my four long years on 
 that island? " said Eliph . " I was the only man on 
 it. Oh, the pangs of solitude! Oh, the terrors of 
 being alone! But, ladies and gents, I suffered none 
 of them. I was not alone. He is never alone who has 
 a copy of Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and 
 Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, pub 
 lished by Jarby & Goss, New York, and sold for the 
 trifling sum of five dollars a volume, one dollar down 
 and one dollar a month until paid, the book delivered 
 when the first payment is made. And that, my friends, 
 was the book I had, and the book you see before you." 
 
 The minister put out his hand. 
 
 " May I look at the volume ? " he asked, and Eliph 
 passed it to him with a nod. 
 
 " From the first the book was my friend, phi 
 losopher, and guide. I had no matches. Page 416, 
 * Fire, Its Traditions How to Make a Fire Without 
 Matches Fire-fighting, Fire-extinguishers, et cet- 
 ery, taught me to make a fire by rubbing two sticks, as 
 the savages do. I had no weapons to kill the fowls 
 of the air. Page 425, Weapons, Ancient and Mod 
 ern Their History How to Make and Use Them, 
 
92 KILO 
 
 et cetery, told me how to twist the cocoanut bark into 
 a cord, and to shape the limb of the gum-gum tree 
 into a bow and arrow. Page 396, Birds, Tropical, 
 Temperate, and Arctic Song Birds, Edible Birds, 
 and Birds of Plumage, et cetery, with their Latin 
 and common names, and over one thousand illustra 
 tions, told me which to kill, and which to eat. Page 
 100, The Complete Kitchen Guide, being eight hun 
 dred tested recipes roasts, fries, pastry, cakes, 
 bread, puddings, entrees, soups, how to make candy, 
 how to clean brass, copper, silver, tin, et cetery 
 told me how to prepare and cook them. 
 
 " Yes, my friends, I went to that island an ig 
 norant, unbelieving man, and I came away educated 
 and reformed. For my idle hours there was the 
 Complete Mathematician, showing how to figger 
 the most difficult problems easily, how to measure 
 corn in the crib, water in the well, figger interest, 
 et cetery, by which I became posted on all kinds of 
 arithmetic. There was the Complete Letter Writer, 
 or a Guide to Polite and Correct Correspondence, 
 the Dictionary of Legal Terms, or Every Man His 
 Own Lawyer, the Modern Penman, the Eureka 
 Shorthand System in fact, all the knowledge in 
 the world, condensed into one thousand and four 
 pages, for the small sum of five dollars. Who can 
 
THE CASTAWAY 93 
 
 afford to be without this book, which will pay for 
 itself twice over every week of the year? 
 
 " I was picked up, ladies and gents," continued 
 Eliph Hewlitt, " by a passing ship, and I decided 
 to devote my life to a great work to circulating 
 this wonderful book in my native land. I wept when 
 I thought of the millions that had not seen it mil 
 lions that were living poor, starved lives because 
 they didn t have a copy of Jarby s Encyclopedia 
 of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Sci 
 ence and Art, and I gave myself to the cause." 
 
 The minister handed the book to Eliph Hewlitt, 
 and cleared his throat. 
 
 " It seems to be all you claim for it," he said ; 
 " but I fear the landlord of the Kilo House was 
 right. We are not, many of us, ready for more books 
 at present. If you return in a year or eight 
 months " 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt smiled, and put his hand gently 
 on the glossy black knee of the minister s best 
 trousers. 
 
 "True," he said, "true! Kilo has books. Kilo 
 knows the civilizing and Christianizing influence of 
 books. But," he exclaimed, " think of the poor 
 heathen! Think of the poor missionaries fighting 
 to bring civilization to those dark-hued brothers! 
 
94 KILO 
 
 Shall it be said that every home in Kilo has a set 
 of Sir Walter Scott, ten volumes with gilt edges, 
 while the minds of the heathen dry up and rot for 
 want of the vast treasures contained in Jarby s 
 Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of 
 Literature, Science and Art? Here in this one book 
 is the wisdom of the whole world, and will you selfishly 
 withhold it from those who need it so badly? If I 
 know Kilo, I think not. If what is said ; in Jefferson 
 regarding the unselfishness and liberality of Kilo 
 is true, I think not. I know what you will say. You 
 will say, Here, take this money we have collected 
 this evening and give to the thirsting heathen as 
 many volumes of Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowl 
 edge and Compendium of Literature, Science and 
 Art, as it will buy at five dollars a volume. 
 
 He glanced around the circle of faces. 
 
 " That is what you will say," he said ; " but Eliph* 
 Hewlitt will beg a chance to do his little for the 
 noble work. He will, seeing the good cause, make 
 the price four seventy-five per volume, and throw in 
 one volume free for the Kilo Sunday School library, 
 where one and all can have reference to its helpful 
 and civilizing pages." 
 
 In Eliph Hewlitt s eyes glowed the fire of con 
 quest that always shone in them when he was " talk- 
 
THE CASTAWAY 95 
 
 ing book," a glitter such as shines in the eyes of 
 the enthusiast, and they fell upon Miss Sally Briggs, 
 who had been drawn by his eloquence to the edge of 
 the ring of ladies. As he paused, she recognized the 
 moment as that when the victim is supposed to utter 
 the words, " Well, I guess I ll take a copy," but 
 she missed the direct appeal, and its absence confused 
 her, and she was still wondering whether it was now 
 time to say she would take a copy, or whether she 
 had better wait for the formal appeal, when Mrs. 
 Doc Weaver spoke for the Ladies Mission Circle. 
 
 When Eliph Hewlitt left the house, half an hour 
 later with his order signed, Miss Sally had disap 
 peared, and, although he peeked eagerly into both 
 the side rooms as he passed through the hall, he could 
 see nothing of her. He was disappointed. 
 
 When he returned to the hotel the landlord was 
 asleep in the chair before the door. He arose with 
 a yawn, rubbed his eyes, and led the way into the 
 office where a dingy kerosene lamp was burning 
 dimly. He stretched his arms as he looked at the 
 clock that stood above the dusty pigeon holes back 
 of the desk. 
 
 " Leven o clock ! " he yawned. " I must have been 
 asleep two hours. Guess you ll want to get right up 
 to bed, won t you? I reckon you found out Kilo 
 
96 KILO 
 
 don t want no books this trip, Sammy; an if you 
 want to git an early start from town you ll need all 
 the sleep you can get." 
 
 Eliph tossed his package on the desk carelessly. 
 
 " Why, yes, Jim, I wish you would call me early," 
 he said. " I ll be ready for bed in half an hour or 
 so. I done a little business up yonder, and I want to 
 mail in my report to New York. But you needn t 
 hitch up my horse in the morning." 
 
 " No ? " asked the landlord sleepily. 
 
 " No," said Eliph , " and if ny feller comes this 
 way selling books in the next month or so, just tell 
 him there ain t no use for a raw hand to waste time 
 in this town. Tell him Eliph Hewlitt has settled 
 down to live here." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 THE COLONEL 
 
 WHEN Eliph Hewlitt stepped out of the hotel the 
 next morning, after he had eaten his breakfast, and 
 stood, with a wooden toothpick between his lips, 
 looking up and down the street, he felt a sense of 
 exultation. If he had been a victorious general, and 
 Kilo a captured city of great importance, he would 
 have had a similar feeling. Already he felt that, if 
 he was not the captor of the town, he was one of its 
 important citizens, and practically the husband of 
 an attractive woman whose father owned sufficient 
 property to be one of those who grumble about 
 taxes. 
 
 To a man who had been a wanderer all his life it 
 was pleasant to feel that he was soon to be kin to all 
 the things he saw on Main Street, brother to the 
 town-pump and cousin to the flag pole, and to con 
 sider that even the well-gnawed hitching rails were 
 to be part of his future years. He nodded across 
 the street to Billings, the grocer and general store 
 man, as if he was an old acquaintance, and he watched 
 
 97 
 
98 KILO 
 
 Skinner, the butcher, sweeping the walk, with a pleas 
 ant smile, for he saw in him a future friend. He 
 loved Kilo, and he was ready to like everything, from 
 the post office to the creamery. His whole future 
 seemed destined to be simple and pleasant, for he 
 was resolved to do his best to make the town like 
 him, and there seemed little opportunity for com 
 plications in a town that could all be seen at one 
 glance. 
 
 Strangers think all small towns simple. The few 
 stores are all plainly labeled, the streets run at right 
 angles, and the houses are set well apart, like big 
 letters in a primer. A small town looks like a story 
 without a plot, like: " See the cat. Does the cat see 
 me? The cat sees the dog;" beside which a city 
 is as unfathomable as a Henry James paragraph. 
 To the stranger each man and woman he meets is 
 a complete individual, each standing alone, like let 
 ters on an alphabet block, and not easily to be con 
 fused, one with the other. But these letters of the 
 small town s alphabet are often tangled into as long 
 and complex words as those of the greatest city; 
 it takes but twenty-six letters to spell all the pas 
 sions. The letter A, that looked so distinctly sepa 
 rate, is soon found to be connected with C and T in 
 Cat, and with W and R in War, as well as cross- 
 
THE COLONEL 99 
 
 connected with C and W in Caw, and with T and R 
 in Tar; while the houses that stood so seemingly 
 alone are all connected and criss-crossed by lines 
 of love and hate, of petty policy and revenge and 
 pride, quite as are nations or people who live in 
 labyrinths, or in a metropolis. 
 
 It was still too early in the morning for Eliph 
 Hewlitt to call on Miss Sally, and there was no haste ; 
 the day was long. He even doubted whether it would 
 be good policy to call on her in the morning; he 
 might find her busy with household cares. Probably 
 it would be best to wait for the afternoon, when 
 she would be at leisure. This, he decided would be 
 best. He would arrive in her presence at two o clock, 
 and four hours of conversation would carry them 
 to the point of being well acquainted, as advised by 
 Jarby s Encyclopedia. The next day he could enter 
 the second stage of the directions, and call with a 
 book, present it ; call after dinner with a box of 
 candy, present it; call after supper, and propose a 
 walk, visit the ice cream parlor, and on the way 
 home offer his hand, and be accepted. The chapter 
 on " Courtship How to Win the Affections " ad 
 vised against haste, and Eliph did not wish to be 
 hasty. To a man of his spirit two days seemed rather 
 long to devote to so simple a matter a real waste 
 
100 KILO 
 
 of time but he was willing to take longer than nec 
 essary, in order to follow the directions in spirit, as 
 well as in letter. 
 
 Eliph settled himself into one of the chairs be 
 fore the hotel and opened his copy of Jarby s En 
 cyclopedia at the chapter on " Courtship How to 
 Win the Affections." He was deep in it when the 
 landlord strolled around from the livery stable and 
 sank into a chair by his side. 
 
 " So you made up your mind to stay here, 
 Sammy ? " he asked. " I guess the town ll be glad 
 enough to have you. All this town needs to be a 
 big place is inhabitants. What you ought to do now 
 is to settle down for good, an get married. There s 
 some purty fine women in this town that ain t picked 
 up yet, but they won t last long, the way they re 
 goin . Somebody gets married every couple of 
 months." 
 
 Eliph looked up with a smile. Jim Wilkins did 
 not know he had advised the very thing he meant 
 to do. 
 
 " I ve thought some about it," said Eliph , " most 
 everybody s getting married now-a-days." 
 
 " It s the popular thing round here," said Jim. 
 66 Look across the street, yonder. See that feller just 
 goin up to the lawyer s office? He s one that s in 
 
THE COLONEL; : !01 
 
 the marry class, just now. ThaVi. ,(!cjlottfll: G ahhi i^ 
 He lives out on the first farm beyond Main Street, 
 and he s goin to marry Sally Briggs, daughter of 
 old Pap Briggs, that we was talkin to last night, 
 here." 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt stared at the Colonel, but he said 
 nothing. He blamed himself; he had wasted his op 
 portunity. This was what came of being slow ! He 
 should have completed his courtship at the picnic, 
 or last night at the sale. Jim Wilkins interrupted 
 the thought. 
 
 " Leastways," he said, " he ll get her if Skinner 
 don t. It s a close run between him an Skinner. 
 Skinner ain t so good lookin as the Colonel, but 
 he s better fixed. It s Skinner owns our butcher-shop, 
 an* it s Skinner is buildin our Opery House Block. 
 Some says Skinner ll get Pap Briggs money, an 
 some says the Colonel will." 
 
 " Are there any others ? " asked Eliph , looking 
 down the street to where the raw brick of the opera 
 house glowed in the sun. 
 
 "After Sally?" asked Jim Wilkins. "Well, 
 there s sev ral would like to get her, I dare say. 
 Sally Briggs is a pretty fine sort of woman, an 
 Pap Briggs has quite considerable money, but the 
 
102 KILO 
 
 Golcnel an j ^kmuer .ha& the inside track. No one 
 else has a chance." 
 
 Eliph stroked his whiskers softly and coughed 
 gently behind his hand. 
 
 " Briggs, did you say the name was ? " he asked. 
 K Seems to me I met a lady at a picnic up Clarence 
 way that had that name. You said the name was 
 Sally Briggs?" 
 
 " That s her," said Wilkins. " Sally Ann Briggs. 
 She s been visitin up there in Clarence." 
 
 Eliph nodded his head slowly. 
 
 " I seem to recollect her, since you mention it," 
 he said indifferently, and then he added, " She spoke 
 as if she might buy a copy of Jarby s Encyclo 
 pedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, 
 Science and Art when I saw her at that picnic. I 
 guess I ll drop round and see if she s ready to buy. 
 If she s goin to be married she ought to have a 
 copy." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 THE MEDIUM-SIZED BOX 
 
 As Eliph walked briskly toward Miss Sally s house 
 the Colonel was having an interesting conversation 
 with Attorney Toole, in the attorney s office over 
 the Kilo Savings Bank. 
 
 Attorney Toole had been a lawyer at Franklin, 
 and he had come down to Kilo because he preferred 
 being a big toad in a small puddle, rather than a 
 little toad in a middle-sized one. This was one of his 
 reasons, but another was that he had complete and 
 full faith in Richard Toole, and intended to be a 
 political power in the land. He could not be much 
 of anything in Franklin, for that town was hard 
 and fast Democratic, and Toole was a Republican. 
 The first step to political preferment is to be elected 
 to something or other, it does not make much differ 
 ence what, and to rise from that to greater things, 
 but a Republican had no chance in Franklin ; couldn t 
 even get an appointment as dog police or wharf- 
 master; couldn t get elected to any office at all. 
 
 So Toole packed up his law books and moved to 
 
 103 
 
104 KILO 
 
 Kilo, where he was in a Republican town, a Republi 
 can county, and a Republican congressional district, 
 in a Republican State that formed part of a Repub 
 lican nation. He selected Kilo, after considering 
 other good little Republican towns, because the Re 
 publicans of Kilo needed aid and assistance; they 
 were out of office; kicked out. 
 
 Every so often the small town of the West turns 
 the regular party out of office and puts in a Citi 
 zens ticket, just to show that the people still rule, 
 and to let the greedy officeholders, some of whom 
 get as much as one hundred dollars a year in salary, 
 know that their offices are not life positions. When 
 Attorney Toole descended on Kilo, the Citizens 
 Party was " in," and the Republicans were " out," 
 and the attorney saw an opportunity of making 
 himself valuable to his party by working to put the 
 party " in " again. 
 
 Never before had the Colonel climbed his stairs, 
 and Toole smiled like an Irish sphinx when the 
 Colonel entered his office. He smiled most of the 
 time, not because he thought a smile becoming to his 
 freckled face, but because he found things so eternally 
 amusing. In law a man is considered innocent until 
 he has been proved guilty; in Kilo Attorney Toole 
 considered everything amusing until it had been 
 
THE MEDIUM-SIZED BOX 105 
 proved serious, and he considered the Colonel and 
 Skinner, and the whole Citizens Party they had 
 been instrumental in organizing, as parts of the 
 same joke. They would stand until he was ready to 
 lazily push out his hand and topple them over. It 
 was almost time to topple them, now, and he was 
 glad to see the Colonel; he motioned him to a seat, 
 and smiled. 
 
 The Colonel took his hat from his mat of coarse 
 iron-gray hair, and laid it carefully on the floor. 
 Out of his small sharp eyes ignorance and cunning 
 peered, and the mass of beard that hid the greater 
 part of his face could not hide the hard line of his 
 mouth. 
 
 " I jest dropped up," he explained, after he had 
 acknowledged the attorney s cheerful greeting with 
 a gruff " mornin ," " I jest dropped up, sort of 
 friendly-like, thinkin you might have nothin to 
 do, an might like to sit an chin a while. You don t 
 charge nothin for sittin an chinnin , do ye? " 
 
 Toole said he did not. 
 
 " I didn t figger you did," said the Colonel. " If 
 I d thought you did I wouldn t have dropped up, 
 for I ain t got no money to spend on lawyers. I d 
 sooner throw money away than spend it at law. But 
 I figgered you was young at the law yet, and didn t 
 
106 KILO 
 
 have much to do at it, and I sort of run across a 
 case I thought might amuse you, like, when you ain t 
 got nothin else to do. Folks don t seem to have 
 much faith in young lawyers, and you can t blame 
 em; old ones don t know much. All any of em 
 care for is to get people into trouble so they can 
 charge em fees to get em out of it. So I thought 
 mebby you d like to hear of this case so you could 
 kind of mull it over in your mind whilst you re loafin 
 up here." 
 
 " That was kind of you," said Toole. 
 
 " I always like to do a good turn when I can," 
 said the Colonel, " when it don t cost nothin . An 
 this case I was tellin you about is a mighty good 
 one for a young lawyer to study over. Soon as I 
 heard of it I says to myself I ll tell this case to 
 Attorney Toole, an he ll be grateful to hear of it. " 
 
 The country client usually begins in some such 
 way as this, anxious to get all the advice he can 
 without having to pay for it, and Toole merely 
 smiled. 
 
 " Mebby you know," said the Colonel, " that there 
 was a feller took board of Sally Briggs a while back ; 
 feller by the name of William Rossiter, that come 
 through here peddlin lightnin rods and pain killer 
 and land knows what all. Well, he was a rascal. He 
 
THE MEDIUM-SIZED BOX 107 
 
 took board off of Sally Briggs four weeks, and then 
 he cleared out, and she nor no one else has seen hide 
 nor hair of him since, and he never paid her one 
 cent. All he ever let on was to leave this letter stickin 
 on the pin cushion in his bedroom." 
 
 The Colonel dug the letter out of his vest pocket, 
 and Toole read it. It was short: 
 
 Dear Miss Briggs: I m off. Good-by. Business in Kilo is no 
 good. Sorry I can t square up, but I leave you the box in my 
 room in part payment. W.R. 
 
 " Prosecution s exhibit No. 1," said the attorney. 
 
 "Jest what I was tellin Miss Sally," said the 
 Colonel. " I says to her to keep that paper, and it 
 might come handy. Mebby you heard that me and 
 Miss Sally was what you might call keepin com 
 pany ? " 
 
 " That s interesting," said Toole. " Been keeping 
 it long?" 
 
 " Quite some consid able time," said the Colonel. 
 " Long enough, land knows, and we d a-been done 
 with it by this time and married, if that Skinner 
 hadn t come crowdin in where he wasn t wanted. 
 What right has a man like him to come pushin in 
 like that? His wife ain t been dead twelve months 
 yet. It ain t decent of him, is it? " 
 
108 KILO 
 
 "Do you want a legal opinion?" asked Toole, 
 reaching for a large law book that lay on the table. 
 
 "No, I don t!" cried the Colonel in alarm; "I 
 don t want to run up no charges. I don t care whether 
 it s legal or not, it ain t friendly, after him and 
 me has worked together buildin up this Citizens 
 Party, and all. What does he mean, sendin Miss 
 Sally porterhouses, when she only orders flank steak, 
 like he was wrappin up love and affection into every 
 steak? He s got mighty proud since he set out to 
 build that there Kilo Opery House of his. He s a 
 fool to spend money on an opery house in this town. 
 He s a beefy, puffy old money bag, he is. He needn t 
 tell me he expects to get even on what he spent on 
 that Opery House Block out of what he ll make on 
 it; he just built it to make a show, so some dumb 
 idiot like Sally Briggs would think he amounted to 
 more than others, and marry him." 
 
 The Colonel brought down his hand with a bang 
 on the attorney s table. 
 
 " What kind of an idiot did you call Miss 
 Briggs?" asked Toole pleasantly. 
 
 " I didn t call her no kind ! " declared the Colonel. 
 " All I say is, I ve been married once already, and I 
 know how women are. And I know Skinner. He s 
 lookin for to pay for that opery house with Pap 
 
THE MEDIUM-SIZED BOX 109 
 Brlggs money that he ll git if he marries Sally. But 
 
 he won t git it ! I m a-goin to " He was going 
 
 to say he was going to get it, but he caught himself 
 in time, and substituted " I m a-goin to see to 
 that." 
 
 " I see," said Toole, " and you want to retain me 
 as your attorney in case you have to sue for breach 
 of promise? " 
 
 The Colonel scowled. 
 
 " I don t want to retain, and I don t want to sue, 
 and I don t want no fees to pay. You get that clear 
 in your mind. If I did, I d go to a lawyer that had 
 some experience. I jest dropped up " 
 
 " Well, any time you wish, you can just drop down 
 again, Colonel," said Toole, but not ill-naturedly. 
 
 " Now, don t git that way," said the Colonel. 
 " I jest dropped up to do you a favor, and you 
 git mad about it ! I don t call that friendly. If you 
 was to do me a favor I wouldn t git mad." 
 
 " Go ahead with the favor, then," said Toole, 
 leaning back in his chair and putting his feet on his 
 table. 
 
 " Miss Sally," said the Colonel, " she told me all 
 about this feller Rossiter, an what he said, an what 
 she said, an how he come to go to her house for 
 board, an how he skipped off, an she showed me 
 
110 KILO 
 
 the note he left on the pin cushion, an then she come 
 down to business. c Colonel, she says, have I a right 
 to take an keep that box? Have I a right to open 
 it? Is it mine by law? If I open it can he come back 
 an sue me, or anything? 
 
 " Can he? says I. 6 That s the question. Can 
 he? 
 
 " 6 It s a large box, says Miss Sally. 
 
 " A large box, hey? says I. 6 Of course if it 
 was a small box, Miss Sally but it is a large box ! 
 How large? 
 
 " 6 Quite large, she says. About medium large. 
 Not too large. Beside anything very large it would 
 be small, but beside anything very small it would 
 be large. 
 
 " I nodded my head to her, to let her see I knew 
 what she was tryin to say. 6 Medium large, I says, 
 4 yes, I know just about how big you mean, but 
 what I d like to know is, is it heavy ? 
 
 " Medium, she says, 4 just medium heavy. 
 
 " Well, there she was ! A medium heavy, medium- 
 sized box. If it had been a little bit of a light-weight 
 box I d a told her to open it and keep it, for there 
 couldn t have been much in it; and if it had been 
 a big heavy box I d have told her she d better leave 
 it alone; for there wouldn t be any tellin whether 
 
THE MEDIUM-SIZED BOX 111 
 
 she had any right to open a box like that one might 
 have turned out to be. I didn t know how the law 
 stood on that kind of a box. But it was medium-sized, 
 and I didn t know what to say. 
 
 " c Miss Sally, I says, * I d like to help you out on 
 this. Any time I can give you any advice on any 
 thing, I m glad to, but I don t know what to say 
 about a box that is medium size and medium heavy. 
 You d ought to get the law on that subject before 
 you touch that box. Don t you touch that box. 
 Don t you open it unless there s a law officer standin 
 by to see you do it. 
 
 " She seen that was good advice," continued the 
 Colonel, " and I sat there right in her parlor and 
 thought it over. 6 Miss Sally, I says, after I had 
 thought all I could about it, * I believe Attorney 
 Toole would tell you what to do about that box. 
 There ain t nothin a lawyer needs more than to be 
 popular, and there ain t no way to git popular 
 quicker than by doin little favors, an he ought 
 to be glad to do a favor for you, for you re almost 
 an orphan. Your ma s dead, an Pap Briggs ain t 
 overly strong, an you re liable to be an orphan 
 almost any minute. I can tell by the looks of At 
 torney Toole, I says, * that he s got a good heart, 
 and if you say the word I ll ask him what he says 
 
112 KILO 
 
 to do about that box. She seemed sort of put out 
 at what I d said about orphans, but I seen she was 
 willing to have me ask you about that box, and I 
 seen it would be doin you a favor, too, to tell you 
 about it, so you could sort of exercise your mind 
 on it, so I jest dropped up " 
 
 " Colonel," said Toole, " this is a very serious 
 case." He put his hand over his mouth to hide the 
 smile he could not prevent from coming to his lips. 
 
 " You don t mean to tell me ! " exclaimed the 
 Colonel. " I was afraid there might be somethin 
 wrong about it somewheres. But I ain t goin to go 
 to no expense about it. It ain t my box " 
 
 " I would not take a case like this for money," 
 said the attorney, turning suddenly and facing the 
 Colonel with a seriousness that frightened that cau 
 tious soul. " I would not take a case involving a 
 medium-sized, medium-heavy box; a box left for 
 board by a man from parts unknown, now departed 
 to parts unknown; a box that may contain stolen 
 property; I would not take such a case for money, 
 Colonel. But I ll undertake it for friendship. For 
 friendship only. You are my friend, aren t you, 
 Colonel?" 
 
 " Surely ! Surely ! " exclaimed the Colonel eagerly. 
 
 " A medium-sized box," said Toole, turning his 
 
THE MEDIUM-SIZED BOX 
 
 head to hide his smile, " should be opened only in the 
 presence of an attorney-at-law. That is legal advice 
 and worth five dollars, but I charge you nothing for 
 it, you being my friend. Consider it a gift from me 
 to you." 
 
 " I m much obliged," said the Colonel gruffly. 
 
 " And now," said the attorney briskly, " for the 
 modus operandi, as we lawyers say. Has the client, 
 the lady in the case, a hatchet ? " 
 
 The Colonel thought. 
 
 " I ain t right sure," he said at length, after he 
 had searched his brain ; " seems like she ought to 
 have, but I ve got one, an I ll loan it to her." 
 
 " Good ! " exclaimed Toole briskly. " That is bet 
 ter yet. A medium-sized box left by a transient in 
 payment of default of a board bill should always 
 be opened, if possible, with a hatchet not the prop 
 erty of the plaintiff. Chitty says that. It was so 
 ruled in the case of Muggins vs. Muggins." 
 
 He took from his desk a bulky volume, and ran 
 over the pages rapidly. 
 
 " Box," he said, " small box medium box. Here 
 it is. Humph!" 
 
 The Colonel leaned over the book, but the attorney 
 closed it quickly. 
 
 " Bring an ax," he said. " A hatchet would do, 
 
114 KILO 
 
 but an ax is more legal. Hatchets for small boxes, 
 axes for medium boxes. There is a later case than 
 Muggins vs. Muggins." 
 
 " I ll fetch an ax," agreed the Colonel. 
 
 "Can you be at the house in half an hour?" 
 asked the attorney. 
 
 The Colonel could. 
 
 "You re right sure there ain t goin to be no 
 charges to this? " he asked anxiously, and when the 
 attorney had once more assured him there would be 
 none, he picked his hat from the floor and shuffled 
 into the hall and down the stairs. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 THE WITNESS 
 
 WHEN Eliph Hewlitt reached the Briggs house, 
 he did not hesitate, but walked right up to the front 
 door and rang the bell. A minute later he saw the 
 red silk that obstructed the pane of beveled glass 
 in the upper part of the door drawn ever so slightly 
 to one side and then quickly replaced. He caught 
 the glisten of an eye, as the red silk was held aside, 
 but the door did not open. Miss Sally, after the 
 brief glance, tiptoed back through the hall. She did 
 not want to meet a book agent. 
 
 Eliph waited a respectable minute and then rang 
 the bell again, although he had little belief that this 
 would bring Miss Sally to the door. It is good form 
 to ring the bell of the front door several times, be 
 fore going to the back door, for it may be that the 
 lady of the house is dressing, or is hastily taking 
 the folded paper " curlers " out of her front hair, 
 or slipping on her " other skirt " before admitting 
 the visitor. Few indeed are the front doors in Iowa 
 that open promptly to a knock or ring. Primping 
 
 115 
 
116 KILO 
 
 time must be allowed, and if this, followed by a sec 
 ond ring or knock, does not open the door, nothing 
 but business permits the visitor to go to the back 
 door. Having waited, Eliph went to the back door. 
 It closed almost as he reached it, and it would not 
 open to his most vigorous knocking. 
 
 To know a person is in a house, and not to be 
 able to reach that person, is annoying, and Eliph 
 had often had this happen to him. The usual course 
 was to go away and return again ; returning a 
 third or fourth time, or until the door at last opened ; 
 but Eliph was not merely trying to sell a copy 
 of Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Com 
 pendium of Literature, Science and Art this time. 
 He had no time to waste in the usual manner. If he 
 could not get into one house to sell a book, he could 
 enter another house and sell a book, but when a man is 
 after a certain heart he does not care to go to an 
 other house and take another heart. Some men do 
 it, but they are usually sorry afterwards. Eliph 
 walked to the front of the house again, and looked 
 at the front door. 
 
 He felt there should be some way to get into the 
 house and have five minutes conversation with Miss 
 Sally. If this Colonel and this Skinner had already 
 had months or years of opportunity for pressing 
 
THE WITNESS 117 
 
 their suits, there was no time to be lost, and the 
 sooner he began the sooner he would win. But none 
 of his ordinary methods of entering unwilling houses 
 would serve his purpose this time. It would not do 
 to begin by making Miss Sally unfriendly. So Eliph 
 tucked his book more snugly under his left arm and 
 looked at the house. He walked to the gate and 
 looked up at the roof; walked across the street and 
 viewed the house in perspective; but nothing useful 
 came of it, so he crossed the street again and tried 
 ringing the doorbell once more. He rang it sharply 
 and waited. Then he knocked and waited. He was 
 willing to wait until the door opened, and he leaned 
 against the porch railing and waited, ringing the 
 doorbell insinuatingly, or commandingly, or coax- 
 ingly, from time to time. 
 
 Meanwhile, the attorney waited until the half hour 
 he had assigned was up, and then walked toward 
 Miss Briggs house with briskly business-like steps. 
 
 " Now, some folks," he said to himself, as he 
 walked, " wouldn t get any fun at all out of a case 
 like this, but I do. That s the way to keep young. 
 It s why I don t grow stale in this town. It is a small 
 puddle for a toad of my size, but I hop around and 
 keep things stirred up." 
 
 As he neared the house, he saw the Colonel ap- 
 
118 KILO 
 
 preaching from the opposite direction, and he waved 
 his hand to him, and the Colonel hurried to meet 
 him. They turned into the yard together, and saw 
 Eliph Hewlitt resting easily against the porch 
 railing. 
 
 " Nobody at home? " asked the attorney. 
 
 " Yes," said Eliph . " Somebody s home, but they 
 don t answer the bell." 
 
 "Book agent?" said the attorney. "Well, you 
 can t blame them, much. Gems of literature aren t 
 always wanted." 
 
 The Colonel scowled. He felt a personal interest 
 in Pap Briggs money, and he resented any attempt 
 to part the old man from any of it. He suffered al 
 most as deeply at tax time as Pap himself did, and 
 he considered the money Sally had to pay in install 
 ments on Sir Walter Scott as practically thrown 
 away, and that she might as well have taken it out 
 of his own pocket. He knocked on the lower step 
 of the porch, with the side of his ax, angrily. 
 
 " You git out of this here yard ! " he ordered. 
 " I don t want no book agents a-hangin around here, 
 an I won t have it. You clean out of here ! " 
 
 Eliph coughed lightly behind his hand, but the 
 words of reproof that he intended to launch softly 
 at the Colonel were never spoken. 
 
THE WITNESS 119 
 
 " Well, this is lucky ! " cried the attorney, holding 
 out his hand to Eliph . " Colonel, this is the best 
 luck we could have had. Here we need a witness, 
 and here we have him right on the spot ! I was going 
 to stop and get Skinner on the way down, and then 
 I thought maybe, from what you said, you and 
 Skinner were not very friendly, so I didn t, and 
 now I m glad I didn t. We find a witness right here 
 on the porch, just as if he had been ordered to be 
 here. I call that a good omen." 
 
 The Colonel was not pleased, and he showed it, 
 but he really had nothing that he could urge against 
 this book agent, so he said nothing. The attorney 
 rang the bell, and Miss Sally, having peeped out to 
 see the meaning of so many men on her porch, rec 
 ognized the Colonel and the attorney, and opened 
 the door. The attorney stood back to let Eliph 
 enter, and then followed him in. The three men stood 
 in the little hallway, hats in hand, while Toole ex 
 plained why they had come, and Miss Sally led 
 the way to the second-floor room where the box 
 stood. 
 
 It was an impressive scene as the four gathered 
 around the box. 
 
 " Knock off the lid ! " said the attorney firmly. 
 The Colonel raised his ax and struck. The boar<J 
 
120 KILO 
 
 splintered, but remained firm. " Legally," said the 
 attorney, " you may strike three blows." 
 
 At the third blow a portion of the lid fell clatter 
 ing to the floor, and the three men and Miss Sally 
 peered anxiously into the box. From it the Colonel 
 tenderly lifted a nickel-plated cylinder, as tall as 
 a man s knee and as large around as a leg of mut 
 ton. It had a convex top, and on one side a dial. 
 From near the base a long rubber tube extended. 
 
 The Colonel handled the thing gently. He held 
 it in his hands as an old bachelor might handle his 
 newborn nephew, and Miss Sally looked anxiously 
 into his face, appealing for enlightenment. The 
 Colonel studied the thing carefully, and then looked 
 into the box again, and back at the glittering object 
 in his hands. There were three more exactly like 
 it in the box. 
 
 "What is it?" asked Miss Sally nervously. It 
 looked explosive. 
 
 The gingerly manner in which the Colonel handled 
 the dangerous-looking thing aroused her suspicions. 
 She backed away from it. Eliph Hewlitt opened 
 his lips to speak, but the attorney motioned to him 
 to be still. 
 
 " Don t you know what it is ? " Miss Sally asked, 
 appealing to the Colonel, 
 
THE WITNESS 121] 
 
 " Yes," said the Colonel, but he still looked at the 
 glistening affair with doubt. " Oh, yes ! But I can t 
 see what that there young feller was doin with four 
 of em. I can t see what he was doin with em any 
 how. Mebby," he said, " he was agent for em." 
 
 " He was agent for most everything I ever heard 
 tell of a man bein agent for," said Miss Sally, " but 
 I wish you d tell me what they are." 
 
 "Well, ma m," said the Colonel, "them is fire- 
 extinguishers; patent chemical fire-extinguishers. I 
 know because I recall seein some once when I was 
 down to Jefferson. They had em in a theater there. 
 They put out fires with em." 
 
 "Well!" exclaimed Miss Sally. "How do you 
 ever suppose anybody would put out a fire with a 
 thing like that?" 
 
 The Colonel turned the affair over and over. 
 
 "I didn t study that up," he admitted, "but I 
 guess if I take time I can find out how the thing 
 works. They squirt out of this here tube somehow." 
 
 He turned up the end of the tube and squinted 
 into it. Again Eliph Hewlitt was about to speak, 
 but the attorney caught his eye and winked, and the 
 little book agent held his tongue. 
 
 " Well, land s sakes ! " exclaimed Miss Sally, 
 " what am I goin to do with four fire-extinguishers, 
 
122 KILO 
 
 I d like to know?" She asked the question as if 
 the Colonel had got her into this thing of the owner 
 ship of the fire-extinguishers, and she looked to him 
 to take the responsibility. He was quite willing to 
 accept it. 
 
 " I ve got to think that over," he said. " A feller 
 can t decide right off hand what to do with four 
 fire-extinguishers. It looks to me as if they was 
 worth a lot more than the young feller owed you, 
 Miss Sally. They ain t no doubt about Miss Sally, 
 havin a right to em,, is there, Mister Toole?" 
 
 " Not a bit of doubt ! " exclaimed Toole cheerfully. 
 " She has every right in the world. You ve got a 
 witness that they came out of that box, and she can 
 sell, give, donate, assign, or bequeath them, for bet 
 ter or for worse." 
 
 " Then that s all right," said the Colonel, " an 
 I guess that s all we need you for." 
 
 " Except to settle the witness fees with this gen 
 tleman," said Toole, turning to Eliph , who was still 
 eager to say a word or two. " But mebby, if I have 
 a word or two with him, I can fix it up without making 
 any expense for you." 
 
 He drew Eliph to one side. 
 
 "What s the cost of that book you re selling?" 
 he asked. " Well, I ll take one. I don t take one for 
 
THE WITNESS 
 
 a bribe, but because I can see you re not the sort 
 of man that would sell a book that wasn t worth the 
 money. I want that book. And just you keep still 
 about those fire-extinguishers. Between you and me, 
 those are first-class nickel-plated lung-testers, and 
 not fire-extinguishers. But that doesn t matter. 
 There s just about as heavy a call for fire-extin 
 guishers in Kilo as there is for lung-testers. Can 
 you keep still about it? " 
 
 " I can," said Eliph Hewlitt, " and you ll never 
 regret having bought a copy of Jarby s Encyclo 
 pedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, 
 Science and Art. It is a book that should be in every 
 man s hand, and in every home. If you owned a copy 
 now, you would know its value to man, woman, or 
 child. I was going to try to sell one to Miss Briggs 
 when you came, and if you could help me to " 
 
 The attorney smiled. This was the sort of a game 
 he enjoyed. " Don t tell about the lung-testers," he 
 whispered, and turned to Miss Sally. " Miss Briggs," 
 he said, " will you let this gentleman have a few min 
 utes of your time. I want him to show you a book 
 he has. It is a book that should be in every home. 
 If you will give him a few minutes." 
 
 He did not wait for Miss Sally to answer, but 
 turned to the scowling Colonel. 
 
124 KILO 
 
 " Colonel," he said, " I want you to walk down 
 to the office with me. I shouldn t wonder if you 
 could sell those fire-extinguishers right here in Kilo." 
 
 The four descended the stairs together, and the 
 Colonel would willingly have lingered, but the at 
 torney took him by the arm and jovially steered him 
 out of the door. Miss Sally, too, would gladly have 
 had the Colonel remain, to protect her from the 
 book agent, and to say " no " when the appeal to 
 buy was reached, but Eliph retreated into the dark 
 ness of the parlor, and took a seat in the corner of 
 the room, and Miss Sally, unable now to escape him, 
 seated herself as far from him as she could. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 THE BOSS GRAFTER 
 
 HEWLITT was resolved that into this 
 interview no words regarding Jarby s Encyclope 
 dia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, 
 Science and Art should enter. With two such fa 
 vored rivals in the field, and with such difficulty in 
 getting into the house as he had experienced, he 
 meant to get well acquainted in a hurry. Miss Sally 
 sat stiffly in her chair, steeling herself to refuse the 
 request to buy a copy of the book. Her usually 
 attractive face was stern, as she looked at Eliph 
 Hewlitt, and she watched him suspiciously as he 
 slowly combed his whiskers with his fingers, as if 
 she feared this was some part of the operation by 
 which he was charming her into a hypnotic state 
 in which she would sign for a book without knowing 
 why. She nerved herself to ward off whatever in 
 sinuating words he should first say, and Eliph , as 
 he studied her face, sought words that would ad 
 vance him at one bound deep into the state of being 
 well acquainted. It was a trying moment for both, 
 
 196 
 
126 KILO 
 
 Then, so suddenly that Miss Sally almost jumped 
 from her chair, Eliph coughed behind his hand, 
 and spoke. 
 
 " It seems like it would be as hot to-day as it was 
 yesterday, if it don t shower before night," he said, 
 and smiled pleasantly as he said it. 
 
 Miss Sally was taken off her guard, and before 
 she was aware she had answered, quite as politely 
 as she would have answered the minister himself. 
 
 "It s awful hot," she said. "I guess Kilo s the 
 hottest place on earth in summer." 
 
 " Not the hottest," answered Eliph , leaning for 
 ward eagerly. " You wouldn t say that if you had 
 a copy of Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and 
 Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, and 
 studied it up the way I do. Page 44 gives all the 
 hottest places on earth, with the record of highest 
 temperature of each, together with all the coldest 
 places, where there is the greatest rainfall, and a 
 chronological table of all the great famines, floods, 
 storms, hot and cold spells the earth has ever known, 
 from the time of Adam to the present day, with pic 
 tures of the Johnstown flood, and diagrams of 
 Noah s Ark. This, with the chapter on the Physical 
 Geography of Land and Sea, telling of tides, ty 
 phoons, trade winds, tornadoes, et cetery, explains 
 
THE BOSS GRAFTER 127 
 
 why and how weather happens. All this and ten 
 thousand other subjects, all indexed from A to Z in 
 one book " 
 
 He paused suddenly, appalled to think that he 
 was already far from his resolve not to mention 
 Jarby s Encyclopedia, and, as his voice still hung 
 on the last word he had spoken, the doorbell rang, 
 and Miss Sally jumped up, happy for any interrup 
 tion. She merely turned her head to say: 
 
 " I guess I don t want one to-day," and then 
 Eliph heard her open the door, and greet the new 
 comers as she welcomed them into the hall. They 
 were Mrs. Tarbro-Smith and Susan, and, as Miss 
 Sally hurried them up the stairs to remove their 
 dusty hats, she leaned back and called to Eliph : 
 
 " You can get right out the door," she said, " it 
 ain t shut. I guess I won t have no more time to 
 spend listenin to you to-day." 
 
 For half an hour Eliph waited, listening to the 
 chatter of voices, and then he quietly stole from 
 the house and stepped gently out of the yard. There 
 was no sense in waiting longer, and he knew it. 
 
 Mrs. Tarbro-Smith, receiving a letter from the 
 editor of Murray s Magazine, had learned at length 
 that Clarence was not typical Iowa, and she had 
 transferred her field of study to Kilo on his rec- 
 
128 KILO 
 
 ommendation. She meant to spend the rest of the 
 season there, and hoped Miss Sally would take her 
 to board. She found that Miss Sally would be glad, 
 indeed, to have her company, and Mrs. Smith did 
 not think it necessary to mention that she was look 
 ing for local color and types. She was pleased when 
 she heard that Eliph Hewlitt, who had so interested 
 her, was " working " Kilo. 
 
 As Eliph Hewlitt walked toward the hotel he felt 
 that another opportunity had been lost thrown 
 away by his inability to avoid Jarby s Encyclope 
 dia as a topic, and for one moment he came as near 
 giving up Miss Sally as he ever came to giving up 
 anything. In that moment he saw the simplicity of 
 his courtship, as he had imagined it would be, re 
 solve itself into a tangled affair, as all these new 
 individualities entered into it. Instead of being a 
 mere matter between himself and Miss Sally, it was 
 involving men and women, one after the other. It 
 seemed to become a fight between himself, a single 
 stranger in Kilo, and an endless chain of interested 
 citizens. Already there was Pap Briggs, who hated 
 book agents; the Colonel and Skinner, who hoped 
 to win Miss Sally; Mrs. Smith, who would serve as 
 a defense against Eliph s attacks ; and, as he walked 
 down the street, he seemed to see in every man 2 
 
THE BOSS GRAFTER 129 
 
 woman, and child, a possible ally of either the Colo 
 nel or Skinner. But he tucked his sample copy of 
 Jarby s under his arm more securely, and braced 
 up his courage. He even whistled as he approached 
 the hotel, but, when he glanced up at the attorney s 
 office and saw Toole and the Colonel with their heads 
 together, he stopped whistling. If Toole was going 
 to take either side, Eliph would have liked to claim 
 him. Toole was a smart man. 
 
 Toole and the Colonel left Miss Sally s with the 
 attorney well pleased, and his enigmatic smile rested 
 on his face as he led the Colonel to his office. He 
 handed him a chair, and made him take a cigar, and 
 then turned and faced him. 
 
 " Now," he said, " what are you going to do with 
 those what-do-you-call- ems ? " 
 
 "Them fire-extinguishers?" said the Colonel, 
 licking the cigar around and around before lighting 
 it. " Well, I ain t had much time to think that over 
 yet. A feller can t decide on a thing like that all to 
 once. It ain t likely no one in Kilo would buy a fire- 
 extinguisher like them, all nickel-plated, if they had 
 their senses about em. Twouldn t be natural. I might 
 raffle em off, only nobody d be likely to buy chances 
 on a fire-extinguisher. I might take em down to Jef- 
 
130 KILO 
 
 ferson, but I don t see as that would do much good, 
 nobody d be likely to buy fire-extinguishers off of 
 me down there." 
 
 " No," said the attorney, turning to his table and 
 looking over some papers, with an appearance of 
 interest. " No, I guess not. I don t see that you can 
 do much of anything with them, unless you use them 
 for ornaments. It seems a pity that Miss Briggs 
 didn t go to Skinner for advice about that box, in 
 stead of to you, doesn t it? " 
 
 The Colonel stopped with a lighted match half 
 way to his cigar. 
 
 " What do you mean? " he asked, red in the face. 
 " Do you mean that puffy old beef-cutter s got more 
 sense than what I have, young man ? " 
 
 " Oh, no," said the attorney carelessly. " Not at 
 all. I was just thinking that if Skinner had opened 
 that box, and had found fire-extinguishers in it, it 
 would have been a fine chance for him to say to Miss 
 Briggs, Madam, I am building in this town an 
 opera house, known as Skinner s Opera House. The 
 safety of the people of Kilo demands fire-extinguish 
 ers in Skinner s Opera House. I will take those four 
 nickel-plated appliances and install them in my opera 
 house, and allow you ten dollars apiece for them, 
 cash or meat. But, of course," continued the attor- 
 
THE BOSS GRAFTER 1st 
 
 ney innocently, "you can t do that; you haven t 
 built an opera house." 
 
 The Colonel s little eyes peered at the attorney, 
 and they were filled with cunning. Across his hard 
 mouth a smile crept and broadened until he had to 
 lay his hand across it, it was so indecently wide and 
 exultant. 
 
 " Skinner is no fool," continued the attorney. 
 " As soon as he hears that Miss Briggs has those 
 four things he will probably rush right up to her 
 house and offer to buy them. It would be a great 
 feather in his cap with her, if he could get the credit 
 of having thought of it. I shouldn t wonder if he 
 had heard of what was in that box by this time. It 
 seems a pity, doesn t it, that he should get all the 
 credit after you have done all the work? " 
 
 The Colonel looked at the noncommittal face of 
 the attorney, and smiled again. This was a sort of 
 cunning he could appreciate, and he leaned over 
 and gave Toole a sly poke in the ribs, to show him 
 that he understood. Toole looked at him with a blank 
 face, and at this the Colonel slapped his knee, and 
 uttered a mirthful noise that was like the sound of a 
 man choking. He clapped his greasy hat on his mat 
 of hair and went out, pausing at the door to look 
 back and grin at the attorney once more. 
 
132 KILO 
 
 Mr. Skinner was trimming a roast. He had just 
 cut off a piece of suet, which he held in his plump 
 red hand as he listened to the Colonel s proposition 
 to sell him four nickel-plated fire-extinguishers at ten 
 dollars each. Perhaps the Colonel spoke too impetu 
 ously; too commandingly. Skinner held the lump 
 of suet offensively near the Colonel s nose as he an 
 swered. 
 
 " Fire-extinguishers ! " he laughed. " Me buy fire- 
 extinguishers? I wouldn t give that for them." 
 
 He shook the suet before the Colonel s eyes. 
 
 " No, sir ! " he sneered. " I wouldn t give that for 
 them. And I throw that away ! " 
 
 " Skinner," said the Colonel, growing dangerously 
 red in the face, " don t you shake no meat in my face 
 like that ! Don t you dare to do it ! I won t have no 
 butcher shake meat in my face. You low-down beef- 
 killer. That s all you are, a beef -killer." 
 
 " Mebby," admitted the butcher indifferently. 
 " Mebby I am, but I don t buy no fire-extinguishers. 
 And I don t take much stock in agents for them, 
 neither. No. Nor in gold bricks. Nor green goods. 
 No." 
 
 The Colonel raised his fist and brought it down on 
 the butcher s counter so hard that the meat scales 
 danced, and the indicator jerked nervously across the 
 
THE BOSS GRAFTER 133 
 
 face of the dial, weighing a half pound of anger. 
 The butcher leaned back against his chopping block, 
 and gently caressed the handle of his cleaver. He 
 pointed to the door with his other hand. 
 
 " Git out ! " he said, and the Colonel scowled but 
 went. 
 
 On his way home the Colonel bethought himself of 
 a good excuse to stop at Miss Sally s. He had left 
 his ax there, and he went to the back door, this not 
 being a formal call. Miss Sally came to the door 
 when he knocked, and brought him the ax, and he 
 took the opportunity to say a bad word for Skinner, 
 and he was astounded to find that she sympathized 
 with Skinner in his refusal to buy the fire-extin 
 guishers. 
 
 " I don t wonder at it," she said, " seeing he has 
 put so much money on that opery house already. 
 He s done a lot for this town that nobody else would 
 ever have thought of doin. Mr. Skinner s a very 
 public-spirited citizen, and to think he made it all 
 out of sellin meat! It must be a good business. I 
 guess you ll have to excuse me now, Colonel Guthrie, 
 I ve got visitors down from Clarence." 
 
 The Colonel s steps dragged as he walked home. 
 Never had Miss Sally said so many good words for 
 his rival. She had almost rebuffed his good offices in 
 
134, KILO 
 
 the attempt to sell the fire-extinguishers, and had 
 praised Skinner to his face. 
 
 Early the next morning he " dropped up " into 
 the office of Attorney Toole, and as that young man 
 lay back in his chair, with his feet on his desk, he 
 told him the whole story. The attorney smiled. This 
 was the kind of split in the ranks of the Citizens 
 Party that he had hoped to promote. 
 
 " After that, Colonel," he said, when the Colonel 
 had told him that Skinner had ordered him out of 
 the shop, " you ought to make him buy them." 
 
 " I wisht I could, dog take him ! " cried the 
 Colonel. " I d like to make him eat em." 
 
 " Colonel," said Toole, " I see you are, as always, 
 guided by a spirit of conservative kindness. You hesi 
 tate to force that butcher to do what he does not 
 want to do. The feeling does you honor, but is it 
 business? You hesitate even when you see how easily 
 you could force him to do what he is in duty bound 
 to do to protect the lives of our trustful citizens. I 
 admire your gentleness, but I deplore your unbusi 
 nesslike moderation. You lack public spirit." 
 
 The Colonel grinned savagely. He felt that the 
 attorney was teasing him, but he could not quite 
 tell how. 
 
 " You," said Toole easily, " knowing that our 
 
THE BOSS GRAFTER 135 
 
 town council can, and should, pass an ordinance com 
 pelling all owners of opera houses to install nickel- 
 plated fire-extinguishers to install four of them in 
 each opera house in Kilo for the protection of our 
 people, hesitate to ask them to pass such an ordi 
 nance. You hesitate because you do not wish to ap 
 pear malevolent toward a rival. Now, don t you? " 
 
 " Me be kind to that fat, pig-stealing, sausage- 
 grinding " snorted the Colonel, but the attorney 
 
 stopped him with a lifted hand. 
 
 " Just what I said," exclaimed the attorney. " You 
 are too kind; too considerate; too regardful of his 
 feelings. But would he be so kind and considerate 
 and regardful of your feelings, if he was in your 
 place?" 
 
 He lowered his feet and his voice, and placed his 
 hand on the Colonel s knee. 
 
 " No ! " he whispered hoarsely. " No ! " he cried 
 loudly and defiantly. " No ! He would not ! He 
 would use the influence you have with the city coun 
 cil and the mayor to have an ordinance passed making 
 you put fire-extinguishers in your opera house, and 
 compel you to buy them of him. But you will not 
 use your huge influence with Mayor Stitz and the 
 city council. You hesitate." 
 
 Toole shook his head sadly; he almost wept out 
 
136 KILO 
 
 the last word, he seemed so heartbroken to see the 
 Colonel hesitate. 
 
 "Why hesitate?" he asked. "If I were not a 
 stranger in town, as I may say, I should beg you not 
 to hesitate. I should beg you to act. I should beg 
 you to think of the lives of poor, helpless women and 
 children. I should beg you, for humanity s sake, to 
 go to the honorable mayor and city council, and ap 
 peal to them to pass an ordinance compelling this 
 Skinner to buy nickel-plated fire-extinguishers. 
 To compel him, Colonel! But I have nothing to 
 say." 
 
 He shuffled the legal-looking papers that littered 
 his desk. The Colonel s eyes had narrowed to fine 
 points of hate-instilled cunning as the attorney pro 
 ceeded. 
 
 " What have we come to," asked the attorney 
 sadly, " when the leading citizens of a town like 
 Kilo neglect their duty? Are there no true citizens 
 left to show the mayor and city council their plain 
 duty?" 
 
 When the Colonel had the thing put to him in this 
 light he did not hesitate. He knew Stitz, the mayor, 
 and he knew that Stitz had full control of the city 
 council. What Stitz told it to do the city council 
 did, and the Colonel believed he had a right to die- 
 
THE BOSS GRAFTER 157 
 
 tate what Stitz should tell it, for he had suggested 
 the name of Stitz as candidate for mayor, and, with 
 Skinner, had helped elect him. He went at once to 
 the mayor, and laid the case before him. 
 
 Mayor Johann Stitz was an honest, upright shoe 
 maker, and owned his own building. It had once 
 been a street car in Franklin, and when the horse 
 cars were superseded by electric cars, Stitz had 
 bought this car at auction, and had paid ten dol 
 lars to have it hauled to Kilo. It had not been a very; 
 good car when it left the shops before it made its 
 first trip, and the ten years of running off the track 
 and being boosted on again had not improved it 
 much. It was in pretty bad shape when Stitz picked 
 it up for eighteen dollars, and it had deteriorated 
 greatly since it had been doing duty as a cobbler s 
 shop, but Stitz liked it. The tiny car stove that stood 
 midway of one of the seats was all he needed in cold 
 weather, and the seats along the sides were a con 
 tinuous spread of cobblers seats. He could cobble 
 all the way up one side of the car and all the way 
 back the other, and when he had customers waiting 
 lie always had a seat to give them. He and the whole 
 city council could hold a caucus in the car, and all 
 have seats, and in the evenings he could take a stool 
 out on his front or back porch and smoke a pipe in 
 
138 KILO 
 
 peace. His car stood side by side with the round- 
 topped wagon of the traveling photographer, who 
 had not traveled since his felloes gave out on that 
 very lot six years before. 
 
 The city officers of the Citizens Party, being of an 
 independent party, were so independent that they 
 were worried and chafed by their independence. No 
 one but a man in office knows the real blessedness of 
 having the set beliefs and traditions of a regular 
 party to fall back upon. The independence of the 
 independents made their work more difficult ; it com 
 pelled them to decide things for themselves, and then 
 everybody complained of what they did. No inde 
 pendent is ever satisfied with what another indepen 
 dent does, and they lost even the satisfaction of 
 knowing that they were pleasing their own party, 
 which a properly servile Democrat or Republican is 
 rather apt to be sure of. In this state of things the 
 six councilmen had thrown their burdens of decision 
 on Stitz. They cast the whole burden on him, saying, 
 " Ask Stitz. He s mayor. What he says, we ll do." 
 And Stitz never would say. 
 
 As the Colonel entered the mayor s shoe shop Stitz 
 was reading a magazine, which he laid beside him 
 on the car seat while he listened to the Colonel. A 
 pile of similar magazines lay beside him on the seat. 
 
THE BOSS GRAFTER 139 
 
 They were the missionary offerings of Doc Weaver, 
 who was interested in whatever was latest in religion, 
 government or popular science. They were maga 
 zines telling of the municipal corruption of " New 
 York, the Vile," " Philadelphia, Defiled but Happy," 
 " Chicago, the Base," and " St. Louis, the Decayed." 
 Doc Weaver had given them to Mayor Stitz to show 
 him the evil of graft, and to keep his administration 
 clean and pure. 
 
 When the Colonel had laid before the mayor his 
 request for an ordinance compelling all opera house 
 owners in Kilo to install and maintain four nickel- 
 plated fire-extinguishers in each opera house, the 
 mayor beamed on him through his iron-rimmed spec 
 tacles. 
 
 " Ho ! Ho-o ! " he exclaimed, " it is to make Mister 
 Skinner buy some fire extinguishables, yes? So shall 
 my city council pass an ordinance, yes ? Um ! " 
 
 He smiled broadly at the Colonel, and then nodded. 
 
 " For how much you graft me ? " he asked blandly. 
 
 "What? " asked the Colonel. 
 
 "Graft me," repeated Mayor Stitz. "I say for 
 how much you will graft me when I shall pass one 
 such ordinance my council through?" 
 
 "What s that?" asked the Colonel, puzzled. 
 
 " For how much you will make me one graft ? " 
 
140 KILO 
 
 Mayor Stitz repeated slowly. " Graft ! Graft ! Un 
 derstand him not? " 
 
 The Colonel shook his head. 
 
 "What is it? "he asked. 
 
 " Graft ! Graft ! Graft ! " exclaimed the mayor 
 with annoyance. "Don t you know him? When I 
 make you one ordinance to pass, so, then you make 
 me one graft, so ! Like I read me in this book. Me to 
 you, one ordinance ; you to me one graft. So ! " 
 
 A look of dismay came over the face of the Colonel, 
 as he frowned at the smooth, honest face of the 
 mayor, from which beamed eyes of childish honesty 
 and frankness. 
 
 " Here in this book," said the mayor slowly and 
 distinctly, like one explaining some simple thing to 
 a child, " I read me of this graft business. It is to me 
 this graft comes. So it is by all big cities. Man 
 would have one ordinance. Goot! In every town is 
 such a one boss grafter. To the boss grafter gives 
 the ordinance-wanting man a graft. So! Then for 
 the ordinance-wanting man does the boss grafter get 
 one ordinance made like is wanted. Yes ! So it is ; no 
 graft, no ordinance! Some graft, some ordinance! 
 I read him in this book Doc Weaver gives me as a 
 lesson to go by. It is a goot way. I like me that 
 graft business." 
 
THE BOSS GRAFTER 141 
 
 A glimmering of the meaning entered the Colonel s 
 mind, but he could hardly connect the idea of graft 
 with the honest Johann Stitz. As a fact, to Mayor 
 Stitz the idea of unlawful gain did not come. Graft 
 was a way out of the difficulty of having to decide 
 things. It was a system authorized by the lawmakers 
 of great cities, and a system that could operate in 
 Kilo. Whenever Stitz and his council passed an ordi 
 nance someone complained, and upbraided them; he 
 saw now why this was ; they had not used the ap 
 proved system. But the Colonel still frowned. 
 
 " Well, what how much do you want ? " he asked. 
 
 Mayor Stitz turned up his innocent face and smiled 
 blandly again. 
 
 " That makes not ! " he exclaimed. " In the books 
 it says much money, but is not yet Kilo so gross as 
 New York. We go easy yet a while. It is what you 
 want to graft me. One bushel apples one bushel po 
 tatoes that you must say." 
 
 The Colonel moved closer to the mayor. He 
 thought of Miss Sally, and of Skinner. 
 
 " I will make you a present of a bushel of apples," 
 he said. 
 
 The mayor laid down his magazine and arose. As 
 the Colonel watched him with surprise, he removed 
 his leathern apron. The Colonel folded his hand into 
 
142 KILO 
 
 a fist, but on the pleasant face of Mayor Stitz there 
 was no sign of anger; no sign of righteous indigna 
 tion ; only a bland look of satisfaction. 
 
 "Well," inquired the Colonel impatiently, "will 
 ye put the ordinance through, or won t ye? " 
 
 The mayor looked at him with surprise in every 
 feature. Clearly this Colonel did not understand the 
 first rudiments of graft. 
 
 "First I must go by Mr. Skinner," said Stitz 
 simply. " Mebby he grafts me more not to pass such 
 an ordinance." 
 
 " Look here, Stitz," said the Colonel in alarm. 
 " You ain t goin to do that, are ye? " 
 
 " Veil," said the mayor, " still must I do it ! So 
 always does the boss grafter. Which side grafts him 
 the most, so he does. It is always so, never different. 
 To the most grafter, so goes he. I read it in this 
 books. When the boss grafter does not so, what use 
 is the grafts ? How then does he know which he shall 
 do for, the ordinance-wanting man, or the ordinance- 
 not-wanting man? " 
 
 The Colonel tried to argue with him, but the mayor 
 was obdurate. He would not budge from the highest 
 principles of graft, and, as the Colonel had gone too 
 far now to recede with honor, he secured the best 
 terms he could. The most he could obtain was a 
 
THE BOSS GRAFTER 143 
 
 promise that the mayor would not mention any 
 names, nor so much as hint that graft had been 
 promised. He uneasily awaited the mayor s return. 
 
 Stitz returned radiant. He was rubbing his hands 
 and beaming. 
 
 " Fine ! " he exclaimed. " Fine ! I make me one 
 boss grafter yet ! Mister Skinner grafts me one roast 
 beef and six pigs feet. He ain t much liking those 
 fire extinguishables to have. How much more will 
 you graft me now ? " 
 
 The Colonel looked the mayor squarely in the eye. 
 
 " Stitz," he said, " I ain t goin to run no auction 
 with that there Skinner. I come to you first, an I 
 was the first to say I d make you a present, an you 
 ought to pass that ordinance anyhow. But to shut 
 up this thing right here an now, I ll do this : if you ll 
 say you ll pass that ordinance like I want, so Skin- 
 ner ll have to buy them four nickel-plated fire-ex 
 tinguishers that Miss Briggs owns, at twenty-five 
 dollars each, I ll give you four bushels of Benoni 
 apples, two bushels of Early Rose potatoes, four 
 bunches of celery, a peck of peas, and one spring 
 chicken. And if you won t," he added, raising his 
 hand threateningly, " I ll go to them six councilmen, 
 an I ll graft em one at a time, an then where 11 
 your boss grafter be? You can t help yourself." 
 
144 KILO 
 
 The mayor s eyes sparkled. 
 
 "Say!" he exclaimed, "ain t I a boss grafter? 
 Apples, potatoes, celery, peas, and chickens! Five 
 grafts for one ordinance ! I do it ! " 
 
 " An don t you say nothing about it," warned the 
 Colonel. 
 
 The Colonel thought there would be no harm in 
 making a little commission for himself on the deal. 
 It was not as if he had done nothing to earn it. He 
 would have to furnish the produce for the mayor s 
 " graft," and he had secured the services of Toole 
 free of fees, and he was doing Miss Sally a good turn 
 into the bargain. If Skinner was compelled to buy 
 the four fire-extinguishers at twenty-five dollars each 
 Miss Sally could afford a commission of ten dollars 
 each, and forty dollars were always forty dollars to 
 the Colonel. 
 
 The mayor kept his promise. At the next meeting 
 of the council the ordinance was proposed, and hur 
 ried to a third reading by a suspension of the by 
 laws, and the next day Stitz signed it. There was 
 some opposition at the council meeting, for Skinner 
 was present, and wanted to talk, but the marshal was 
 present, too, and at a word from Stitz, he helped 
 Skinner down the stairs, but gently, as a marshal 
 owing a considerable butcher s bill should. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 THE FALSE GODS OF DOC WEAVER 
 
 WHEN Eliph Hewlitt reached the hotel after his 
 unfortunate visit of courtship, he stood a minute 
 irresolute, and then the sign of the Kilo Times, 
 across the street, caught his eye. Here was a power 
 he must not neglect; the power of the press. He 
 knew well enough that the next issue of the Kilo 
 Times would chronicle his arrival in town; some 
 thing like " E. Hewlitt is registered at the Kilo Ho 
 tel," or " E. Hewlitt, representing a New York pub 
 lishing house, is sojourning in our midst," but he 
 felt that his heart interest in Kilo demanded some 
 thing more than this. He was willing to have all the 
 friends he could muster for the fight he would have 
 to make for Miss Sally s affection, and he knew that 
 the press was powerful in creating first impressions. 
 He crossed the street and climbed the stairs to the 
 office of the Kilo Times. 
 
 Every Thursday, except once a year, when Thomas 
 Jefferson Jones went to the State Fair at Des Moines, 
 the Kilo Times appeared, printed on an old 
 
 145 
 
146 KILO 
 
 Washington hand-power press in the Times office, 
 four small pages, backed by four other pages that 
 came already printed from a Chicago supply house, 
 with the usual assortment of serial story, " Hints to 
 Farmers," column of jokes, sermon, and patent medi 
 cine advertisements. T. J. s own side was made up of 
 local advertisements, a column of editorial, a few 
 bits of local news that he could scrape together, and 
 several columns of " country correspondence." T. 
 J. himself was the entire force of the Times, ex 
 cept for a boy who came in every Thursday morning 
 to work the hand-power of the press, who then 
 washed up and delivered the papers about town. 
 T. J. had built up the paper from a state of decay 
 until it was one of the most prosperous country 
 weeklies in Iowa, and he had done this against a 
 handicap that would have discouraged most men 
 he was not married. 
 
 In Kilo subscriptions are frequently paid in tur 
 nips or cordwood, and the advertisers expect at least 
 half of their bills to be taken out in trade, and the 
 unmarried publisher is at a disadvantage. An un 
 married publisher has little use for the trade half of 
 the payment he receives from the advertising mil 
 liner. No editor can appear in public wearing a 
 gorgeously flowered hat of the type known as a " buz- 
 
FALSE GODS OF DOC WEAVER 147 
 
 zard," and retain the respect of his subscribers. 
 Neither can he receive as currency, in a year when 
 the turnip crop is unusually plentiful, more than 
 sixty or seventy bushels of turnips in one day with 
 out having to get rid of them at a severe discount. 
 But, in spite of all this, T. J., by his energy and 
 good humor, had made a success of the Times, 
 and his editorials advising the people not to patronize 
 the Chicago mail-order houses, but to patronize their 
 home merchants, were copied by his contemporaries 
 all over the State. One of his editorials on the pros 
 pects of the year s hog crop was quoted by the hog 
 editor of a big Chicago daily, word for word. These 
 are the real triumphs of country journalism, and all 
 over the State his paper was referred to by his 
 brother editors as " Our enterprising contemporary, 
 the Kilo Times, 9 and T. J. as " The brilliant young 
 editor of the same." 
 
 When Eliph Hewlitt entered the printing office 
 T. J. was standing by his case setting up an item 
 of news. He never wrote anything but editorials on 
 paper ; other matter he composed in type as he went 
 along. It saved time. Now he laid his " stick " on 
 the case and turned to Eliph . 
 
 "My name is Hewlitt, Eliph Hewlitt," said the 
 book agent, " agent for Jarby s Encyclopedia of 
 
148 KILO 
 
 Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science, 
 and Art, published by Jarby & Goss, New York; 
 price, five dollars, neatly bound in cloth, one dollar 
 down, and one dollar a month until paid." 
 
 As the editor was about to speak, Eliph raised 
 his hand. 
 
 " I don t want to sell you one ! " he exclaimed. 
 " We are members of the same craft, and I never 
 canvass the publishers, except to offer them a chance 
 to buy this book at the very liberal discount offered 
 by our firm to the fellow members of the great craft, 
 a discount of forty per cent., bringing the cost of 
 the book, complete in every respect and exactly like 
 those sold regularly for five dollars, down to the 
 phenomenally low cost of three dollars. At this price 
 no publisher can afford to be without a copy, con 
 taining, as it does, all the matter usually found in 
 the most complete and expensive encyclopedias, and 
 much more, all condensed into one volume for ready 
 reference. It saves time and money." 
 
 T. J. shook his head, not unkindly, but positively, 
 and was about to turn to his case again, but Eliph 
 held out his hand. 
 
 " I merely mentioned it," he said, with a smile. " I 
 don t want to sell you one. I supposed you would 
 have learned from the landlord that I was in town 
 
FALSE GODS OF DOC WEAVER 149 
 and I only wanted to be sure that you got the item 
 right for the next paper." 
 
 T. J. turned to his galleys and read from the 
 type: 
 
 " * One of the visitors to our little burg this week 
 is E. Hewlitt, of New York, who is stopping at the 
 Kilo House. " 
 
 Eliph stroked his whiskers and smiled. 
 
 "Yes," he said. "Quite correct. H-e-w-1-i-t-t, I 
 presume? A very good item, and well worded, but it 
 might be more more extensive." 
 
 " We are rather crowded for space this week," 
 said T. J. " Two of our country correspondents 
 missed the mails last week, and we have a double dose 
 of it this week." 
 
 "Certainly," said Eliph . "But I was thinking 
 that this book ought to be mentioned. The advent of 
 a book like Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge 
 and Compendium of Literature, Science, and Art, 
 containing, as it does, selections from the world s 
 best literature, hints and helps for each and every 
 day in the year, recipes for the kitchen, the dying 
 words of all the world s great men, with their lives, 
 et cetery, ought to be noticed. I was wondering if 
 you would have space to run in a little card about 
 that book." 
 
150 KILO 
 
 T. J. came forward and brushed a heap of ex 
 changes from the only chair in the office, and mo 
 tioned to it with his hand. Eliph laid his book on 
 the editor s desk, and picked up a copy of last week s 
 Times. He ran his eye over the columns, and 
 stopped at the advertisement of Skinner, the butcher. 
 
 " I was thinking of something about twice the size 
 of this," he suggested. 
 
 T. J. smiled and mentioned his rate for the space. 
 It was not much, and Eliph nodded. 
 
 "Every week, until forbid," ho said, " and I guess 
 I d better subscribe. I am going to live right here in 
 Kilo right along now, and the man that don t take 
 his home paper never knows what is going on." 
 
 T. J. was pleased. He was more pleased when 
 Eliph pulled a long purse from his pocket, and paid 
 for one insertion of the advertisement and for the 
 subscription. The editor pulled a pad of paper 
 toward himself, and wrote hastily, while Eliph briefly 
 mentioned facts. When the next number of the 
 Times appeared there was a well-displayed ad 
 vertisement of Jarby s Encyclopedia, with Eliph 
 Hewlitt mentioned as agent, but more important to 
 Eliph was the " local item " that stood at the very 
 top of the local column. 
 
 " We are glad to announce that Kilo has secured as 
 
FALSE GODS OF DOC WEAVER 151 
 a citizen Eliphalet Hewlitt, a man whose work in be 
 half of good literature entitles him to the highest 
 praise. Mr. Hewlitt, who intends to make his home 
 with us permanently, is representative of the cele 
 brated work, Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge 
 and Compendium of Literature, Science, and Art, 
 published by Jarby & Goss, Greater New York, 
 and his travels in behalf of that work have taken 
 him to all parts of the nation. To have a man of 
 such extensive travel decide to make Kilo his home is 
 an honor. Mr. Hewlitt says that in all his travels 
 he never found a town more up-to-date and progres 
 sive for its size than our own little burg. We heartily 
 welcome him to our midst. 
 
 " We have it on good authority that Mr. Hewlitt 
 is a man of considerable means, amassed in carrying 
 on his work as a disseminator of literature, and that 
 he intends, in the near future, to purchase a home 
 here. He will probably buy a lot, and erect a dwelling 
 that will be a credit to him and to our little burg. At 
 present he is stopping with Doctor Weaver, the lead 
 ing physician of our little burg. 
 
 " We learn that our new citizen has followed a 
 habit universally adopted by many authors, theatri 
 cal artists, and others gifted in various ways, and 
 early adopted a nom de plume, choosing the name of 
 
152 KILO 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt because of its unassuming simplicity. 
 His real name is Samuel Mills, and he is the son 
 of the late W. P. Mills, of Franklin, gifted author of 
 the deservedly famous poetical work, The Wage of 
 Sin. Early in his career our new citizen found himself 
 overshadowed by the fame of his father, and unwilling 
 to succeed but by and because of his own efforts, 
 he chose a nom de plwne, which he has ever since 
 used. This truly American independence does him the 
 greatest credit. 
 
 " Mr. Mills, or Eliph Hewlitt, as he prefers to be 
 known, is an old schoolmate of James Wilkins, the 
 prominent livery and hotel man of our little burg. 
 Again we welcome him to our midst." 
 
 This was headed, " Eliph Hewlitt Now a Citizen of 
 Kilo ! " and it was all the introduction the little book 
 agent needed except to Miss Sally. When she read 
 it she turned pale. A book agent living in the very 
 town was more than she could bear. 
 
 But there was another item of news that Eliph 
 left with T. J. that went into the same issue of the 
 Times. This stated that Mrs. Smith, of New York, 
 and Miss Susan Bell were visiting Miss Sally Briggs, 
 and T. J. had completed the slight information given 
 him by Eliph by a call at Miss Sally s. It was after 
 Eliph had told T, J. that he meant to make his home 
 
FALSE GODS OF DOC WEAVER 153 
 
 in Kilo that the enterprising editor suggested Doc 
 Weaver s as a good boarding place, and the little 
 book agent was glad enough to settle himself in a 
 real home, for the Kilo Hotel was hardly more than 
 an annex to the livery, feed and sale stable part of 
 Jim Wilkins business, and any man with half an eye 
 could see that it was not, as a home for men, to be 
 compared in comfort with the stable, as a home for 
 horses. Jim would have been the last man in Kilo to 
 expect a visitor to remain in the Kilo Hotel more 
 than two days. Before the end of the day Eliph had 
 arranged with Mrs. Doc Weaver for board and 
 lodging, and had moved his big valise to the little 
 back room on the second floor, from the low six- 
 paned windows of which he could look out over the 
 cornfield that environed Kilo on that side. 
 
 At supper he met Doc Weaver himself, and found 
 him, as Kilo pronounced him, " a ready talker." 
 Eliph and Doc Weaver were sitting at the supper 
 table, earnestly engaged in conversation, while the 
 doctor s wife cleared away the dishes, and Eliph 
 was pouring out the knowledge he had absorbed 
 from Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Com 
 pendium of Literature, Science and Art. The doctor 
 was having a mental feast. Behind his spectacles his 
 eyes glowed with pleasure, and in exact ratio, as the 
 
154. KILO 
 
 doctor s spirits rose, the frown on his wife s fore 
 head deepened. 
 
 The doctor had few opportunities for discussing 
 any subjects but the most ordinary. Neighborhood 
 gossip, the weather, the price of corn, were the usual 
 sources of conversation in Kilo, except when an elec 
 tion gave a political tinge to discussions, or when a 
 revival turned all attention to religious matters ; but 
 the doctor s mind scorned these limitations, and he 
 found few persons from year s end to year s end to 
 whom he could speak openly on his favorite themes. 
 
 To Kilo in general the doctor was something of a 
 mystery. Ordinarily he was the most silent of men, 
 but on occasion, as for instance when he could but 
 tonhole an intelligent stranger, he dissolved into a 
 torrent of words. 
 
 Doc Weaver held views. He believed there were 
 other things besides the Republican party and the 
 Methodist Church, and being liberal-minded, he be 
 lieved all these other things in turn, and he had be 
 lieved them enthusiastically. He could not help think 
 ing that he was of a little finer clay than Skinner, 
 or Wilkins, or Colonel Guthrie. Kilo considered the 
 doctor one of her peculiar institutions ; as Kilo took 
 the ever- joking Toole seriously, so she took the ever- 
 serious doctor good-naturedly, but not too seriously. 
 
FALSE GODS OF DOC WEAVER 155 
 
 He was " jist Doc Weaver," and Kilo reserved the 
 right to laugh at him in private, and to brag about 
 him to strangers, and they were apt to " joke " him 
 about his beliefs. As he was sensitive and dreaded 
 the rough raillery of his neighbors, he kept his en 
 thusiasms to himself. He was like an overcharged 
 bottle of soda water. 
 
 Eliph and the doctor were discussing Christian 
 Science and faith cures generally, and when the doc 
 tor s wife passed to and fro, catching a phrase now 
 and then, a look of deep anxiety spread over her 
 face, until, as she brushed the crumbs from the red 
 tablecloth, her shoulders seemed to droop in dejec 
 tion. 
 
 When she smoothed the cloth and set the lamp 
 on the mat in the center the doctor glanced at his 
 watch and arose. He buttoned his frock coat over 
 his breast (it was the only frock coat in Kilo), and 
 drew on his driving gloves, holding his hands on a 
 level with his chin. It was a habit, an aristocratic 
 touch, which, like his side whiskers, detached him from 
 the rest of Kilo. He had once worn a silk hat, but he 
 soon abandoned it for a gray felt; for even he saw 
 that a silk hat emphasized his individuality too 
 strongly for comfort. It was a tempting mark for 
 snowballs in winter. 
 
156 KILO 
 
 When the doctor had closed the door and 
 stepped from the front porch, his wife sank into 
 a chair. 
 
 " I do hope you won t git mad at what I m goin 
 to say, Mister Hewlitt," she said, " cause I ain t 
 goin to say it for no such thing ; but I couldn t help 
 hearin what you was sayin to Doc while I was red- 
 din off the table. I wisht you wouldn t let him git to 
 talkin about new-fangled religions and sich. It ain t 
 for his good nor mine." 
 
 Eliph nodded good-naturedly. 
 
 " Why, ma m," he exclaimed, " we were only dis 
 cussing faith cures, and neither of us believes in 
 them wholly, that is. Of course everyone who has 
 read the chapter on 6 India, Its Religions and Its His 
 tory, in Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and 
 Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, must 
 to some extent admit the power of mind over matter. 
 But if you d rather not have me, I ll not discuss it 
 again. There are one thousand and one other inter 
 esting subjects treated of in this great book, any 
 one of Which will please the studious mind." 
 
 " I d rather you wouldn t, if you don t mind," said 
 the doctor s wife simply. 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt pushed back his chair, and arose 
 as he saw the lines of worry leave the face of his 
 
FALSE GODS OF DOC WEAVER 157 
 
 hostess. He turned to the side table and looked 
 among the books that lay on it. 
 
 Mrs. Weaver sprang to her feet. 
 
 " Land s sakes ! " she cried. " I know what you re 
 lookin for. You re lookin for that book of yourn, 
 ain t you? It s right there behind them wax flowers 
 on the what-not. I seen it layin around and I 
 jist shoved it back there so Doc wouldn t git 
 at it." 
 
 " Well, you sit down, ma m," said the book agent. 
 " I can get it. But there was no need to be so par 
 ticular. The doctor knows how to handle a book as 
 well as the next man." 
 
 The doctor s wife drew her darning basket from 
 the side table and turned its contents into her lap. 
 
 " Twasn t that," she said; "I d never have 
 thought of that, I guess. I hid it because I didn t 
 know if twas a proper book for Doc. It s got a 
 kind of a queer name." 
 
 Eliph turned the book over in his hand. It was 
 the first time anyone had suggested that the volume 
 might be dangerous. He looked up and smiled. 
 
 " It would not harm the youngest child, ma m," 
 he said, " unless it fell on it. It wouldn t harm a 
 baby." 
 
 " Well, I guess you ll think I m awful foolish 
 
158 KILO 
 
 about Doc," said Mrs. Weaver, " but I wasn t goin* 
 to take no chances, and the name kind of riled me. 
 And them pictures of ladies bending." 
 
 "Physical Culture," said Eliph , "How to De 
 velop the Body, How to Maintain Perfect Health, 
 How to Keep Young and Beautiful. Page 542. 
 Why, ma m, that s just a system of training for the 
 body. It makes one more graceful, just like running 
 and jumping makes a boy strong." 
 
 The doctor s wife heaved a sigh of relief. 
 
 " Well, I guess that won t hurt Doc any if he does 
 read it," she laughed. " I thought it was some new 
 fangled religion or other, and I allus keep sich things 
 out of Doc s reach. Mebby you ll think I m crazy, 
 but when you know Doc as well as I do, you ll find 
 out how mortal quick he is to take up with new no 
 tions, and it would be jist like him to give up his 
 sittin in church and go and be a Physical Culture, if 
 there was any sich belief. I don t mind much his bein 
 a Socialist, or any of them politercal things, if he 
 wants to, and goodness knows he does, cause they 
 keep his mind busy ; but since I got him to jine church 
 I m goin to keep him jined, Physical Culture or no 
 Physical Culture. I seen them pictures, and they 
 riled me right up, to think of Doc s goin round 
 wrapped up in them sheets, or whatever it is on 
 
FALSE GODS OF DOC WEAVER 159 
 
 them folks in the pictures. Mebby it s all right for 
 Physical Culturers, but I don t evr hope to sea 
 Doc so." 
 
 Eliph Hewlitt laughed a thin little laugh, and 
 Mrs. Weaver smiled. 
 
 " Now, you do think I m foolish, don t you ? " she 
 inquired. " But I had sich a time with Doc fore I 
 married him that I m scared half to death every time 
 I hear a long word I ain t right sure of. I was most 
 worried out of my wits last Summer when Miss 
 Crawford was here lecturin on Christian Science. 
 It was jist about even whether Doc ud git in line or 
 not. He had an awful struggle, poor feller, cause he 
 can t bear to have nothin new to believe in come 
 round and him not believe in it. Religions is to Doc 
 jist like teethin is to babies ; they got to teethe, and 
 seems like Doc s got to catch ne^v religions. He ain t 
 never real happy when he ain t got no queer 
 fandango to poke his nose into. But he didn t git 
 Christian Scientisted. 
 
 "I says to him, Doc, ain t you an allopathy ?* 
 And he iays, * Yes, certainly. Well, I says, if you 
 go and be a Christian Science you can t be no allo 
 pathy, Doc. Christian Science and allopathy don t 
 mix, I says, and you d starve, that s what you d 
 do. I leave it to you, Doc, if you quit big pills, how d 
 
160 KILO 
 
 you ever git a livin ? There ain t no big pills set 
 down in the Christian Science book.* 
 
 " Well, he poked his eyes up at the ceiling, and 
 says, I might write, Loreny. Yes, I says, * so 
 you might. And what d you write, Doc Weaver ? 
 I says. Shakespeare? And Doc shet right up, and 
 never said another word. It was a mean thing for me 
 to say, but I was awful worried." 
 
 " Shakespeare? " inquired Eliph . 
 
 " Yes, that s the word Shakespeare," said Mrs. 
 Weaver. " It come purty nigh keeping me from 
 marrying Doc. You see, Doc ain t like common 
 folks. Doc s got sich broad ideas of things. Lib ral, 
 he calls it, but I name it jist common foolish. He s 
 got to give every new-fangled scheme a show. I guess, 
 off and on, Doc s believed most every queer name in 
 the dictionary, and some that ain t been put in yet. 
 I used to tell him they didn t git them up fast enough 
 to keep up with him. He s got a wonderful mind, 
 Doc has. 
 
 " I hain t no notion how ever Doc got started be- 
 lievin things, but mebby he got in with a bad lot at 
 the doctor school he went to. Doc told me hisself 
 they cut up dead folks. Anyhow, he come back from 
 Chicago a regular atheist; but that was before I 
 knowed him. He lived up at Clarence, and he didn t 
 
FALSE GODS OF DOC WEAVER 161 
 
 come to Kilo til about ten years after that, and he d 
 got pretty well along by then, and had got right 
 handy at believin things. 
 
 "Well, when Doc come to Kilo pa had jist died 
 an ma an me had to take in boarders to git along ; 
 so Doc come to our house to board. That s how Doc 
 an me got to know each other. I was about as old 
 as Doc, and we wasn t either of us very chickenish, 
 but I thought Doc was the finest man I d ever saw, 
 an exceptin what I m tellin you, I ain t ever had 
 cause to change my mind. 
 
 " I d never saw so many books as Doc brought 
 more n we ve got now. I burned a lot when we got 
 married Tom Paine and Bob Ingersoll, and all I 
 wasn t sure was orthodoxy. Why, we had more books 
 than we ve got in the Kilo Sunday School Lib ry. 
 Specially Shakespeare books, some Shakespeare writ 
 hisself, an some that was writ about him. Doc was 
 real took up with Shakespeare them days. 
 
 " Most all his spare time Doc put in readin them 
 Shakespeare books, and sometimes he d git a new one. 
 One day he come home mad. I ain t seen Doc real mad 
 but twice, but he was mad that day and no mistake. 
 He d got a new book, an he set down to read it as 
 soon as he got in the house; but every couple of 
 pages he d slap it shut and walk up an down, growl- 
 
162 KILO 
 
 in to hisself. Oh, but he was riled! That night I 
 heard him stampin up an down his room, mad as 
 a wet hen, and by and by I heard that book go rat- 
 tlin out of the window and plunk down in the radish 
 bed. So next morning I went out and got it, cause 
 I liked Doc purty well by then, and it made me sorry 
 to see sich a nice, quiet man carry on so. 
 
 "I couldn t make head nor tail of the book, nor 
 see why it riled Doc up so. It was jist another Shake 
 speare book, only this one said that it wasn t Shake 
 speare, but some one else, that wrote the Shakespeare 
 books. I thought Doc was real foolish to git so mad 
 about it, but I had no idea how much Doc had took 
 it to heart. 
 
 " Well, I do run on terribul when I git started, 
 don t I? An them supper dishes waitin to be 
 washed! But I guess it won t hurt them to stand a 
 bit. You see, when Doc begun to take a likin for me, 
 the poor feller started in to talk about what he be 
 lieved in. Most fellers does. First he begun about 
 greenbacks. He was the only Greenbacker in Kilo; 
 but that was jist politercal stuff, and while I m a 
 good Republican, like pa was, I didn t see that it 
 would hurt if my husband did think other than what 
 I did in that, so long as he wasn t a saloon Democrat. 
 That was when they was havin the prohibition fight 
 
FALSE GODS OF DOC WEAVER 163 
 
 in loway, you know. But when Doc begun lettin out 
 hints that he didn t think much of goin to church, 
 I was real sorry. 
 
 " I was sorry because I couldn t see my way clear 
 to marry an outsider, bein a good Methodist my 
 self; but I didn t dream but that he was jist one of 
 these lazy Christians that don t attend church lest 
 they re dragged. There is plenty sich. I thought 
 mebby I could bring him round all right once he was 
 married; so I jist asked him right out if he would 
 jine church. 
 
 " Well, you d have thought I d asked him to take 
 poison! He didn t flare up like some would, but jist 
 sat down and explained how he couldn t. I guess he 
 must have explained, off an on, for three weeks be 
 fore I got a good hang of his idea. Seems like he 
 was believing some Hindoo stuff jist then. I don t 
 know as you ever heard tell of it. It s about souls. 
 When a person dies his soul goes into another per 
 son, and so on, and so on, until kingdom come. R in- 
 ca nation s what they call it." 
 
 "Yes," said Eliph Hewlitt, "it is all given in 
 * India, Its Religions and Its History, in Jarby s 
 Encyclopedia of Knowledge, and Compendium of 
 Literature, Science and Art." 
 
 " Jist so ! " said Mrs. Weaver. " Well, I guess by 
 
164 KILO 
 
 the time Doc got done explainin I knew more about 
 r inca nation than what your Encyclopedia of Com 
 pendium does, because night after night Doc would 
 sit up and explain till I d drop off asleep. 
 
 " But it wasn t no use. So far as I could see, r in 
 ca nation was jist plain error and follerin after 
 false gods, and I told Doc so. Anyhow, I knowed 
 there wasn t nothin like it in the Methodist Church, 
 an I jist up and let Doc know I wouldn t marry 
 anybody that believed such stuff. Doc reckoned to 
 change my mind, but my argument was jist plain 
 * I won t ! and that settled it. I believe a man and 
 wife ought to belong to the same church, thy God 
 shall be my God and I wasn t goin to give up 
 what I d been taught for any crazy notions Doc had 
 got into his head. I told him so, plain. 
 
 " Then Doc took a poetry-writing spell, but he 
 wasn t no great hand at it. I told him in plain words 
 he would be better off rollin allopathy pills. I used 
 to git right put out with Doc sometimes, foolin away 
 good time that way, sittin round by the hour spoilin 
 good paper. I reckon he started close onto a thou 
 sand poems, but he didn t git along very good. 
 Bout the third line he d stop and tear up what he d 
 wrote. When I wasn t mad I used to feel real sorry 
 for Doc, he tried so hard ; but f eelin sorry for him 
 
FALSE GODS OF DOC WEAVER 165 
 
 didn t help him none, and it was kind of rediculous 
 to see him. 
 
 " One day I asked Doc why he didn t tell ma and 
 the rest of Kilo what he believed in, and he said that 
 Kilo folks couldn t understand sich things, bein 
 mostly born and bred in the Methodist Church, and 
 not lib ral like he was. I seen he was payin me a 
 compliment, because he had told me, but I couldn t 
 swaller r inca nation, for all that. And so we didn t 
 seem to git no further. 
 
 " But one day Doc says, Well, Loreny, why can t 
 you marry me? They ain t no one can love you like 
 I do, and you know I ll make you a good hus 
 band, and I ll go to church with you reg lar if you 
 say so. 
 
 " * Goin to church ain t all, Doc Weaver, I says 
 * I jist won t marry a man that believes sich trash as 
 you do. 
 
 " * Well, tell me why not, he says. 
 
 " * I ll tell you, Doc Weaver, I says, < since you 
 drive me to it. I m willing enough to marry you, but 
 I ain t willing to marry some old heathen Chinee or 
 goodness knows what ! 
 
 " Doc was took all aback. 6 Why, Loreny ! he 
 says, * Why, Loreny ! 
 
 " * I mean it, I says, * jist what I say. How can 
 
166 KILO 
 
 I tell who you are when you say yourself you ain t 
 nothing but some old spirit in a new body? Like as 
 not you re Herod, or an Indian, or a cannibal savage, 
 and I d like to see myself marryin sich, I says. * I d 
 look purty, wouldn t I, settin in church alongside of 
 a made-over Chinee? * 
 
 " Doc ain t very pale, ever, but he got as red as a 
 beet, and I see I d hit him purty hard. Then he 
 kind of stiffened up. 
 
 " 6 Loreny, he says, * I d have thought you d have 
 believed my spirit to be a little better than a heathen 
 Chinee s, he says, * though there s much worse folks 
 than what they are. 
 
 " I seen he was put out, an I hadn t meant to 
 hurt his feelings, so I says, more gentle, * Well, Doc, 
 if you ain t that, what are you? 
 
 " I s pose, Mr. Hewlitt, you ve noticed how some 
 times something you find out will make clear to you 
 a lot of things you couldn t make head nor tail of 
 before. That s the way what Doc said did for me. 
 There was that poetry writin of his, an the way 
 that Shakespeare book made him mad, an how he 
 read those Shakespeare books instead of his Mateery 
 Medicky volumes. 
 
 " Well, I asked Doc, 6 If you ain t a heathen Chinee 
 or some sich, what are you ? an when he answered 
 
FALSE GODS OF DOC WEAVER 167 
 
 you could have knocked me down with a wisp of hay. 
 You d never guess, no more than I did. 
 
 " * Loreny, he says, solemn as a deacon, * I didn t 
 reckon never to tell nobody, an you mustn t judge 
 what I tell you too quick. I ain t made up my mind 
 sudden-like, he says, * but have studied myself and 
 what I like and don t like, for years, and I ve jist 
 been forced to it, he says. There ain t no doubt 
 in my mind, Loreny, he says, an he let his voice 
 go away down low, like he was most afraid to say it 
 hisself. 6 Loreny, I believe that Shakespeare s spirit 
 has transmigrated into me. 
 
 " Well, sir, I was too taken aback to say a word. 
 I thought Doc had gone crazy. But he hadn t. 
 
 " When I kind of got my senses back I riled up 
 right away. 6 Well, I says snappy, I think when 
 you was pickin out someone to be you might have 
 picked out someone better. From all I ve heard, 
 Shakespeare wasn t no better than he d ought to have 
 been. He don t suit me no better than a Chinee would, 
 and I hain t no fancy to marry Mister Shakespeare. 
 Maybe you think it s fine doin s to be Shakespeare, 
 Doc Weaver, but I don t, and I ain t going to marry 
 a man that s like a two-headed cow, half one thing 
 and half another, and not all of any. When you git 
 your senses, I says, you can talk about marryin* 
 
168 KILO 
 
 me. And off I went, perky as a peacock. But I 
 cried most all night. 
 
 " Him an me kind of stood off from each other 
 after that, and I made up my mind I d die before I d 
 marry Doc so long as he was Shakespeare, and Doc 
 had got the notion that he was Shakespeare so set in 
 his mind it seemed likely I would. 
 
 " I hadn t never took much stock in poetry readin 
 since I got out of * Mother Goose, but I begun to 
 read Shakespeare a little jist to see what kind of 
 poetry Doc thought he had writ when he was Shake 
 speare. Well, I wouldn t want to see sich books in 
 the Sunday School Lib ry, that s all I ve got to say. 
 Some I couldn t make much sense out of, but there 
 was one long poem about Venus and some young 
 feller well, I shouldn t think the gov ment would 
 allow sich things printed! I jist knowed Doc 
 couldn t ever have writ such stuff. There ain t so 
 much meanness in him. But I couldn t see clear 
 how to make Doc see it that way. 
 
 " I d about given up hopes of ever curing Doc, 
 when one day a feller come to town and give a lec 
 ture in the dance room over the grocery. He was 
 one of these spiritualism fellers, and as soon as it 
 was noised around that he was comin , I knowed Doc 
 would be the first man to go and the last to come 
 
FALSE GODS OF DOC WEAVER 169 
 
 away, and he was. Thinks I, Let him go. If Doc 
 jines in with spiritualists, it will be better n what he 
 believes in now, and if he begins changin religions, 
 mebby I can keep him changin , an change him into 
 a churchgoer. And so, jist to see what Doc was like 
 to be, I coaxed ma to go, an I went, too. It wasn t 
 near so sinful as I expected. 
 
 " The feller s name was Gilson, an he was as pale 
 as a picked chicken, but real common lookin , other 
 wise. He was a right-down good talker and seemed 
 real earnest. He wasn t the ghost-raisin kind of a 
 spiritualist, and them that went to see a show, come 
 away dissap inted, for all he did was to talk and 
 take up a collection. He said he was a new beginner 
 and used to be a Presbyterian minister. Doc stayed 
 after it was over and had a talk with Gilson, and of 
 course he got converted, like he always did. He told 
 ma so. 
 
 " I hadn t been havin much talk with Doc one 
 way or another, but when ma told me he had jined 
 the spiritualists I eased up a little, and one day I 
 made bold to say, Well, Doc, I s pose now you 
 have give up that Shakespeare foolishness, ain t 
 you? 
 
 " No, Loreny, he says, 1 ain t. 
 
 " 6 Land s sakes ! I says, do you mean to say 
 
170 KILO 
 
 you can be two things at once in religion, as well as 
 bein Shakespeare and Doc Weaver? 
 
 " Yes, Loreny, he says. * The spirit has got 
 to be somewheres between the times it has got a body, 
 he says. * That stands to reason. It s always puzzled 
 me where I was between the time I died two or three 
 hundred years ago and the time I entered this body, 
 he says, and spiritualism makes it all clear. I was 
 floatin in space. 
 
 " That s jist how fool-crazy Doc was them days. 
 There he was believin with all his might that r in- 
 ca nation business and that spirit business at the 
 same time. 
 
 " I says, * Well, Doc, some day you ll see how 
 deep in error you are, and I didn t say no more. 
 
 " Of course Doc wouldn t let well-enough alone. 
 There was a big spiritualist over to Peory, Illinoy, 
 a reg lar ghost-raisin feller, and what did Doc do 
 but write over and git him to come to Kilo and give 
 a seeance. That is a meetin where they raise up 
 ghosts. Doc wanted the feller to stop at our house, 
 but I wouldn t have it, so he had to put up at the 
 hotel. Doc said it was a shame, but as soon as I 
 seen the man I said it served him right, and that he 
 was a fraud, but Doc swallered him right down, hide 
 an hoof. 
 
FALSE GODS OF DOC WEAVER 171 
 
 " They had the seeance in the hotel parlor, and no 
 charge, so me and ma went, though we wasn t jist 
 sure it was right; but I says it wasn t as if it was 
 real we knowed it was all foolishness; so ma and 
 me trotted along. I found out afterward that Doc 
 paid to have the feller come to Kilo. His name was 
 Moller, an he was one of them long-haired, greasy- 
 lookin men. 
 
 " I must say it was real scary when they turned 
 the lights down an Moller made tables jump around 
 and fiddles play without anybody playin on them. 
 There wasn t many folks there, but ma held my 
 hand, an I held ma s, and Doc was right in front 
 of us. 
 
 " Moller did a lot of tricks sich as I hear they 
 always do, an then he said he d bring up any spirits 
 anyone would like to have come up. That was what 
 Doc was waitin for, and he popped right up. 
 
 " I should like to talk to Bacon, he says. 
 
 " Bacon ? says Moller. There s a good many 
 Bacons in spirit-land. Which one do you want to 
 speak to, brother? 
 
 " The one that lived when Shakespeare did, 
 says Doc. The one that wrote the essays and sich. 
 Sir Francis Bacon. 
 
 " Ah, yes! says Moller. Til see if he s willin 
 
172 KILO 
 
 to say anything to-night. And down he set into a 
 chair. Well, you d have died! In a bit his head and 
 legs begun to jerk like he had St. Vitus dance, and 
 then he straightened out, stiff as a broomstick. It 
 was the silliest thing ever I seen. I felt real sorry 
 for Doc, he was so dead earnest about it. 
 
 " In a minute Moller opened his jaw and begun 
 to talk. It was all sort of jerky-like. 
 
 " Fm sailin through starry fields, he says, * ex- 
 plorin the wonders of the universe. Why am I called 
 back to earth this way? Doth somebody want to 
 question me about something? 
 
 " Doc was all worked up. He held onto a chair- 
 back, an he was so shakin I could hear the loose 
 chair rungs rattle. 
 
 " Is this Bacon ? he says. 
 
 " * It is, says Moller, his voice jerkin like a kitten 
 taken with the fits. 
 
 " * Well, says Doc, like his life was hangin on 
 what Moller would say, * did you, or did you not, 
 write Shakespeare s plays? 
 
 " I did not, Moller jerked out; Shakespeare 
 did. 
 
 " You could hear Doc sigh all over the room, it 
 was sich a relief to his mind. Doc was awful pleased. 
 He was smilin all over his face, he was so pleased to 
 
FALSE GODS OF DOC WEAVER 173 
 
 have Bacon own up, an he turned to ma and me 
 and says, * Ain t it wonderful ! 
 
 " Then Moller come out of his fit an set still 
 a while, like he had jist woke up from a long nap. 
 Then he says he s goin into another trance, an if 
 any in the room wants to hold talk with any of their 
 lost friends or kin, they should ask for them, an 
 he jerked again, and jerked out stiff. 
 
 " That old back-slider, Pap Briggs, popped up, 
 but Doc was ahead of him, cause Pap always has 
 to regulate his store teeth before he can git his 
 tongue goin , and Doc says, * I desire to speak with 
 Richard Burbage. 
 
 " I guess Moller didn t know any sich feller. Any 
 ways he jist lay still an so Doc says, Mebby 
 there s several Richard Burbages. I mean the one 
 that owned a theater with Shakespeare. But Rich 
 ard Burbage didn t feel like talkin that evenin . 
 I reckon Moller didn t know nothin about Richard 
 Burbage, and was frightened that Doc would ask 
 him something that he couldn t answer. There ain t 
 nobody slicker than them fake fellers. It s their 
 business. 
 
 " But Doc was so worked up he would have swal- 
 lered anything, and I guess Moller thought he had 
 to make up to Doc for payin his expenses, so he 
 
174 KILO 
 
 says, smilin , * I see, doctor, you are interested in 
 literature, and I ll try to get somebody in that line 
 that s willing to talk. So he jerked into another 
 trance. 
 
 "Purty soon Moller says: From the seventh 
 circle I have come, drawn by the will of somebody 
 that knows and loves me. It s a long way. Billions 
 of miles off is my new home, where I spend eternity 
 writin things that make what I writ on earth look 
 like nothin , or some sich nonsense. Doc looked 
 back at me once, proud as sin, an then he swelled 
 out his lungs, an run his hand over his whiskers, 
 like you ve seen him do. He was gittin wound up for 
 a good talk. 
 
 " If I do say it myself, Doc s a good talker, an 
 I figgered he d make Moller hustle. I see Doc was 
 goin to spread hisself to do credit to Shakespeare. 
 He hadn t no doubt that one spirit would recognize 
 another, so he says, like he was makin a speech, 
 * You know who I am ? 
 
 " I do, says Moller. 
 
 " Then, says Doc, * since my spirit eyes are 
 blinded by this mortal body, may I ask who you 
 are? He didn t hardly breathe. Then Moller jerked. 
 6 I am Shakespeare, he says, sudden-like. 
 
 " What s that? says Doc, short and quick. 
 
FALSE GODS OF DOC WEAVER 175 
 
 " 6 Shakespeare, says Moller William Shake 
 speare. 
 
 "Poor Doc jist dropped into his chair, and run 
 his hand over his forehead and his eyes, like he had 
 bumped into the edge of a door in the dark. I ain t 
 never seen Doc real pale but once, and that was 
 then. Then he turned round to ma an me, weak as 
 a sick baby, an says, Come, Loreny ; this lyin 
 place ain t nowhere for you and me to be, and we 
 went out. 
 
 " Well, Doc, I says, when we was outside, seems 
 to me like there is two of you, and that was all I 
 says to him about it, then ; but I guess he see what 
 a fool he d been, cause the next night he says, * Lo 
 reny, I wisht you d git me a set of the articles of 
 belief of your church. I d like to look them over. 
 
 " Well, I says, who ll I say wants them, Shake 
 speare or Doc Weaver? 
 
 " 6 You can say an old fool wants them, says Doc, 
 * and you ll hit it about right. 
 
 " So Doc jined church, an he s leadin the singin 
 now; but you can see why I keep sich a lookout lest 
 he gits started off on some new religion." 
 
 Mrs. Weaver glanced at the clock. 
 
 " Mercy me ! " she exclaimed. " Doc ll be home 
 before I git them supper dishes washed up. Now, you 
 
176 KILO 
 
 won t feel hurt because I don t want you to talk new 
 religions to Doc, will you? You can see jist how I 
 feel, and you wouldn t want no husband yourself 
 that was a philopeny, as you might say. I don t 
 believe I could git on real well with Doc if he had 
 kept on bein Shakespeare. I d always have felt like 
 he was bout three hundred years older than me. But 
 there s jist one thing I dread more than anything 
 else. If Doc should take up with the Mormon re 
 ligion and start a harem, I believe I d coax him to 
 be Shakespeare again. It s bad enough to have a 
 double husband, but, land s sakes, I d rather that 
 than to be part of a wife." 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 GETTING ACQUAINTED 
 
 ALTHOUGH Eliph 5 Hewlitt was not making 
 much progress in his courtship he was far from idle 
 in the succeeding weeks. He had taken many orders 
 for Jarby s great book in the county, before he 
 arrived in Kilo, and as a shipment of the books ar 
 rived from New York he spent much of his time be 
 hind old Irontail making his deliveries and collecting 
 the first payments, and some time in the immediate 
 neighborhood making new sales. One of the copies 
 he had to deliver was the one purchased by Mrs. Tar- 
 bro-Smith, but although he delivered it to her at Miss 
 Sally s, he did not have an opportunity to speak to 
 Miss Sally, for she hid herself when he approached 
 the door, and did not come down stairs again until 
 he had left the house. 
 
 Mrs. Tarbro-Smith received the book with a lady 
 like enthusiasm, and immediately placed it upon Miss 
 Sally s center table, where its bright red cover added 
 a touch of cheerfulness to the room, suggestive of 
 the knowledge, literature, science and art the book 
 
 177 
 
178 KILO 
 
 was guaranteed to irradiate in any family. But Miss 
 Sally never so much as looked inside its covers. She 
 avoided it as if she thought the book itself might 
 seize her and sell to her, against her will, one of its 
 fellows. Mrs. Smith said openly that she wished she 
 might see more of Eliph Hewlitt, and that she 
 thought him a most remarkable book agent, partic 
 ularly after she had heard of his selling the Mission 
 ary Society a wholesale lot of Jarby s Encyclopedia, 
 and after glancing through the book she admitted 
 that it was really an excellent thing of its kind, but 
 Miss Sally merely remarked that she didn t like book 
 agents, and that she hated this one more than most, 
 he was so slick. 
 
 The energetic spirit of Mrs. Smith was sure to 
 carry her into anything that partook of a social 
 nature, and she had arrived in Kilo in the midst of 
 the festival season, when out-door festivals of all 
 varieties were following one after another almost 
 weekly for the benefit of the church, which had a 
 properly clinging and insatiable debt. In these festi 
 vals she took a prominent part, for they brought her 
 in contact with the people of Kilo as nothing else 
 could, and if she enjoyed the affairs, so did Susan. 
 Susan bloomed wonderfully. She sprang at once 
 from childhood to young womanhood, and Mrs. 
 
So Doc fined church, an he s leadin the singin now 
 
:. : 
 
GETTING ACQUAINTED 179 
 
 Smith was pleased to have her protegee appear so 
 well and receive so much attention, for she felt that 
 she had had the revision of her. She already saw in 
 her the heroine of the novel she meant to write, with 
 the plot beginning in Kilo and Clarence, and carried 
 to New York and, perhaps, Europe. 
 
 The attorney and the editor were particularly nice 
 to Susan, and attentive to Mrs. Smith at all the festi 
 vals, and it amused the New Yorker to find herself 
 and her maid on an equal social plane. It is quite dif 
 ferent in New York. But lady s maids in New York 
 are not all like Susan. Maids in New York do not 
 spend their spare time studying Jarby s Encyclo 
 pedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, 
 Science and Art, and Susan did. Even Eliph Hew- 
 litt could not have read the book more faithfully 
 than Susan did, nor have believed in it more trust 
 fully. Often when the editor or the attorney sought 
 her at one of the festivals they would find her talk 
 ing with Eliph Hewlitt, exchanging facts out of 
 Jarby s Encyclopedia. 
 
 For Eliph never missed a festival. He haunted 
 them, standing in one spot until his eyes fell upon 
 Miss Sally, when he would make straight for her with 
 his dainty little steps, and she, catching sight of 
 him for she was always on the lookout would 
 
180 KILO 
 
 move away, weaving around and between people until 
 he lost sight of her, when he would stand still until 
 he caught sight of her again. It was like a game. 
 Sometimes he caught her, but before he could have 
 a word with her she would make an excuse and hurry 
 away, or turn him over to another. Usually she 
 shielded herself by keeping either the Colonel or 
 Skinner beside her, if they were present, and they 
 usually were. 
 
 " Land s sake ! " she exclaimed to Mrs. Smith, one 
 evening, as they were walking home after an ice-cream 
 festival at Doc Weaver s, " I wish somebody would 
 tell that Mr. Hewlitt that I don t want to buy no 
 books. He pesters the life out of me. I can t show 
 myself nowhere but he comes up, all loaded to begin, 
 and if I d give him half a chance he d have me buyin 
 a book in no time. It don t seem to make no difference 
 where I am. I believe he d try to sell books at a 
 funeral." Mrs. Smith laughed. 
 
 " I know he would ! " she said. " He is delightful ! 
 Why don t you do as I did, and buy a book, and then 
 he will be satisfied, and leave you alone." 
 
 " Well, I won t ! " declared Miss Sally. " I ain t 
 done nothin all my life but buy books an then fight 
 pa to get money to pay installments on em, an I 
 won t buy no more! I declared to goodness when I 
 
GETTING ACQUAINTED 181 
 bought them Sir Walter Scott books that I wouldn t 
 buy no more, an I won t. If I buy this one off of this 
 man, there ll be another, an another, an so on til 
 kingdom come, an one everlasting fight with pa for 
 money." 
 
 " Couldn t you pay for it with the money you got 
 for those fire extinguishers? " asked Mrs. Smith. 
 
 " Pa borryed that to pay taxes with, long ago, 
 an that s the last I ll ever see of that money," said 
 Miss Sally. " Pa ain t the kind that pays back. He s 
 a good getter, an a good keeper, but he s about the 
 poorest giver I ever did see, if he is my own father. 
 There ain t nothin in the world else that would drive 
 me to get married but just the trouble I have to get 
 money out of pa for anything. I ain t even got a 
 black silk dress to my name, and there ain t another 
 lady in Kilo but s got one. I guessed when we moved 
 to town I would have the egg money same as on the 
 farm, but since pa had his teeth out an got new ones 
 he won t eat nothin but eggs, an I don t get any 
 egg money. Pa eats so many eggs I m ashamed to tell 
 it. I wonder he don t sprout feathers. I don t believe 
 so many eggs is good for a man. It don t seem 
 natural. That encyclopedia book don t say anywhere 
 that eatin too many eggs makes a man close fisted, 
 does it? " 
 
182 KILO 
 
 Mrs. Smith said she could remember nothing to 
 that effect in the book, and for a minute they walked 
 in silence. Suddenly she looked up and spoke. 
 
 " Miss Sally," she exclaimed, " I know what to do ! 
 I will make you a present of my encyclopedia. I will 
 give it to you, and the next time you see Mr. Hewlitt 
 you can tell him you have a copy, and then he will 
 leave you alone ! " 
 
 That was how it happened that at the next festival 
 Miss Sally did not run when she saw Eliph Hewlitt 
 approaching, but stood waiting for him. He stepped 
 up to her with a smile that was half pleasure and half 
 excuse. 
 
 " I don t want to buy a book," she said quickly. 
 " I ve got one. Mrs. Smith gave me the one she had. 
 So you needn t pester me any more." 
 
 " I didn t want to sell you a book," said Eliph 
 gently, " although I am glad to learn you have one. 
 No person, whether man, woman or child, should be 
 without a copy of this work, including, as it does, all 
 the knowledge of the ages and all the world s wisdom, 
 from A to Z, condensed into one volume, for ready 
 reference. It is a book that should be on every parlor 
 table and " 
 
 " Well, I ve got one," said Miss Sally, " so it s 
 no use wasting talk on it. One s all I want. Another 
 
GETTING ACQUAINTED 183 
 
 one wouldn t be no good but to clutter up the 
 house." 
 
 " Just so," said Eliph . " I don t want to sell you 
 another. To sell this book is the smallest part of my 
 trouble. It is a book that sells itself. I only need to 
 show it, to sell it. Wherever it falls open it attracts 
 the attention with a gem of thought or a flower of 
 knowledge, perhaps the language of gems, or the 
 language of flowers, how to cure boils, how to pre 
 serve fruit, each page offers something of value to 
 the mind. A copy of this book in the house is a 
 friend in sickness or in health, a help in business and 
 a companion in pleasure ; to the agent it is a source 
 of steady and continuous income. One copy sells an 
 other." 
 
 " I said before that I don t want another," said 
 Miss Sally shortly. 
 
 "Let us talk about something else," said Eliph 
 Hewlitt, coughing politely behind his hand. " I ll be 
 glad to, but I do not blame you for bringing up the 
 subject of the work I am selling. I make it a rule 
 never to talk book out of business hours, but I am not 
 sensitive, as some book agents are. When Jarby s 
 Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of 
 Literature, Science and Art is mentioned I am not 
 offended; I am not ashamed of my business I enjoy: 
 
184 KILO 
 
 it. I could talk of the merits of this unequaled work: 
 day and night without stopping and yet not do it 
 full justice, but I don t. When my work is done I 
 stop talking book. I might, to enliven conversation, 
 quote from the 6 Five Hundred Ennobling Thoughts 
 from the World s Greatest Authors, Including the 
 Prose and Poetical Gems of All Ages, containing, as 
 it does, the best thoughts of the greatest minds, suit 
 able for polite and refined conversation, sixty-two 
 solid pages of them, with vingetty portraits of the 
 authors, and a short biographical sketch of each, in 
 cluding date and place of birth, date and place of 
 death, if dead, et cetery. Or I might, to brighten a 
 passing moment, propound one or more of the Six 
 Hundred Perplexing Puzzles, page 987, including 
 charades, conundrums, quaint mathematical catches, 
 et cetery, compiled to brighten the mind and puzzle 
 the wits, suitable for young or old, for grave or gay. 
 It is a book that meets every want of every day, is 
 neatly and durably bound, and the price is only five 
 dollars." 
 
 Miss Sally turned as if to run away, but Eliph put 
 out his hand and touched her arm lightly. 
 
 "But I don t," he said. "I don t quote, and I 
 don t propound. I put the book aside and I forget. 
 When my work is done I relax my mind. I enter into 
 
GETTING ACQUAINTED 185 
 
 the pleasures I find most congenial, such as festivals, 
 sociables, fairs, kermesses, picnics, parties, recep 
 tions, et cetery, rules and suggestions for conducting 
 all of which are to be found in this book, which is 
 recommended and esteemed by the leaders of society, 
 both in the Four Hundred and out. Or I read a good 
 book, a list of five hundred of which may be found on 
 page 336, The Reader s Guide, giving advice in 
 selecting fiction, history, philosophy, religious works, 
 poetry, et cetery, the whole selected by eight of the 
 most eminent professors of literature in our colleges 
 and universities, both at home and abroad. Or I in 
 dulge in conversation, in which what better guide 
 than is to be found on page 662, The Polite Con 
 versationalist, including gems of wit, apt quotations, 
 how to gain and hold the attention, how to amuse, 
 instruct and argue, et cetery ? When it is remembered 
 that all this, and much more, can be had for only 
 five dollars, neatly bound in cloth, one dollar down 
 and one dollar a month until paid, what wonder is it 
 
 that that " 
 
 Suddenly one of the paper lanterns that hung 
 from the wire above them burst into flame, and Eliph 
 saw on Miss Sally s face the look of fear with which 
 she was regarding him, fear and fascination mingled. 
 The smile faded from his lips, and his gentle blue 
 
186 KILO 
 
 eyes became troubled. He dropped the hand that had 
 been lightly resting on her arm, and his dapper air 
 of self-confidence wilted into abashment. 
 
 " Was I was I talking book? " he asked weakly. 
 " I was ! Pardon me, Miss Briggs, pardon me, I 
 didn t know it. I m sorry. I didn t mean to." 
 
 For a moment Miss Sally studied his face, and she 
 saw only a genuine contrition there, and a regret so 
 deep that she was sorry for him. There could be no 
 doubt of his sincerity. 
 
 " Well ! " she exclaimed, with a breath of relief ; 
 " I do believe you didn t know you was ! I believe that 
 book s got so ground into you that you can t help 
 but talk it, like Benny Tenneker, who got so used to 
 climbin trees an f allin out of em that he used to 
 climb the bedposts an fall off of em in his sleep 
 without wakin up. Mrs. Doc Weaver s his aunt, an 
 when he visited her he nearly got killed f allin out of 
 bed when he was tryin to climb a bed post when there 
 wasn t none on the bed. He d got so he could fall 
 out of any high place an light safe, but he wasn t 
 used to fallin off of low ones. He was such a nice 
 boy. All Martha Willing s children were nice. Mebby 
 you ve met her. She lives out Clarence way." 
 
 "Willing?" said Elliph . "Yes, I sold her a I 
 mean to say, I met her." 
 
GETTING ACQUAINTED 187 
 
 " Well, her husband s dead, and her and her boys 
 is runnin the farm," said Miss Sally, " an doin right 
 well, so I guess she ain t afraid of book agents. She 
 can afford to buy. I don t know as I m afraid of em 
 either, or hate em as such, but I can t afford. Pa 
 don t approve of books much, an he can t see why he 
 should pay out money for what he don t approve of. 
 Books an taxes he don t care much for. That s why 
 I was so scared of you." 
 
 "I didn t want to sell you a to sell you any 
 thing," said Eliph meekly. " All I wanted was to get 
 acquainted, to get well acquainted." 
 
 " I guess that s all right then," said Miss Sally. 
 " There ain t anything more natural than that you 
 should wish that, bein intendin to make your home 
 here. I hope you like the place an make lots of 
 acquaintances, but if I was you I d try not to talk 
 book any more than you have to. I don t think it ll 
 help to make you popular, as I may say. That Sir 
 Walter man sort of gave everybody an overdose of 
 book, an folks feel kind of mad at book agents ever 
 since. Like father Emmons, when he had one of his 
 sick spells, an nothin would do but he was goin to 
 die, so he got up before sun-up an drove to town to 
 see Doc Weaver. He let Doc know he felt he was 
 dyin, an told him the symptoms, an all Doc says 
 
188 KILO 
 
 was, 6 All you want is salts. You stop at the drug 
 store an get a pound of salts, an I ll warrant you ll 
 be as well as ever. So when his daughter she s Mary 
 Ann Klepper went into the house after carryin 
 lunch to the men in the field, there was her poor old 
 father settin at the table with the big yeller bake- 
 bowl in front of him, an him eatin away at what was 
 in it with a big spoon. 6 Eatin bread an milk, 
 father? she asks, an her pa looks up with tears in 
 his eyes, an swallers down another spoonful. * No, 
 he says, as cross as a bear, I m eatin a pound o 
 salts Doc Weaver told me to git, but hang if I can 
 eat another spoonful, an I ain t above half done. 
 So I guess Kilo folks kind of gag when they think of 
 books." 
 
 " If I so much as mention books," said Eliph 
 pleadingly, " I wish you d stop me. Don t let me. 
 Mebby I do sort of get in the habit of it, thinking it 
 and talking it so much. But I never meant to sell 
 you one. I only wanted to get acquainted." 
 
 Miss Sally laughed. 
 
 "Well," she said cheerfully, "there s different 
 ways to do it, but I guess you an me have got well ac 
 quainted different from what most folks does. Ain t 
 you been over to the ice-cream table yet? Or was 
 you waitin to be primed; that s what us ladies is 
 
GETTING ACQUAINTED 189 
 here for, to start folks spendin money, like Mrs. 
 Foster s little nephew that come up from the city to 
 visit her last summer. He wanted to know what 
 everything was for that was on the farm or in the 
 house, that he wasn t used to, an when they told him 
 they always had to leave a dipper of water in the pail 
 to prime the pump with so it would give water, he 
 wanted to know if the reason they had the pans of 
 milk in the spring-house was so they could prime the 
 cows so they would give milk." 
 
 Eliph laughed heartily, for his heart was light. 
 He was making progress ; Miss Sally had admitted 
 that they were well acquainted, and now he could pro 
 ceed to the second step advised in " Courtship ; How 
 to Win the Affections; How to Hold Them When 
 Won." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 "SECOND: A SMALL PRESENT" 
 
 iHE next morning Eliph Hewlitt purchased the 
 two-pound box of candy in the pictured box that had 
 long been considered by the druggist a foolish invest 
 ments. For months it had reposed in the end of the 
 toilet soap case awaiting a purchaser, and had 
 acquired a sweet odor of scented soap mingled with 
 the plainer odor of cut castile, and no one had been 
 so extravagant as to buy it. Once the druggist had 
 tried to persuade the candy salesman to take it back 
 in exchange for more salable goods, but after taking 
 it from the show-case and smelling it the drummer 
 refused. At the opposite end of the case the druggist 
 kept his plush manicure and brush-and-comb sets, 
 with a few lumps of camphor scattered among them 
 to discourage moths, but the odor of camphor did 
 not hurt the candy. The scented soap protected it 
 from the camphor. When Kilo buys scented soap she 
 likes to have it really scented. 
 
 Miss Sally, when the small boy Eliph secured as a 
 messenger had delivered the box of candy, knew well 
 enough what it meant. The neatly written card, 
 
 190 
 
"SECOND: A SMALL PRESENT" 191 
 " From Yours very truly, E. Hewlitt," did not sug 
 gest much, perhaps, but in Kilo friends do not scatter 
 two-pound boxes of candy recklessly about. To re- 
 receive a two-pound box on Christmas would have 
 been a suspicious circumstance, for a smaller box 
 would have done quite as well between friends, but to 
 send a two-pound box on a day that was no holiday 
 at all, but just a plain day of the week, could stand 
 for but one of two things the giver was insane, or 
 he had " intentions," and Miss Sally knew very well 
 that Eliph Hewlitt was not insane. Unless on the 
 subject of Jarby s Encyclopedia. 
 
 She carried the box of candy to Mrs. Smith, and 
 showed her the card. 
 
 " How lovely ! " cried Mrs. Smith, an exclamation 
 which might have meant either the box of candy or 
 the sentiment that inspired the sender, and then added, 
 " How odd ! It smells like soap ! " 
 
 " That s a sign it s good candy," said Miss Sally. 
 " The candy Rudge sells always smells of soap, an 
 he handles only the best, so when you see candy that 
 smells that way you know it s good. This is Rudge s 
 candy, sure enough, for I know this box by heart. 
 Rudge has had it in his show case ever since the firm 
 was Crimmins & Rudge. It must be some stale by this 
 time, but the box is pretty." 
 
192 KILO 
 
 " I don t suppose Mr. Hewlitt knew it was stale," 
 said Mrs. Smith. " He evidently tried to get the 
 best he could." 
 
 " Yes," admitted Miss Sally. " He wouldn t know 
 this box of candy so well as we town folks do, him 
 bein a newcomer here. I suppose Rudge gave him 
 a discount off the price on account of the box bein 
 soiled a little. I hope to goodness that man wasn t so 
 foolish as to go an pay straight sixty cents a pound 
 for it. He got cheated if he did, an I ll tell him so 
 when I see him next." She slowly untied the red rib 
 bon that bound the box, and rolled it neatly around 
 the fingers of her left hand, to lay away for future 
 use. " Now, what do you suppose that man sent it 
 to me for? " she asked. 
 
 Mrs. Smith smiled, for she knew Miss Sally was 
 asking the question merely that she might have her 
 own belief made sure by the words of another. 
 
 " Because he s in love, of course," said Mrs. 
 Smith. " Because he is desperately in love. It is a 
 romance, my dear." 
 
 Miss Sally looked doubtfully toward Susan, who 
 was curled up on the old sofa in the corner of the 
 room. She was not sure that such matters should be 
 discussed before one so young, but Susan would have 
 refused to leave the room, even if asked, and she re- 
 
u SECOND: A SMALL PRESENT " 193 
 sented the questioning glance that Miss Sally had 
 thrown at Mrs. Smith. 
 
 " * Courtship How to Make Love How to Win 
 the Affections How To Hold Them When Won, " 
 she said gayly, " First, get well acquainted ; second, 
 make small presents, such as flowers, books or candy ; 
 third, ask for the lady s hand. You needn t look at 
 me that way, Miss Sally ; I know all about it. I read 
 it in Jarby s Encyclopedia." 
 
 " Lands sakes ! " exclaimed Miss Sally. " And me 
 and him only got well acquainted last night at the 
 festival. I never heard of such a thing ! " 
 
 " It s love at first sight," teased Mrs. Smith. " He 
 will probably be around this afternoon to propose, 
 and we can have the wedding this evening." 
 
 " Well, he needn t come this afternoon, if he s got 
 it in his mind to come," said Miss Sally shortly, " for 
 I won t be at home. I ain t goin to be rushed that 
 way, not by no man. I don t say but Mr. Hewlitt is 
 a clever spoken man, Mrs. Smith, when he ain t talkin 
 books, but I ain t in the habit of bein courted like I 
 was a Seidlitz powder, and had to be drunk down be 
 fore I stopped fizzin . That may be some folks way of 
 doin it, but it ain t mine." 
 
 " Nor Colonel Guthrie s," suggested Mrs. Smith. 
 
 " If the Colonel s slow it ain t his fault," said Miss 
 
194 KILO 
 
 Sally. " He d be quick enough if I d let him, but I 
 can t see no hurry, one way or another. I don t say 
 but that a husband is a good thing to have, mind you ! 
 I guess I m like all other women and want to have one 
 some time, but so long as I ve got pa I m in no hurry. 
 He s as much trouble as a husband would be, and as 
 grumpy when things don t go to suit him. Sometimes 
 I feel like in the end I d choose to marry the Colonel, 
 since it wouldn t be so much of a change, the Colonel 
 bein like pa in some ways, such as bein economical; 
 and then again I feel like I d prefer Skinner, just be 
 cause he d be a change. I d be always sure of gettin 
 good meat, for one thing, and I d insist upon it. I 
 can t a-bear tough meat." 
 
 " Shoemakers children go without shoes," sug 
 gested Mrs. Smith. 
 
 " They wouldn t if I was their mother, an I ll tell 
 Skinner so, if I choose to marry him an he tries to 
 send home any but the best meat he s got in the shop," 
 said Miss Sally firmly. " That s one man, if I marry 
 him, I won t take no foolishness from. When a man 
 is castin his eyes my way, an then has to have a city 
 ordinance made to compel him to do me the favor of 
 buyin four fire-extinguishers off of me, that ain t 
 no earthly use to me, I ll let him know I m going to 
 have my way about some things when we re married. 
 
"SECOND: A SMALL PRESENT" 195 
 
 I know well enough I ain t such a beauty that Skinner 
 an the Colonel is what you might call infatuated with 
 me, and I don t expect em to be. Pa s got money, and 
 if he didn t have I guess the Colonel an Skinner 
 wouldn t bother their heads about me much; but if 
 they like me for pa s money now I guess they ll like 
 me for it just as well after they marry me, for I ll 
 have it well known that money don t go out of my 
 name. And I ll let this book agent man know it too. 
 If it s pa s money he s in such a hurry to get, he ll 
 find out his mistake." 
 
 " I rather like the book agent," said Mrs. Smith. 
 " He doesn t seem to me at all the adventurer type." 
 
 " His whiskers do make him look like a preacher," 
 said Miss Sally, " if that s what you mean ; but if he 
 means business he ought to know I ain t the kind of 
 bird to be caught with boxes of candy. Neither Skin 
 ner nor the Colonel is so silly as to think that." 
 
 She smoothed her apron across her knees, and 
 looked at its checked pattern. 
 
 " Seems to me," she said, with a touch of regret, 
 " this ain t no time or age for such foolishness. It 
 ain t as if I was a girl like Susan there. Boxes of 
 candy an Susan would match up like pale blue an 
 white. I guess the safe thing is to make choice of 
 one that ain t a stranger. I ve done business with 
 
196 KILO 
 
 Skinner years an years, sellin him calves an buyin 
 meat off of him ; an as for the Colonel, I guess I know 
 all his bad points as well as his good ones. The Colo 
 nel has been a friend of pa s a long time." 
 
 So it happened that when Eliph Hewlitt called at 
 Miss Sally s that afternoon he did not find her at 
 home. Mrs. Smith received him and tried to make up 
 by her kindness for the disappointment Eliph evi 
 dently felt. She thanked him in Miss Sally s name for 
 the beautiful box of candy although Miss Sally had 
 left no such word and drew him on to talk of Jarby 
 & Goss, the publishers of the Encyclopedia, and of 
 his own adventures. The longer she talked with the 
 little man the better her opinion of him became, and 
 she saw that he was gentle, shrewd, capable and 
 sincere sincere even in his wildest enthusiasm for 
 Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compen 
 dium of Literature, Science and Art. When he arose 
 to go he stood a moment hesitatingly with his hat in 
 his hand. He coughed apologetically. 
 
 " I hope Miss Sally liked the little token of esteem ; 
 the box of candy ; " he said, looking up into Mrs. 
 Smith s face anxiously. " It isn t as if I was used to 
 such matters. My preference would have been a 
 book ; a good book ; a book that I could recommend to 
 man, woman or child, containing in a condensed form 
 
"SECOND: A SMALL PRESENT" 197 
 
 all the world s knowledge, from the time of Adam to 
 the present day, with an index for ready reference, 
 and useful information for every day in the year. 
 It was my intention to have given her such a book, 
 which would have been a proper vehicle to convey to 
 her my my regard, but I learned only last night that 
 she already had a copy of that work, without which 
 no home is complete, and which is published by Jarby 
 & Goss, New York, five dollars, bound in cloth ; seven 
 fifty, morocco. I learned that she already had one." 
 
 " She told you I had given her my copy? " asked 
 Mrs. Smith. 
 
 " Yes," said Eliph simply. " So I could not present 
 her with a copy of that work. My preference was to 
 give a work of literature ; I am a worker in the field of 
 literature, and it would have been more appropriate. 
 But I could give her nothing but the best of its kind, 
 and where find another such book as Jarby s Ency 
 clopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Litera 
 ture, Science and Art? Nowhere! There is no other. 
 This book, combining in one volume selections from 
 the world s best literature, recipes for the home, ad 
 vice for every period of existence, together with one 
 thousand and one other subjects, forms in itself a 
 volume unequaled in the history of literature. No 
 person should be without it." 
 
198 KILO 
 
 " I know, Mr. Hewlitt," pleaded Mrs. Smith, smil 
 ing, " but I have already bought two copies. Don t 
 you think you ought to let me off with that? " 
 
 " I was not trying to sell you one," said Eliph , 
 
 with embarrassment. " I hoped " He paused and 
 
 coughed behind his hand again. " You know my in 
 tention in sending a present to Miss Briggs," he 
 said bravely. " I admire her greatly. I to me she is, 
 in fact, a Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and 
 Compendium of Literature, Science and Art among 
 women." 
 
 " Dear Mr. Hewlitt," said Mrs. Smith, taking his 
 hand, " I understand. And I wish you all the good 
 fortune in the world. I shall do all I can to help you." 
 
 " Thank you," said Eliph , shaking her hand as if 
 she was an old acquaintance he had met after long 
 years of separation. " So you understand that I can 
 feel the same to no other woman. Not even to to 
 anyone." He wiped his forehead with his disengaged 
 hand. " So I feel that you will not misunderstand me 
 if I ask you to accept a copy of Jarby s Encyclo 
 pedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, 
 Science and Art, bound in morocco, seven fifty. I 
 mean gratis. No home should be without one." 
 
 " Why, it is very kind of you to suggest such a 
 thing," said Mrs. Smith, " and I m sure I ll be glad to 
 own a copy." 
 
"SECOND: A SMALL PRESENT" 199 
 
 " I m glad to have you," said Eliph . " I wanted to 
 give you one, but I didn t want you to think I meant 
 it in the way I meant what I sent to Miss Sally. I 
 was afraid you might, or that Miss Sally might. But 
 I don t mean it that way." 
 
 " I know you don t," said Mrs. Smith heartily. 
 " And if Miss Sally is jealous I will tell her she is 
 quite mistaken. But if you will let a woman that has 
 had a little experience advise you, do not be too 
 hasty. Do not try to hurry matters too much. It 
 would spoil everything if you pressed for an answer 
 too soon and received an unfavorable one. And I m 
 afraid it would be an unfavorable one if you put it 
 to a test now." 
 
 Eliph s countenance fell. It said plainly enough 
 that he understood her to mean that the Colonel and 
 Skinner were more apt to be favorably received. 
 
 " I m afraid so," said Mrs. Smith regretfully. 
 "You know they are older acquaintances, and Miss 
 Sally is not one of those who think new friends are 
 best." 
 
 " I was coming again to-night," said Eliph . " Per 
 haps I had better not say anything to-night. Per 
 haps I had better wait until to-morrow." 
 
 " Wait until next month, or next year," advised 
 Mrs. Smith. " There is no hurry. Something may 
 turn up." 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 SOMETHING TURNS UP 
 
 SOMETHING turned up the very next day. It 
 turned all Kilo upside down as nothing had for years, 
 and created such a demand for the Times that J. T. 
 Jones had to print an extra edition of sixty copies, 
 and he would have printed ten more if his press had 
 not broken down. 
 
 Across two columns the Times never used over 
 one column headlines except after elections blazed 
 the word "GRAFT," and beneath, in but a size 
 or two smaller, stared the " sub-head " " OFFICIAL 
 OF KILO CORRUPTED. CITIZENS PARTY 
 ROTTEN TO THE CORE. PROMINENT 
 CITIZEN IMPLICATED." Beneath this followed 
 the moral of it, " The City, as Predicted in These 
 Columns, Suffers for Departing from The Beneficent 
 Rule of the Republican Party." 
 
 Attorney Toole was sitting in his office when the 
 boy from the Times delivered the paper to him. 
 He smiled as he opened the damp sheet, for he ex 
 tracted more amusement than news from the little, 
 
 200 
 
SOMETHING TURNS UP 201 
 
 paper, but as he turned it the headlines caught his 
 eye, and instantly he was deep in the columns. Some 
 one had sprung his mine before he had intended it 
 had exploded prematurely and with, what seemed to 
 him, as he read on, a futile insipidity. 
 
 There were full two columns of it. There were 
 hints and inuendoes, too well veiled, but no names 
 mentioned. The specific act of graft was not 
 brought to the surface. It was as if the writer 
 had made a " spread " of some vaguely uncertain 
 rumor, and yet there was no doubt that Colonel 
 Guthrie and Mayor Stitz and the fire-extinguishers 
 were meant. The attorney could see that, and 
 he had an idea that the writer had meant to tell 
 more than he really did tell. The veiled allusions were 
 so thoroughly veiled in words that they were buried 
 as if under mountains of veils. Each slight hint was 
 swamped in morasses of quotations and fine flourishes, 
 overgrown and hidden by tropical verbiage, and 
 covered up by philosophical and political phrases 
 until nothing of the hint could be seen. As he read 
 on the attorney could see Doc Weaver talking, as 
 plainly as if he stood before him; he could see him 
 at his desk in a frenzy of composition, and he 
 recognized the apt quotations from Shakespeare that 
 were Doc s specialty. Doc Weaver had written it. 
 
202 KILO 
 
 The attorney laid the paper down and studied the 
 matter. How could Doc have learned of the affair? 
 Skinner, angry as he had been at having to buy the 
 four fire-extinguishers, would never have dared to 
 wreck the party he had helped to create. The Colonel 
 would have been no such fool. Stitz? He would 
 hardly accuse himself. Who then? 
 
 One passage set the attorney thinking again as 
 he re-read the article. " * Things are seldom what 
 them seem, as the poet says, which is as true as that 
 * Honesty is the best policy. And as Shakespeare 
 says, * To what base ends, for all this disreputable 
 graft centers around certain brilliant obj ects that are 
 not what the guilty bribers and bribees suppose them 
 to be. While we shudder with horror at the temerity 
 of the sinners we shake with laughter as we think of 
 their faces as they will be when they realize that they 
 are the mortals to whom the immortal bard refers when 
 he enunciates the truth, What fools these mortals 
 be! " 
 
 " Certain brilliant objects " could mean nothing 
 but the lung-testers. Eliph Hewlitt had that secret, 
 and Eliph Hewlitt boarded with Doc Weaver. The 
 attorney felt a sudden rush of anger. It was to this 
 intermeddling book agent, then, that he owed the 
 premature explosion of the mine that was to have 
 blown the Citizens Party to fragments, and to have 
 
SOMETHING TURNS UP 203 
 
 landed the fragments in the basket held ready by 
 Attorney Toole? 
 
 The distribution of that week s Times acted 
 like a tonic on the town streets. New life followed in 
 the wake of the boy as he carried the paper from 
 door to door. It began at the corner of Main and 
 Cross Streets, and as the boy proceeded, the mer 
 chants, the loafers, and the customers came from the 
 stores and gathered in knots that formed quickly and 
 dissolved again as the parts passed from one group to 
 another, questioning, arguing and guessing. The 
 attorney looked out of his window. Across the street 
 he could see the office of the Times, and T. J. al 
 ready besieged by questioners, to whom he was evi 
 dently giving a kind but decided refusal of further 
 information. The editor was waving them away with 
 his hands. Some of the editor s visitors handed T. J. 
 money, and carried away copies of the Times, but 
 all went, gently urged by the editor, and joined one 
 or another of the groups below. The attorney drew 
 on his coat. He would postpone his interview with 
 Eliph Hewlitt ; Thomas Jefferson Jones was the man 
 he wanted to see at that moment. 
 
 It was difficult for the attorney to retain his enig 
 matical smile as he climbed the stairs to the Times 
 office. He was angry, but he knew the value of that 
 irritating smile that hinted superiority and a knowl- 
 
204 KILO 
 
 edge of hidden details. He needed it in his talk with 
 the editor. 
 
 It is odd how common interests will bring men 
 together. And sometimes how common interests will 
 not. The attorney and the editor had been as one 
 man in polite attentions to Susan Bell, Mrs. Smith s 
 protegee, at first, but as their acquaintance with her 
 grew they seemed to like each other less. They no 
 longer consulted each other on the best methods of 
 bringing Republican rule back to Kilo. They did not 
 consult together at all. The attorney coldly ignored 
 the editor, and his irritation, beginning in this rivalry, 
 was increased by the growing suspicion that the 
 editor dared look toward the leadership of the Re 
 publican party in Kilo. 
 
 It all angered the attorney. What right had a 
 country editor to compete with a man of talent, with 
 a member of the bar, with Attorney Toole? Was this 
 the thanks a rising lawyer should receive for leaving 
 the superior culture of Franklin and bringing his 
 talents to add luster to the bleak unimportance of 
 Kilo? The very impertinence of It angered him. 
 Toole, a man whose name would one day ring in the 
 halls of Congress and perhaps stand at the head of the 
 nation s officers as chief executive, to be bothered by 
 the interference of a Jones ! By the interference of a 
 
SOMETHING TURNS UP 205 
 
 man who spent his time collecting news of measles 
 and hog cholera ! It was about time T. J. Jones was 
 told a few things. 
 
 As Toole entered the printing office T. J. was hand 
 ing a copy of the Times to a customer, and the editor 
 turned, and, seeing who his visitor was, held up 
 his hand playfully. 
 
 " No use ! " he exclaimed. " I can t say anything 
 about it, except what s in the paper. Contributed 
 article, and the editor sworn to silence, you know." 
 
 The attorney seated himself on the editor s desk, 
 pushing a pile of papers out of his way. 
 
 " That s all right, Jones," he said. " That s for 
 the " he waved his hand toward the window " for 
 the fellow citizens; for the populace. This is be 
 tween ourselves." 
 
 " I d like to," said Jones, " but really, I can t say 
 anything about it. I promised faithfully I would not 
 betray my contributor s confidence." 
 
 " Now, do I look so green as that?" asked Toole. 
 " Nonsense ! Doc Weaver wrote that rot." He smiled. 
 "He spread himself, didn t he?" 
 
 The editor remained motionless. 
 
 " I have nothing whatever to say," he remarked, 
 noncommittally. 
 
 "Well, I have!" cried the attorney. "I ll tell 
 
206 KILO 
 
 you that it is poor work for you to steal my thunder 
 and attempt to use it without consulting me! It is 
 poor work, and mean work. You want to be boss of 
 this party in Kilo county, that s what you want. And 
 you haven t the capacity. You have proved it right 
 here, right here in this silly sheet of yours. You hit 
 on a big thing, and you spoil it. You are so anxious 
 that Toole shall get no credit that you rush it into 
 print and make a fizzle of it. I know who the traitors 
 to the party are you are one. Doc Weaver with his 
 elegant style and his Shakespeare is another. And 
 that miserable intermeddling little book agent is 
 another. You make me sick." 
 
 The editor stood like a statue, and his face was as 
 white. The attorney dropped his words slowly from 
 lips that still wore the tantalizing smile. 
 
 " The childishness amuses me," said the attorney. 
 " It makes me smile. Why didn t you give names, 
 since you had them? Why didn t you tell it all, and 
 do the party some good, as well as doing me some 
 harm, if that was what you were after and I don t 
 know what you were after if it wasn t that? Why 
 don t you get a schoolboy to edit your paper for 
 you? " 
 
 T. J. ground his nails into the palms of his hands. 
 He meant to retain possession of his temper, but it 
 
SOMETHING TURNS UP 207 
 was boiling within. He said nothing as the attorney 
 indolently arose from his seat on the desk; he was 
 resolved to do nothing, but when the attorney brushed 
 against him in passing, turning his superior smile 
 full in his face, he raised his arm. The next moment 
 the two men were lying beside the press, struggling 
 and gasping, locked fast and fighting for advantage, 
 legs interwined and each grasping the other by a 
 wrist. The editor was on top, but the heavier attor 
 ney was working with the energy of hate, and as 
 they panted and struggled the door opened and 
 Eliph Hewlitt entered. 
 
 There was strength in his wiry arms, and he threw 
 himself upon the upper man and dragged him back 
 ward. The attorney loosened his hold and the two men 
 stood up, panting and gulping, and soon began to 
 brush their clothes and look at the floor for dropped 
 articles, as men do who have fought inconclusively 
 and are not sorry to have been parted. The only 
 real damage seemed to have been done to Eliph s 
 spectacles, which he had shaken off in his efforts, and 
 which had been crushed beneath a heel. The attorney 
 presently smiled, but it was a silly smile, and then 
 he went out of the door and down to the street. 
 
 Eliph coughed gently behind his hand, as if to 
 excuse his intrusion. 
 
208 KILO 
 
 " Quarreling? " he suggested. " I used to wrestle 
 some when I was a boy. But not much. I hadn t then 
 the rules, given on page 554 of Jarby s Encyclo 
 pedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, 
 Science and Art, including How to Wrestle, How to 
 Defend Oneself Against Sudden Attack, Jui Jitsu, 
 et cetery, with wood cuts showing the best holds 
 and how to get them. All this being but one of one 
 thousand and one subjects treated of in this work, 
 the price of which is but five dollars, neatly bound in 
 cloth." 
 
 The editor had turned his back and was staring 
 angrily out of the window sulkily tremulous would 
 be a better description, perhaps when he suddenly 
 cried out. Eliph searched hurriedly in his pockets for 
 another pair of spectacles, found them and put them 
 on, and looked where the editor pointed. Across the 
 street the attorney, backed up against the wall of 
 the bank, was defending his face with one arm, and 
 with his right hand seeking to grasp a whip that was 
 raining blows upon his face and head. Someone 
 grasped the whip from behind and wrenched it from 
 the hand of the attorney s assailant, and as the man 
 turned angrily, the two in the window saw that it 
 was Colonel Guthrie. 
 
 They heard him cursing those who had taken the 
 
SOMETHING TURNS UP 209 
 
 whip from him, ending by loudly justifying himself 
 for what he had done to the attorney, and saw the 
 attorney step forward to quell the Colonel s hot 
 words. The Colonel put up both his hands and 
 shouted, and some from the crowd, grasping the 
 attorney about the waist and arms, as if they feared 
 he was about to attack the older man, hurried him 
 away, speaking soothing words to him. 
 
 The Colonel rioted on. Nothing could have stopped 
 him. He pulled a copy of the Times from his 
 pocket and slapped it with his hand as he abused the 
 attorney for having given T. J. Jones the facts of the 
 article. 
 
 He let it be plainly known, In his anger, that 
 the article called him a giver of graft. The crowd 
 stood silent, as crowds stand about some drunken 
 man, for the Colonel was drunk with wrath, and 
 wordy with it, talking to himself as drunken men do. 
 He finished, and the crowd opened a passage through 
 itself to let him pass, and Skinner, who, in apron and 
 bare arms, had viewed his rival s wrath from a safe 
 place on the edge of the group, backed away. The 
 Colonel, mumbling, caught -ight of him, and with one 
 swift motion of the arm grasped him by the shirt 
 band. 
 
 "You!" he shouted, pulling the shirt band until 
 
210 KILO 
 
 Skinner grew purple in the face. " You ! You done 
 it ! Why couldn t you buy them fire-extinguishers like 
 a man? You made me buy up that Dutchman. I 
 wouldn t V had to do it but for you." 
 
 He gave the choking butcher an extra shake, and 
 raised his hand to strike him, but again the crowd 
 interfered, and seized the Colonel, and hurried him 
 away. 
 
 The butcher stood stupidly and rubbed his neck, 
 waiting for the wits that had been choked out of 
 him to return, and far down the street Mayor Stitz, 
 hearing a noise, came out on his front platform and 
 looked up the street. It appeared to him that some 
 thing was going on, and sticking his awl in the door 
 of his car, he walked blandly up the streeet to where 
 the remnant of the crowd formed a half circle around 
 the butcher. He crowded through, saying, " Look 
 oud, the mayor is coming. Stand one side yet for 
 the mayor ! " 
 
 The butcher looked and saw before him the round, 
 innocent face of the mayor, topped by the mayor s 
 round bald head. He raised his large, fat hand, and 
 in vent for all his injure 1 feelings brought it down, 
 smack ! on the smooth bald spot. 
 
 " Ouw-etch ! " said the mayor. 
 
 He was surprised. He backed away and rubbed 
 
SOMETHING TURNS UP 211 
 
 the top of his head, and what he said next was a 
 rapid string of real, genuine German ; exclamations, 
 compound tenses, and irregular verbs and all that 
 makes German a useful, forceful language. As long 
 as he rubbed his head with a rotary motion he 
 spoke German; then he stopped rubbing and spoke 
 English. 
 
 " So is it you treat your mayor ! " he exclaimed 
 indignantly. " Such a town is Kilo, to give mayors 
 a klop on the head ! Donnerblitzenvetter ! Not so is it 
 in Germany." He turned to the crowd. " A klop on 
 the head ! It is not for klops on the head I am mayor. 
 No. I resign out of this mayor business. Go get 
 another mayor, such as likes klops on the head. I am 
 no mayor. I am resigned." 
 
 He turned and walked slowly back to his car, 
 pulled the awl out of the door, and went inside. 
 
 The editor moved away from the window. He 
 seated himself at his desk and leaned his head on his 
 arms and thought. 
 
 "Headache?" asked Eliph . 
 
 " No," said the editor, lifting his head. " I m try 
 ing to think this thing out. Guthrie is in it, and 
 Skinner must be in it, and Stitz. And that fellow 
 across the way said you knew something about it, 
 and he said Doc Weaver wrote the article. No," he 
 
212 KILO 
 
 added hastily, as Eliph offered to speak, " let me 
 think it out myself." 
 
 He leaned his head on his hand, and gazed at the 
 attorney s office. He drew the week s copy of the 
 Times toward him and read over the article that had 
 caused all the trouble. 
 
 " It might be that fire-extinguisher ordinance," 
 he said slowly. " Stitz pushed that through. And 
 Skinner had to buy them. And they were owned 
 by Miss Briggs and the Colonel negotiated the sale." 
 He jumped up and turned over the file of back num 
 bers of the Times. He found the announcement he 
 had made of the arrival of Eliph , and the report 
 of the meeting of the city council that had passed 
 the fire-extinguisher ordinance. Eliph had been in 
 town before the ordinance was passed. Eliph boarded 
 now with Doc Weaver. Again he read the article in 
 the Times, seeking for the meanings that Doc knew 
 so well how to hide. He paused at the " Things are 
 seldom what they seem " line, and considered it. Sud 
 denly he arose and put on his hat. 
 
 " Wait here," he said, " I ll be back." 
 
 When he returned he was smiling. He had visited 
 Skinner s Opera House and had examined the fire- 
 extinguishers where they sat, each on its bracket. 
 
 " Hewlitt," he said, " when you told Doc about the 
 
SOMETHING TURNS UP 
 
 fire-extinguishers did you tell him they were lung- 
 testers? " 
 
 The little book agent stared at the editor. 
 
 " I never told," he exclaimed. " I have never said 
 a word to Doc Weaver, nor to anyone about them. 
 Not a word. I have kept it as sacred as the secret of 
 the Man in the Iron Mask, a full account of whom, 
 together with a wood cut, is given on page 231, to 
 gether with All the World s Famous Mysteries, 
 this being but one feature of Jarby s " 
 
 " All right," said the editor. " And you never told 
 him about the graft? " 
 
 The blank amazement on the book agent s face was 
 sufficient answer. 
 
 " I ve got to go out," said the editor. " I ve got 
 some reporting to do. You ll excuse me. I want to 
 see Stitz. And Skinner. And Guthrie. I wish Doc 
 hadn t gone to his State Medical Society meeting to 
 day." 
 
 Eliph went out with the editor, who locked the door 
 behind him. 
 
 " Don t say anything," said the editor, " but I 
 think there will be an extra edition of the Times out 
 to-morrow." 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 ELIPH had said nothing to Doc Weaver about the 
 affair of the fire-extinguishers, he had known nothing 
 of the graft matter, and yet it could not be supposed 
 that Doc Weaver could be a confidant of the attor 
 ney s. The editor was puzzled, but he was sure he 
 was right in the main, and he was nearer learning the 
 truth than he supposed, as he hurried down the street 
 to the mayor s car-cobbler shop. 
 
 He opened the door and stepped inside, but the 
 mayor did not look up with his usual smile; he was 
 sulking, and from time to time he rubbed his head 
 where the butcher had struck him. 
 
 "How do, Stitz," said the editor. "How s the 
 mayor ? " 
 
 The cobbler pulled his waxed threads angrily 
 through a tough bit of leather, and did not look up, 
 
 " I am no more a mayor," he said crossly. " I am 
 out of that mayor job. I give him up. I haf been 
 insulted." 
 
 " I saw it," the editor assured him. " He gave you 
 214 
 
DIFFICULTIES 215 
 
 a good whack. Sounded like a wet plank falling on a 
 marble slab. Mad about that fire-extinguisher busi 
 ness, wasn t he? " 
 
 " And why? " asked the mayor, looking up for the 
 first time. " He has a right to obey those ordinances 
 and not get mad." 
 
 " Oh, but he don t like the way folks will laugh at 
 him when they learn the joke you have played on him. 
 That was a good one." 
 
 "Joke?" queried the mayor, growing brighter. 
 " Did I play him one j oke ? " 
 
 " You know," said T. J. " Making him buy those 
 lung-testers of Miss Briggs when he thought they 
 were fire-extinguishers. I should say it was a joke! " 
 
 " Sit down," said the mayor ; " don t hang on those 
 straps when seats is enough and plenty. Sit down. So 
 I joked him, yes? " 
 
 "Rather," said the editor, "and Guthrie, too, 
 making him pay that graft." 
 
 " Sure ! " grinned the cobbler. " I got goot grafts. 
 [Apples, and potatoes, and celery, and peas, and 
 chickens ! Five grafts for one such little ordinances. 
 Grafts is a good business, but now is all over. I quit 
 me that boss-grafter job. I like me not such klop- 
 pings on the head. Next comes such riots, and revo- 
 lutionings. I quit first." He sewed steadily for a 
 
216 KILO 
 
 while and then prepared another thread, waxing it, 
 and twisting the bristle on either end. 
 
 " That fire-extinguishable joke," he said, as he ran 
 the ball of wax up and down the thread ; " that was a 
 good one, yes ? On Skinner. That makes me a revenge 
 on Skinner for such a klop on the head, yes? " 
 
 He adjusted the shoe on his knee, and began to 
 sew again. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I am glad I make that joke on 
 Skinner. What was it? " 
 
 " Come now ! " said T. J. " Don t pretend such 
 innocence, Stitz. Don t try to fool me. You knew 
 all the time that those fire-extinguishers were nothing 
 but lung-testers." The mayor looked puzzled, and 
 properly, for he had never heard of lung-testers. " To 
 test lungs," explained the editor. " To show how 
 many pounds a man can blow; how much wind his 
 lungs will hold; a sort of a game, like pitching 
 horseshoes. They are not worth anything to Skin 
 ner. He paid his money for them for nothing. He 
 will have to buy four genuine fire-extinguishers now. 
 That was what made him mad at you." 
 
 When the editor left Stitz s car he had learned 
 all the mayor could tell him, including the undoubted 
 fact that the mayor considered graft a quite legiti 
 mate operation, and this particular case a good joke 
 
DIFFICULTIES 
 
 on Skinner and Colonel Guthrie, and that the mayor 
 himself, thinking the joke too good to keep, had told 
 Doc Weaver. The editor easily guessed that Doc had 
 investigated the rest of the affair, and had seen the 
 fire-extinguishers and known them to be not what 
 they seemed. He hurried back to his office to set in 
 type what he had learned. 
 
 But others were abroad, too. Attorney Toole, 
 watching the editor, had seen him enter the cobbler- 
 car and leave it again, and he easily guessed the ob 
 ject of the editor s visit. He, too, went to see Stitz, 
 and had a long and confidential talk with him, first 
 frightening him until he was in a collapse, and then 
 offering him immunity and safety, and at length leav 
 ing him in a perspiration of g utitude. He held up 
 to him a vision of the penitentiary as the reward of 
 grafting, and when the mayor was sufficiently wilted, 
 rebraced him by promising to defend him, whatever 
 happened, and finally restored him to complacency 
 by showing him that the transaction was not graft 
 at all. When he parted from the mayor, that official 
 was, as opposition papers put it, " a creature of 
 the attorney s." 
 
 The attorney found Skinner in his butcher-shop 
 surrounded by a group of friends, to whom he was 
 relating a story of how he had been attacked by the 
 
218 KILO 
 
 Colonel, and what would have happened to the Col 
 onel if intervention had not come just when it did. 
 Toole entered briskly and pushed his way through 
 the group to where the butcher stood. 
 
 " Skinner," he said, " I want half a dozen words 
 with you, at once," and his manner was enough to 
 silence the butcher. Skinner led the way to the back 
 room where the sausage machine made its home, and 
 Toole carefully closed the door. 
 
 " Now," he said, taking the butcher by the shirt 
 sleeve, " you have had a taste of what comes of tak 
 ing the political lead away from the party to which 
 it rightly belongs. You have had an experience of 
 what happens when people who know nothing about 
 politics meddle wit? ^hings that the natural political 
 leaders should be left to handle. You have been 
 choked, and you have been cheated, and you deserve 
 to be kicked. You pay money to this editor here in 
 town, for an advertisement that you know does you no 
 good, and in return he prints an article to make you 
 laughed at. You form a combination with Guthrie 
 to put in outsiders instead of good party men, and 
 Guthrie uses his pull to have an ordinance passed to 
 make you spend money for fire-extinguishers. You 
 elect a mayor, by your influence as a leading citizen, 
 and he takes a bribe from Guthrie, and passes an 
 
DIFFICULTIES 219 
 
 ordinance to rob you. And you, like a fool, let them 
 do it. And you let Guthrie, that he may stand in 
 solidly with the very woman you have your eye on, 
 sell you what? Fire-extinguishers? Not much! Not 
 fire-extinguishers at all, but useless, no-account 
 lung-testers ! Lung-testers, that he makes you pay 
 one hundred dollars for, and that you will have t 
 throw away. That is what they are, lung-testers, 
 and you can pocket a loss of one hundred dollars, and 
 buy four real fire-extinguishers now, as the ordinance 
 tells you, and makes you ! " 
 
 The butcher s mouth opened and his eyes stared. 
 He felt weakly behind him for the edge of the table, 
 pawing uncertainly in the air. 
 
 " That s all I have to say to you? said the attor 
 ney. " If you like that kind of thing, you are wel 
 come. If you are willing to be cheated it is nothing 
 to me. I don t say T. J. Jones set them up to doing 
 all this, just to throw down your Citizens Party, but 
 you can see in the Times who printed the whole 
 thing. If you like to have that kind of man run your 
 only public journal it is no business of mine, but look 
 out for the next Times! " 
 
 The butcher had found the edge of the table and 
 was leaning back against it. The attorney paused 
 with his hand on the door. 
 
220 KILO 
 
 "You ought to be able to make the Colonel pay 
 you back that hundred dollars," he said. " It looks 
 as if he had obtained money under false pretenses 
 and given a bribe. But if you don t care, I don t," 
 and he went out. 
 
 Outside of the butcher shop the attorney stopped 
 and looked up and down the street, smiling. He felt 
 that he had done well, so far, setting both the mayor 
 and Skinner against the editor, making a tool of the 
 mayor, and inflaming the butcher against the Col 
 onel. He would have liked to go to the Colonel and 
 set him against the editor and Skinner, but he neither 
 dared nor felt it really necessary. If Skinner at 
 tempted to make the Colonel take back the lung- 
 testers the ill feeling between the two would be suf 
 ficiently emphasized, and no doubt the Colonel had 
 sufficient reasons, in the publication of the article, 
 to hate the editor. 
 
 Horsewhipped! His face reddened as he thought 
 of it, but he was too politic to consider a revenge of 
 fists, which would not lessen the insult of the whip 
 ping he had received, but would only add the stigma 
 of attacking an older man. That he had led the 
 Colonel into the affair, putting him up to it, did not 
 strike him as being any excuse for the Colonel. He 
 felt that he had done only what he was entitled to 
 
DIFFICULTIES 221 
 
 do in the pursuit of political leadership. He would 
 revenge himself on the Colonel later. A suit for dam 
 ages for assault, timed to precede the next election, 
 would be both revenge and politics. He could, at the 
 moment, think of nothing else to do to undermine 
 his opponents, and he had turned toward his office 
 when a fresh idea occurred to him. Should Miss Sally 
 take back the lung-testers, where then would his case 
 stand? Guthrie would return the hundred dollars to 
 Skinner. Skinner was fool enough to be satisfied with 
 that, and Kilo, like many other towns, not wishing to 
 besmirch herself, would hush up the whole affair. 
 Miss Sally must not take back the lung-testers. 
 
 The attorney swung around and walked briskly 
 toward Miss Sally s home, tossing tumultuously in 
 his mind the events of the day, his plans and what he 
 would say to Miss Sally. As he turned in at the gate 
 he saw Mrs. Smith and Susan sitting on the porch, 
 and he took off his hat, and walked smilingly up to 
 them. 
 
 " Miss Sally in ? " he asked, after the customary 
 greetings. " I would like to speak to her if she is." 
 
 " She s in," said Mrs. Smith, " but she is engaged 
 at present. Won t you have a seat and wait ? " 
 
 Toole passed rapidly through his mind all those 
 who might have business with Miss Sally this morn- 
 
222 K I L O 
 
 ing the Colonel, Skinner, the editor. It could not 
 be Skinner, for he had just left him, nor the editor, 
 for he knew he was still in his office where he had seen 
 him last. Probably it was the Colonel. He took the 
 proffered seat. 
 
 " I suppose you saw the Times" he said, " and 
 that tremendous article. It amused me considerably. 
 Splendid specimen of local journalism. Our friend 
 T. J. is to be congratulated, isn t he? He has made 
 quite a stir." 
 
 " The Colonel was here with a paper," said Mrs. 
 Smith. " He was furiously angry. I couldn t under 
 stand what it was all about, except that it was con 
 nected with those fire-extinguishers Miss Sally had." 
 
 " It was about the meanest piece of business I 
 have ever run across," said the attorney, speaking 
 more to Susan than to Mrs. Smith. " It was the most 
 vindictive thing I ever heard of. Do you know any 
 reason why that editor should want to annoy Miss 
 Briggs?" 
 
 " Mr. Jones annoy Miss Sally? " said Susan, with 
 surprise. " I can t imagine why he should." 
 
 " That s what puzzles me," said Toole. " There 
 doesn t seem to be any reason whatever, except that 
 he is showing his ill-will. It looks like a conspiracy 
 to throw those fire-extinguishers back on Miss Sally s 
 
DIFFICULTIES 223 
 
 hands. Probably he has taken an agency for fire- 
 extinguishers, or has made a deal to take some in pay 
 ment for advertising space in his paper, and wants 
 to sell them to Skinner. I understand there is some 
 cock-and-bull story he has got up about these fire- 
 extinguishers being out-of-date, or useless, or some 
 thing of that kind, and that he means to make a big 
 stir about the council having been bribed to force 
 them on Skinner. I suppose Jones will get something 
 out of it, someway. I understand he means to keep 
 the thing alive in his paper, and throw ridicule on 
 all concerned, until he forces things his way. Proba 
 bly he has some political object, too. But I think 
 it is too bad that he should drag Miss Sally into it. 
 I don t mind his trying to throw mud on me. I can 
 see his reason for that." 
 
 He looked at Susan and smiled. 
 
 "I don t understand," said Mrs. Smith, "I couldn t 
 see that he said anything about you this morning." 
 
 " Not this morning," said the attorney. " There 
 will be more to follow. Wait until you see the next 
 issue of the representative of a free and untrammeled 
 press. He will serve up all his friends there. I saw 
 him darting around like a hawk-eyed reporter this 
 morning. I went up to plead with him to drop the 
 whole thing, this morning, but he as much as told me 
 
224 KILO 
 
 to mind my own business. The poor old Colonel was 
 so angry he came at me with a whip I don t know 
 why but I did not take the advantage my strength 
 gave me. I can forgive a man who is anger blinded. 
 All I want to do now is to prevent that editor fellow 
 making any more trouble for my friends, if I can. I 
 don t want Miss Sally to take back those fire-extin 
 guishers, and I don t want her to be blackmailed into 
 buying them back. I want to put her on her guard 
 against T. J. Jones." 
 
 " That is very kind of you," said Mrs. Smith. 
 
 " She is a friend of yours, and of Miss Susan s," 
 said the attorney. " That would be reason enough 
 for my doing it." 
 
 The door opened and Eliph Hewlitt came out of 
 the house, and Toole, who had jumped up, in order 
 to be on the defensive had it been the Colonel, assumed 
 an air of indifference. The book agent hesitated un 
 certainly, glanced toward Mrs. Smith, felt under 
 his left arm where his sample copy usually reposed, 
 and, not finding it, put on his hat and walked toward 
 the gate. Mrs. Smith sprang from her chair and ran 
 after him. She caught him at the gate and laid her 
 hand on his arm. He turned to face her, and she 
 saw that there were tears in his usually clear eyes. 
 
DIFFICULTIES 225 
 
 He had put the question to Miss Sally, and the an 
 swer had been unfavorable. 
 
 The interview had been short and conducted with 
 the utmost propriety, as advised by " Courtship 
 How to Win the Affections," and Miss Sally had been 
 kind but firm. The article in the Times had, far 
 from turning her against the Colonel, shown her what 
 the Colonel had risked for her sake, and she had de 
 cided in his favor, although he had not yet appeared 
 to claim an answer to the question he had never asked, 
 but had been hinting for years. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 TWO LOVERS, AND A THIRD 
 
 iHE attorney, when Eliph walked down the path 
 to the gate, entered the house, and found Miss Sally 
 still sitting in the dark parlor where she had had the 
 painful interview with Eliph Hewlitt. She still held 
 her handkerchief to her eyes, for she had been weep 
 ing, and the attorney was not sorry to see this evi 
 dence of the stress of her interview with the book 
 agent. Certain that Eliph had told Doc Weaver of 
 the lung-testers, he was no less certain that the book 
 agent had been telling Miss Sally that the nickel- 
 plated affairs would be thrown back on her hands, 
 and he hastened to urge resistance. 
 
 " Miss Briggs," he said, " I came right in, because 
 I knew what that book agent was here to say to you, 
 and I wanted to warn you against him. I know what 
 he asked, and I hope you refused him." 
 
 Miss Sally gasped. 
 
 " I believe," continued the attorney, taking a seat, 
 " that you refused, because you know which side your 
 bread is buttered on. I believe that before the day is 
 
TWO LOVERS, AND A THIRD 227 
 
 over Colonel Guthrie will come with the same ques 
 tion, and I want you to give him the same answer. 
 And if Skinner should come on his knees, I want you 
 to send him away with the same answer, too. They 
 will all have arguments enough, but don t be fooled. 
 The money is all they want." 
 
 Miss Sally gasped again. She was astounded. 
 
 " I could see," said the attorney, confidentially, 
 " that you gave the book agent a pretty sharp an 
 swer, and that was right. He had no business to put 
 himself forward at all, and I don t suppose you can 
 guess why he did." 
 
 " He said he liked me," said Miss Sally weakly, 
 ashamed to mention the word openly. The attorney 
 laughed. 
 
 " My opinion is that it is a conspiracy," he said. 
 " That is just the word, a conspiracy, and T. J. Jones 
 is at the head of it. The book agent has come first ; 
 now the Colonel will come ; and then Skinner, all 
 asking the same thing, but my idea is that they are 
 all in partnership, and that Jones is engineering the 
 whole thing. They wanL your money, and that is all 
 they do want, and once they get it they will be happy 
 and you will be left with four lung-testers on your 
 hands." 
 
 Even in Kilo slang comes and goes as in the rest of 
 
228 KILO 
 
 the world, and Miss Sally was not sure about the 
 word " lung-tester." It had a slangy sound, and it 
 must be a term of reproach applied to the future 
 value of the four men Toole had mentioned. She 
 accepted it as such. 
 
 " All I have to say," continued the attorney, " is 
 lo refuse the Colonel, and to refuse Skinner if he 
 comes, just as you have refused this book agent. 
 Stick up for your rights. If they want to sue you, 
 let them sue. You have the money now, and it is better 
 to have that than a lot of good-for-nothing lung- 
 testers. Once you get them on your hands you ll never 
 get rid of them." 
 
 He arose and took up his hat. 
 
 " That is all I have to say," he said, " but I wanted 
 to let you know what you ought to do. Don t mind 
 if there is a lot of stuff published in the Times. 
 You have to expect that, and Jones will probably 
 drag your name into it, in connection with the Col 
 onel and Skinner, but you are perfectly innocent and 
 they can do nothing to you." 
 
 He went out, and Miss Sally remained in a daze, 
 looking at the door by which he had gone. She was 
 still looking at it helplessly when Mrs. Tarbro-Smith 
 came in with a swish of skirts and put her arm gently 
 about her. 
 
TWO LOVERS, AND A THIRD 229 
 
 " Do you think you did what your heart told you 
 to do, dear? " asked the lady from New York, kissing 
 Miss Sally on the brow. " He was so downcast. I 
 really pitied him, poor man." 
 
 Miss Sally threw her arms around Mrs. Smith s 
 waist and hid her face in the lacy softness of her 
 gown, and wept. The authoress smoothed the brown 
 hair and waited patiently for the tears to cease. 
 
 " Did you see Mr. Toole? " she asked brightly, to 
 ease Miss Sally s weeping and to turn her thought 
 to other things. " He wanted to see you about those 
 fire-extinguishers. But I don t trust him. I think he 
 has some plan or other that is selfish. I think he had 
 been drinking." 
 
 Miss Sally s tears ceased, and she sat up, straight 
 and severe. 
 
 " Fire-extinguishers ? " she asked quickly. 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Smith; "he seemed to think 
 Skinner or the Colonel or someone would want you 
 to take them back. And return the money, I sup 
 pose." 
 
 "The money?" echoed Miss Sally slowly. She 
 blushed as she saw that she had misunderstood the 
 attorney, thinking he had dared to advise in her love 
 matters, and then she frowned. "The money?" she 
 repeated. " But I gave that money to pa. Pa won t 
 
230 KILO 
 
 ever give me that money back, never! I don t know 
 
 where on earth I d ever get sixty dollars." 
 
 As she spoke she heard someone on the walk, and 
 then the heavy feet of the Colonel climbing the porch 
 steps. She heard him ask Susan if Miss Sally was 
 inside, and heard the girl answer that she was, and 
 she held Mrs. Smith s hand the tighter. 
 
 " Come in," she called, to the knock on the door, 
 and the Colonel stumped into the room. He was hot 
 and angry, so angry that he did not stop to offer his 
 usual curt greetings. 
 
 " Look here," he said, by way of introduction, 
 " you an your fire-extinguishers has got me into a 
 purty fix, Sally Briggs a blame purty fix an I 
 want to know do you intend to git me out or 
 not? I don t want no foolishness. Skinner is after 
 me an I ve got to pay him back them sixty dollars, 
 or somebody 11 go to jail for it. You ought to have 
 knowed them wasn t nothin but lung-testers, afore 
 you set me up to sellin em to Skinner, an not let 
 me go an make a tarnal fool out of myself. But 
 that ain t the thing now; the thing is, will you pay 
 back them sixty dollars? I guess you d better do it, 
 an do it quick. Skinner 11 have the law on ye if ye 
 don t." 
 
 Miss Sally drew back toward Mrs. Smith as he 
 scowled at her. 
 
TWO LOVERS, AND A THIRD 231! 
 
 " Now, you git them sixty dollars an hand em 
 over to me, that s what you d better do," said the 
 Colonel. " I want to git shut of this business. I was 
 a fool fer meddlin in a woman s affairs in the fust 
 place. I don t want to have no more hand in it. You 
 git me that money, an let me fix it up with Skinner. 
 He s mad, an he won t stand no f oolin . It was all I 
 could do to keep him from comin in an makin a 
 row right here in the house. He s waitin at the gate 
 till he sees if I git the money, an if I don t " 
 
 "But I haven t got sixty dollars," Miss Sally 
 gasped. " I gave that money to pa. I don t know 
 whether I can get sixty dollars out of pa." 
 
 She was so helpless that Mrs. Smith s blood boiled 
 at the rude brutality of the Colonel, and she stepped 
 forward and faced him. 
 
 "What is all this about?" she asked. "What is 
 the matter with those fire-extinguishers? Why do 
 you come bothering Miss Sally this way ? Why don t 
 you settle it with Mr. Skinner yourself? " 
 
 " The matter is, them ain t fire-extinguishers at 
 all," said the Colonel rudely, " an wasn t, an never 
 was. Them things is lung-testers, an Sally was 
 cheatin Skinner when she sold em to him. An the 
 reason I m botherin her is that she got the money fer 
 em, an she s got to find it somehow an pay it back. 
 An as for me settlin with Skinner, I ain t got 
 
232 KILO 
 
 nothin to do with it. I wasn t nothin but Sally s 
 agent. I done her a favor, an that s all, an I m sorry 
 I ever meddled in it." 
 
 " But there certainly can t be such haste needed," 
 said Mrs. Smith. " Miss Sally is not going to run 
 away. Mr. Skinner is not going to fail for want of 
 sixty dollars, is he? You can wait until to-morrow, 
 or to-night, when Miss Sally can see her father." 
 
 "No, I can t," said the Colonel doggedly. "I 
 can t wait at all. By to-morrow mornin that news 
 paper feller will have another paper printed up, an I 
 hear tell he s goin to give us all plain names, an I 
 ain t goin to wait. I want to git this thing fixed up 
 right now. If Sally ain t got sixty dollars, let her 
 go borry it. I got to pay Skinner right now, an I 
 want Sally to pay me. I want to git shut of this." 
 
 " I don t believe Mr. Skinner is in any such hurry 
 as you pretend ! " exclaimed Mrs. Smith. " I don t 
 believe he is so ungenerous. I believe he is more chiv 
 alrous. I believe he will have some manliness, if you 
 have not." 
 
 She started for the door, but the Colonel grasped 
 her by the arm. 
 
 " Hold on, here ! " he said, but Mrs. Tarbro-Smith 
 merely raised her eyebrows and looked, first at his 
 hand on her arm, and then at his face, and his hand 
 
TWO LOVERS, AND A THIRD 
 
 fell. He stood irresolute and uncomfortable as she 
 went to the door and called to Mr. Skinner. The 
 butcher walked up to the door, clearing his throat as 
 he came. Mrs. Smith held the screen door wide for 
 him to enter, and he walked into the parlor, holding 
 his hat in his hands, and stood uneasily. 
 
 " The Colonel," said Mrs. Smith pleasantly, " has 
 told us you wish Miss Sally to return the money you 
 paid for what she supposed were fire-extinguishers." 
 
 " They was nothin but lung-testers," said the 
 butcher. 
 
 " So it seems," said Mrs. Smith, " and it is odd 
 that a man of business like yourself should not know 
 it in the first place. But of course Miss Sally did not 
 know what they were. Who told you they were fire- 
 extinguishers, Sally?" 
 
 " The Colonel," said Miss Sally, and the Colonel 
 moved his feet uneasily. 
 
 " Indeed ! " exclaimed Mrs. Smith, giving the 
 Colonel another of her paralyzing glances. " But 
 Miss Sally will do whatever is right. She hasn t the 
 money at this moment. You can wait until to-morrow 
 for the sixty dollars, can you not, until she can see 
 her father?" 
 
 The butcher grew red in the face, redder than his 
 naturally high coloring, but he shook his head. 
 
KILO 
 
 " I want it now," he said. " Business is business." 
 And after a moment he added, " It wasn t sixty, it 
 was one hundred. Four at twenty-five, that s one hun 
 dred. One hundred dollars, that was what I handed 
 Guthrie. I paid one hundred and I want one hundred 
 back." 
 
 Miss Sally and Mrs. Smith looked at the Colonel. 
 
 " I had a right to make a commission," he blus 
 tered. " I ain t no sich fool as to do business fer 
 other folks an loose time by it. I took out a com 
 mission, an I had a right to, an I don t want to hear 
 DO more about it. A commission s fair." 
 
 " You didn t say anything about it," said poor 
 Miss Sally. " Mrs. Smith was just surprised to learn 
 of it." 
 
 "Surprised, my dear?" said Mrs. Smith. "No, 
 indeed. Nothing that man would do could quite sur 
 prise me. But forty per cent, commission ! Miss Sally 
 hasn t sixty dollars in the house," she added, turning 
 to the butcher. " You know very well people here 
 don t have so much in the house at one time. If 
 I had it I would gladly lend it to her, but I don t 
 happen to have so much with me to-day. You can 
 wait until Mr. Briggs gets back from Clarence, or 
 you can do what you please." 
 
 " I want the money," said Skinner doggedly. 
 
TWO LOVERS, AND A THIRD 235 
 
 "Very well," said Mrs. Smith. "Collect forty 
 from the Colonel. That will keep you from starving 
 until to-morrow. And now will you both kindly leave 
 the house ? " 
 
 " Now, look here, Mrs. Smith, ma m," said the 
 butcher. " You ain t got any right to talk that way 
 to me. Money matters is money matters, and a man 
 has a right to look after his own the best way he 
 can. I was cheated out of one hundred dollars by 
 this man and Miss Sally, as easy as you please, and 
 there s bribery in it, and land knows what. But I ain t 
 mean. All I want is my money back, and I want it 
 now. I hear T. J. Jones is going to get out an extry 
 to-morrow morning all about this, and all I want is 
 to do what is right. Hand me back my hundred dol 
 lars, and I ll go to T. J. and explain that Miss Sally 
 did what was right, and tell him to leave her out of 
 what he writes, but if I don t get the money I won t 
 say a word to him. He can guess all he wants about 
 Miss Sally and the Colonel being in cahoots with this 
 bribe business. All I want is my money." 
 
 " But I say you shall have it in the morning." 
 
 " Well, I don t count much on what you ll get out 
 of Pap Briggs. You might get ten cents, if he was 
 feeling liberal, but he don t usually feel that way. 
 What I want is one hundred dollars right now. I 
 
236 KILO 
 
 don t need no lung-testers, and I ve been cheated, and 
 I won t wait. If Miss Sally ain t going to pay me, 
 I ll see what the law says about it." 
 
 " Mr. Skinner," said Mrs. Smith, " in considera 
 tion that Miss Sally is a lady and that you are a 
 gentleman, will you not wait until to-morrow? " 
 
 " Business is business," he said flatly. " When I m 
 sellin meat I ain t a gentleman, I m a butcher; and 
 when Miss Briggs was sellin lung-testers she wasn t 
 a lady, she was in business. Business is one thing an 
 bein pleasant is another. I ve got to look after my 
 money or I soon won t have any." 
 
 When the two men went out Mrs. Smith could hear 
 them begin to wrangle even before they quitted the 
 yard, but she was more interested in what might hap 
 pen to Miss Sally through the vindictiveness of the 
 butcher. She was surprised to hear that T. J. Jones 
 had even thought of such a thing as bringing Miss 
 Sally s name into the matter as a conspirator, and 
 she did not know enough about the Iowa laws to know 
 whether the butcher could take any summary action 
 or not. The most satisfactory way to straighten 
 things out would be to pay the butcher, but it must 
 be done at once. She pleaded with Miss Sally to re 
 member someone of whom she could borrow sixty dol 
 lars, but Miss Sally confessed that she knew no one 
 
TWO LOVERS, AND A THIRD 237 
 
 who would be apt to lend so much. She even expressed 
 her doubt that her father would ever release the money 
 she had given him. The two women sat in the dark 
 ened parlor. Miss Sally weeping softly and Mrs. Smith 
 thinking hard. The authoress was ashamed that she 
 could devise no way to aid her friend, and there 
 they sat, exchanging a brief word from time to time, 
 and the gloom deepening every minute. Presently, 
 when the atmosphere was so charged with sadness 
 that it was almost too thick to breathe, Mrs. Smith 
 called to Susan, and the girl came in. 
 
 " Sue," said Mrs. Smith, " will you run down to 
 the Times office and see Mr. Jones? And let me 
 see and tell him I very much want to see him before 
 he begins to print his extra. You won t mind, will 
 you?" 
 
 " Oh, no," said Susan cheerfully, and she went, 
 a fairy in filmy white, while the two women relapsed 
 into gloom again. 
 
 So softly did the next comer mount the porch 
 stairs that the two women did not hear him until a 
 gentle tap on the door frame, followed by an apolo 
 getic cough, announced the return of Eliph Hewlitt. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 ACCORDING TO JARBY S 
 
 WHEN Eliph Hewlitt, sad at heart, departed from 
 his disastrous interview with Miss Sally, he felt, for 
 the first time in his life, a doubt as to the infallability 
 of Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Com 
 pendium of Literature, Science and Art. Here was 
 a book he had praised, sold and believed, and it had 
 failed him. Here was a book that was proclaimed, in 
 the " Advice to Agents," to be so simply written and 
 so easy of understanding that a child could follow its 
 directions as well as a man, and it had only led him 
 to defeat. He had courted according to " Court 
 ship " ; he had tried to win the affections according 
 to " How to Win " them, and instead of the " Yes " 
 that Jarby s book led him to believe he would receive, 
 he had been given a " No." This, then, was the book 
 whose success he had made his life work ! Caesar, when 
 he saw Brutus draw his dagger, was wounded no more 
 in spirit than Eliph Hewlitt was now. 
 
 The world seemed to slip from beneath his feet ; his 
 firmest foundation seemed to have crumbled away ; his 
 
 238 
 
ACCORDING TO JARBY S 239 
 
 best friend seemed to have turned false. As he walked 
 toward Doc Weaver s house he decided what he would 
 do : he would go to his room and tear his sample copy 
 of Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Com 
 pendium of Literature, Science and Art to scraps 
 and throw them out upon the wind; he would write 
 to Jarby & Goss and resign his commission ; he would 
 have Irontail hitched to his buggy and leave Kilo 
 at once and forever, and from some other town he 
 would write to G. P. Hicks & Co., and solicit the 
 agency for Hicks Facts for the Million, a book 
 he had heretofore hated and despised. All this he 
 resolved to do, and yet here he was again at Miss 
 Sally s door, and the sample copy of Jarby s En 
 cyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Litera 
 ture, Science and Art was under his arm ! 
 
 Mrs. Tarbro-Smith, when she saw Eliph Hewlitt at 
 the door, uttered a little cry of j oy and darted toward 
 him. She put her finger to her lips and slipped out 
 of the door and drew him to the seat that had once 
 been a church pew, but was now doing duty as a 
 garden-seat under an apple tree in the side yard. On 
 Eliph s face was no longer the care-worn expression 
 of the rejected lover, but the full glow of confidence, 
 radiating from between his side-whiskers. 
 
 Mrs. Smith bent confidentially toward him, and laid 
 
B40 KILO 
 
 one hand on the copy of Jarby s, which he had placed 
 across his knees. In quick, crowding words she bade 
 him hope which wasn t necessary and told him of 
 the coming of Guthrie and Skinner, and of their de 
 mands. She laid before him all she knew of the affair 
 of the fire-extinguishers, of the horror of the threat 
 ened legal attack on Miss Sally, and the disgrace that 
 would overwhelm her should T. J. Jones publish an 
 article mentioning her name. Eliph Hewlitt must 
 prevent the publication of the article; he must save 
 Miss Sally. 
 
 The book agent was willing. As the appeal was 
 spoken his eyes brightened and the book agent in 
 stinct the instinct that knows no defeat, but will 
 talk a book into any man s library, or die in the at 
 tempt flowed full and free through his soul. Mrs. 
 Smith saw him take fire, and she ventured the question 
 she had been leading up to. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Hewlitt," she said, " I have sent for 
 Mr. Jones, and I will do what I can to persuade him 
 not to publish the article. I depend on you to do what 
 you can in that, too, but I am going to trespass on 
 your good nature in another thing also. It is some 
 thing I know Miss Sally would never allow me to ask, 
 and I myself would not ask it but that I happen to 
 be waiting for a check from my publisher, and am 
 
ACCORDING TO JARBY S 
 
 quite out of funds at the moment. I am going to ask 
 you to lend me sixty dollars ! Not for myself, but to 
 me. I believe Miss Sally would be willing to borrow 
 it of me, and I know, dear Mr. Hewlitt, you will be 
 willing to lend it to me." 
 
 Eliph coughed softly behind his hand. 
 
 " Gladly ! " he said. " Gladly or, i amount. I have 
 quite a little money laid away, quite a little; some 
 thousands, in fact ; I might be called a wealthy man 
 in Kilo. And it would be a pleasure, a real pleasure, 
 to spend all for Miss Sally. She is a fine woman, Mrs. 
 Smith. I admire her." 
 
 " I knew I could depend on yow" said Mrs. Smith, 
 putting her white hand on his scarcely less white one. 
 
 " But I can appreciate Miss Sally s ah maidenly 
 dislike, in fact, her quite proper dislike of a loan from 
 
 ah one who aspires In fact," he said, boldly 
 
 breaking away from all attempt to speak bookishly, 
 " from me. She don t want to borrow from me, and 
 it would be the same thing if you borrowed for her 
 from me. The same thing. I am courting Miss Sally, 
 and such a loan would be irregular. There is nothing, 
 Mrs. Smith, in the chapter on * Courtship How to 
 Win the Affections, et cetery, about loaning money 
 to the lady. It would derange the directions given in 
 this book, which is " 
 
242 KILO 
 
 " I don t want to hear about the book," said Mrs. 
 Smith with annoyance. " I know all about the book. 
 So you refuse to lend me sixty dollars? You, like 
 these other men, are willing to desert Miss Sally at a 
 time like this?" 
 
 " No," said the book agent. " Not desert. Rescue. 
 Rescue her from the hands of these these men. 
 Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compen 
 dium of Literature, Science and Art should be in 
 every home, in every store, in every office. To be with 
 out it is to be like a rudderless air ship tossed by the 
 waves of the relentless ocean. It contains a fact for 
 every day in the year, for every moment of life, any 
 one of which is worth the price of the book many 
 times over. This book," he said and then his eyes, 
 which had been gazing far into the sky over Miss 
 Sally s house, returned to the eyes of Mrs. Smith " I 
 am going to sell Mr. Skinner a copy of this book." 
 
 In spite of her disappointment in him Mrs. Smith, 
 the authoress, felt a thrill of pleasure in the discovery 
 of such an admirable type a book agent who could 
 see in the midst of love, courtship, conspiracy and 
 trouble only his book and a chance to sell it. But she 
 was deeply disappointed. 
 
 " Then you desert Miss Sally," she repeated sadly. 
 
 " Mrs. Smith," said Eliph , reaching into his pocket 
 
ACCORDING TO JARBY S 243 
 
 and laying a handful of thick greasy manila envelopes 
 in her lap, " these are my bank books. Six, containing 
 the sum of seventeen thousand four hundred and 
 eighty-two dollars and forty-six cents, and all this 
 I lay at Miss Sally s feet if I do not succeed in selling 
 a copy of Jarby s Encyclopedia this afternoon. If 
 sold, the matter is settled." 
 
 When Eliph reached the business part of Main 
 Street he turned into Skinner s butcher shop and 
 halted at the counter. The butcher was at work in 
 the back room, and he put his head out and, seeing 
 who had called, shook it. 
 
 " No books," he said shortly. " I never buy books. 
 I didn t buy them Sir Walter Scotts even. No 
 books." 
 
 Eliph coughed his deprecatory little cough and 
 walked behind the counter and to the door of the 
 back room. 
 
 " So I understood," he said. " I heard at Franklin 
 that you didn t buy books; it was mentioned to me 
 that I would be wasting my time in calling on you. 
 They said you was known all over the State as not 
 buying books, and many admired your self-restraint 
 in not buying. They said it was wonderful. That s 
 why I never called on you to buy. But I didn t come 
 
KILO 
 
 to sell you a book. I wanted to ask if you knew 
 William Rossiter?" 
 
 " William Rossiter ? " asked Skinner, perplexed, 
 coming out of the back room. " Who s William Ros 
 siter? " 
 
 Eliph laid his book on the chopping block. 
 
 " William Rossiter, agent," he said. " He was here 
 once. He was the man that stopped with Miss Sally 
 Briggs a while. I thought maybe you knew him. He s 
 dead. I thought maybe you d be interested to know 
 it." 
 
 A light dawned on the butcher. William Rossiter 
 must have been the man that left the lung-testers at 
 Miss Sally s. 
 
 " I m glad he s dead," he said. " I don t know any 
 body I d sooner have it happen to." 
 
 "Don t say that!" exclaimed Eliph . "If you 
 only knew how he died, poor young man, you wouldn t 
 say it. He burned to death." 
 
 " Well," said the butcher, " I don t know as I care 
 how he died. I can t say I m sorry. I guess he cost 
 me a hundred dollars. I ve got to go to law for it if 
 I ever want to see it again. I guess he deserved to 
 die, for the trouble he has made in this town." 
 
 Eliph placed his hand on the sample copy of 
 Jarby s. 
 
ACCORDING TO JARBY S 245 
 
 " I will tell you how he died," he said briskly. 
 
 " No, you won t," said Skinner angrily, waving his 
 hand toward the door; "you won t tell me nothin . 
 I ve heard of these stories of yours, I have. You want 
 to sell me one of them books, and you ll talk away at 
 me about this Rossiter feller, and the first thing I 
 know you ll have me down for a book. But you won t, 
 for if you don t get right out of that door I m goin 
 to put you out." 
 
 " All right," said Eliph cheerfully, picking up his 
 book, " if that s the way you feel about it I won t 
 take up your time telling you about Bill Rossiter. 
 Only I thought you d like to know how it happened 
 he was burned up in a theater when there was two 
 dozen as good fire-extinguishers, right at hand, as 
 there is in the world. But I won t intrude. I know 
 myself too well, and I know I might happen to get 
 to talking books before I thought. You see," he said, 
 as if apologizing for himself, " I can t forget how 
 this book saved my life, and might have saved the life 
 of Bill Rossiter, too, if he had had a copy, the price 
 being only five dollars, bound in cloth, one dollar down 
 and one dollar a month until paid." 
 
 " There," said Skinner, as if Eliph had offended 
 him, " you are talkin books right now, like I said 
 you would." 
 
246 KILO 
 
 "Was I?" asked Eliph . "And all I started out 
 to say was that I met Bill Rossiter in St. Louis just 
 after he had run away from here. He told me all 
 about it, and wept on my shoulder as he told me how 
 it pained him to have to skip that way. He said it 
 wasn t as if he could have left Miss Briggs anything 
 that she could use, but lung-testers ! He asked me 
 what a town like Kilo could do with lung-testers, and 
 he felt awful about it. Said he couldn t bear to look 
 at a lung-tester any more, they made him feel so 
 ashamed, and what made it all the worse was that he 
 had to look at them all day." 
 
 "I should think they would," said the butcher 
 Heartily. " It makes me sick to see them. But why did 
 he do it if he didn t like it? " 
 
 " I was just going to tell you that," said Eliph , 
 putting down his book again. " You see, when he left 
 here he went right to St. Louis, that being where his 
 home was, and that was how he happened to have 
 lung-testers with him when he was here. His father 
 made them. That was his father s business. He was 
 in the lung-tester manufacturing business. So when 
 Bill Rossiter left here he went right home to his 
 father, which was the wise thing to do." 
 
 " Went home to sponge on the old man, I sup 
 pose," said Skinner. 
 
ACCORDING TO JARBY S 
 
 " Just so," agreed Eliph , " and that was how I 
 happened to meet him. There was a man there in St. 
 Louis by the name of Hopper Darius Hopper and 
 he owned the Imperial Theater and Museum. He was 
 an old friend of mine, and I had sold him a copy of 
 Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compen 
 dium of Literature, Science and Art away back in 
 1874, and as soon as he heard I was stopping in St. 
 Louis he sent around to the hotel and begged me to 
 come around to the museum and give readings out of 
 Jarby s to the people that come into the museum. He 
 said that it would draw bigger crowds in a cultured 
 city like St. Louis than would come to see a two- 
 headed calf or a fat women s race, being a course of 
 readings that would instruct, entertain and please, 
 and he asked me to name my own price." 
 
 " I should call him a fool," said Skinner scornfully. 
 
 " He wasn t," said Eliph . " It took splendid. But 
 I wouldn t let him pay me a cent. I said I considered 
 it my sacred duty to make as many people as I could 
 love and know Jarby s, and that I was doing my best 
 to better the world that way, and was glad to do it 
 free gratis, because in a big place like St. Louis there 
 were many that could not afford even the small price 
 of one dollar down and one dollar a month, which is 
 all that is asked for this splendid volume, containing 
 
248 KILO 
 
 all the wisdom of the world, from the earliest days to 
 the present time, neatly bound in cloth, and I felt I 
 was helping the cause of progress by reading them a 
 few chapters. I began at page one," continued Eliph , 
 opening the book in his hands, " skipping the alle 
 gorical frontispiece in three colors, and the index in 
 which ten thousand " 
 
 " I thought you was goin to tell me about William 
 Rossiter," said the butcher suspiciously. 
 
 " So I am," said Eliph . " William Rossiter was on 
 the third floor of the Theater and Museum building, 
 for that was the job his father hunted up for him. 
 William was in charge of the penny-in-the-slot ma 
 chines of all kinds, a full description of which will be 
 found in this book under the head of Machines, Auto 
 matic, including a description of how made, how to 
 use, and how to repair. In fact, there is nothing in 
 the way of information, from how to tell the weight 
 of a baby by measuring its waist, to the age, size and 
 history of the immortal pyramids of Egypt, one of 
 the seven wonders of the world, that this book does 
 not contain. It interests alike the student and the 
 business man. And," he continued quickly as Skin 
 ner was about to interrupt him, " among the slot ma 
 chines of which William Rossiter had charge were 
 twenty-four lung-testers." 
 
ACCORDING TO JARBY S 249 
 
 "Twenty-four!" exclaimed Skinner. "Them St. 
 Louis folks must like to test their lungs ! " 
 
 " No," said Eliph , " they don t, and that is what 
 makes me feel so bad about William Rossiter. The St. 
 Louis people didn t care for lung-testers at all. They 
 crowded pennies into all the other machines, but they 
 would just go up to the lung-testers and sort of sniff 
 at them, and walk away without trying them. So there 
 those twenty-four lung-testers stood, useless to man 
 and beast, all in a row, doing nobody any good, and 
 there I was on the floor below reading out of a book 
 that would have told Bill Rossiter how to make those 
 lung-testers worth their weight in gold, and would 
 have saved his life. And to think he could have bought 
 this book for the small nominal sum of " 
 
 " You said that once," said Skinner. " Five dollars ; 
 one dollar down, and one dollar a month until paid." 
 
 " Bound in cloth," said Eliph . " Seven fifty if in 
 morocco leather. So at the very minute that the fire 
 broke out " 
 
 " Fire ! " said Skinner ; " what fire? You didn t say 
 anything about a fire." 
 
 " The fire in the theater and museum," said Eliph . 
 " It started right on the stairs between the second 
 and third floors, and the old building flared up like 
 dry paper. Two or three men that was trying the slot 
 
250 KILO 
 
 machines saw the smoke and run for the lung-testers, 
 thinking by the look they were fire-extinguishers, 
 which was the most natural mistake in the world. The 
 looks of them would fool anybody, but they were lung- 
 testers, and there that old building was, with twenty- 
 four lung-testers in it, and not one fire-extinguisher. 
 After that fire they passed an ordinance compelling 
 every theater to have four fire-extinguishers." 
 
 " And do they have them? " asked Skinner. 
 
 " Every first-class theater and opera house does, 
 all over the United States," said Eliph . " But the 
 odd thing was that at the very moment the fire broke 
 out I had this book open at page 416, Fire Its Tra 
 ditions How to Make a Fire Without Matches 
 Fire Fighting Fire Extinguishers, How Made. I 
 was reading to those people how to make a fire-ex 
 tinguisher at home out of common chemicals and any 
 suitable nickel-plated can, that would be as good as 
 the best sold in any store, and right as I read it I 
 thought how easy it would be for any man or child 
 to turn those twenty-four useless lung-testers on the 
 third floor into first-class fire-extinguishers, by fol 
 lowing the simple directions set down on page 418, 
 at a cost of only about twenty-six cents each " 
 
 Skinner held out his hand for the book. 
 
 " Let me have a look at that book," he said. 
 
ACCORDING TO JARBY S 251 
 
 Eliph picked up the book and tucked it under his 
 arm. 
 
 " And at that minute came the cry of Fire ! " 
 he said. " And I thought of poor Bill Rossiter up 
 there on the third floor, shut off from all hope of 
 rescue " 
 
 Skinner reached down to his cash drawer and pulled 
 it open. He took out a dollar bill and held it toward 
 Eliph . The book agent ignored it. 
 
 " Think of it," he said. " Bill Rossiter on the third 
 floor, burning up, and me on the floor below with this 
 book in my hand reading off of page 418 the names 
 of the simple ingredients that would " 
 
 " Mebby I might as well pay the whole five right 
 now," said Skinner, taking four more dollars out of 
 his drawer. " Could you leave that book with me? " 
 
 " I will, as a special favor," said Eliph . 
 
 " Well, say," said Skinner, " I ll be mortally obliged 
 to you if you will. It will take a mighty load off of 
 my mind." 
 
 And when Eliph left the butcher shop he had, for 
 the first time in his life, sold his sample copy. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 ANOTHER TRIAL 
 
 WHEN Eliph stepped out of the butcher shop he 
 saw T. J. Jones across the street, returning from his 
 interview with Mrs. Smith, and the book agent hailed 
 him and crossed the street. The editor wore a har 
 assed look as Eliph stepped up to him, and it deep 
 ened when Eliph asked him if he had acceded to Mrs. 
 Smith s request. 
 
 " Hewlitt," he said, " I couldn t do it. I wanted to, 
 but I couldn t. The man was willing but the editor 
 had to refuse. The press cannot sink the public wel 
 fare to favor individuals; once the freedom of the 
 press is lost the nation relapses into sodden corrup- 
 . tion. I told Mrs. Smith so. And besides, I have the 
 whole article in type, too. I like Mrs. Smith, and I 
 like Miss Sally, but the hissing cobra of corruption 
 must be crunched beneath the heel of a free and in 
 dependent press. The Times must do its duty, let 
 the chips fall where they may." 
 
 " The pen is mightier than the sword, page 233, 
 Apt Quotations for All Occasions," said Eliph , " this 
 
 2,52 
 
ANOTHER TRIAL 253 
 
 being but one of three thousand quotations, arranged 
 alphabetically according to subject, as Bird in the 
 hand, Bird of a feather, Bird killing two with 
 one stone, et cetery, including Leap look before 
 you leap, and Sure be sure you re right, then go 
 ahead. What do you mean to print? " 
 
 The editor told him all he had been able to gather 
 regarding the matter of the fire-extinguishers, and 
 as he talked Eliph saw the butcher leave his shop and 
 enter the drug store he was after chemicals. He 
 turned to the editor with fresh assurance. 
 
 " See page 88, Every Man his Own Lawyer, " he 
 said, " giving all that it is necessary for any man 
 to know regarding the laws of his native land, in 
 cluding laws of business, how to draw up legal 
 papers, what constitutes libel, et cetery. This one 
 division alone being worth the whole cost of the book, 
 showing among other things what a paper should 
 print and what it should not. Jarby s Encyclopedia 
 of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, 
 Science and Art is a marvelous work, including as 
 it does the chapter on * Fire Its Traditions How to 
 Make a Fire Without Matches Fire Fighting Fire 
 Extinguishers, How Made, et cetery, containing 
 directions by which man, woman or butcher can con 
 vert lung-testers into approved fire-extinguishers at 
 
254, KILO 
 
 a cost of only twenty-six cents. It is a good book. 
 I just sold Mr. Skinner one." 
 
 He watched the editor s face as the meaning of his 
 words dawned on it, and added: 
 
 " Miss Briggs has a copy, morocco binding, in 
 cluding among ten thousand and one subjects * What 
 Constitutes Libel. " 
 
 " Then those fire-extinguishers will be all right, 
 after all?" said the editor. "You want to look out 
 how you trifle with the press. The press never for 
 gives nor forgets." 
 
 " Those lung-testers, prepared according to 
 Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compend 
 ium of Literature, Science and Art, would put out 
 the flames of the fiery furnace prepared for Shadrach, 
 Meschach and Abednego, mentioned in Bible Tales, 
 Condensed and Put into Words of One Syllable for 
 Children, page 569, Jarby s Encyclopedia," said 
 Eliph airily. " They would satisfy an investigation 
 committee of imps, or other experts." 
 
 The editor thought for a minute and Eliph looked 
 at him and smiled, gently combing his whiskers with 
 his fingers. 
 
 " That s all right," said the editor. " That lets 
 Miss Sally out, and it may satisfy Skinner, but it 
 don t do away with the bribery. Mayor Stitz was 
 
ANOTHER TRIAL 255 
 
 bribed and he admits it. He says lie was, and he brags 
 about it. Guthrie bribed him, and I ve got enough 
 left to give Stitz and Guthrie a good shot. I ll leave 
 Skinner and Miss Briggs out, but I ll go for Stitz 
 and Guthrie. I ll show them that in Kilo the press is 
 alert, wide awake, and not to be trifled with. I ll 
 teach them a lesson." 
 
 "So do!" said Eliph . "And make Miss Sally 
 mad. And make Mrs. Smith mad. And make Miss 
 Susan mad. And me. So do, and have Toole tell 
 them that he did not want you to print it, and that 
 he went up and fought you to get you not to print 
 it. So do, and instead of having Miss Sally and Mrs. 
 Smith and me your friends, have us run you down to 
 Susan. Instead of having hit Toole by printing the 
 thing sooner than he wanted, as you did, print more, 
 and do him a favor. Make him a favorite at Miss 
 Sally s. So do, if you want to. Or have me go to 
 Miss Susan and say you will not relent but that there 
 is one chance that she shall plead with you herself." 
 
 He stepped back and looked at the hesitating 
 Jones. 
 
 " Jones," he said, " the way you are acting, the 
 way you hesitate, would tell anybody that you have 
 not a copy of Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge 
 and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, in 
 
256 KILO 
 
 your office. No man who has read that book would 
 lack wisdom, that work containing under one cover 
 all the wisdom in the world, price five dollars, two 
 dollars off to the press. Buy a copy and be sensible." 
 
 Jones looked far down the street toward his of 
 fice as if the matter he had there standing in the 
 galley was begging him not to desert it. 
 
 " Courtship How to Make Love How to Win 
 the Affections How to Hold Them When Won," 
 said Eliph . " See Jarby s giving advice to those in 
 love, those wishing to win the affections, et cetery. 
 * If the object of the affections can be placed in a 
 position where she will be compelled to ask a favor, 
 the granting of it, however slight, will advance the 
 cause of the eager suitor. 
 
 "I don t care!" said T. J. Jones suddenly. "I d 
 lose Skinner s ad if I printed that article, and he 
 pays cash." 
 
 " Mine too," said Eliph , " and I was just think 
 ing of doubling it. Jarby s deserves " 
 
 " That s all right," said the editor, with a sigh of 
 relief. " You needn t have Miss Susan come begging 
 me. Just tell her I gave up printing the article be 
 cause you said she wouldn t like it." 
 
 " Don t throw away a chance," urged Eliph , 
 putting a hand on the young man s arm. " Be wise. 
 
ANOTHER TRIAL 257 
 
 Do as Jarby s says. Be urged. I followed Jarby s 
 advice." 
 
 "Why are you are you, too?" asked T. J., 
 beaming upon him. 
 
 Eliph coughed behind his hand. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " Miss Briggs. I followed Jarby s 
 advice and won." 
 
 " Congratulations ! " said the editor. " Have it 
 your own way then. I ll be at Miss Sally s after 
 supper, if Sue wants to coax." 
 
 They parted, and as Eliph walked happily toward 
 his boarding house he did not realize that he had not 
 won, nor that his appeal had been rejected by Miss 
 Sally, for he had regained his faith in Jarby s and 
 if he had not yet won, he felt that he would, and that 
 was the same thing. 
 
 After his supper Eliph felt that the time had 
 come to arrange things with Miss Sally. There was 
 no longer any cause for delay. He had arranged 
 the matter of the fire-extinguishers; he had settled 
 the matter of the Times, and he felt that Skinner 
 and the Colonel must have hurt by their actions their 
 causes with Miss Sally. They had, indeed, far more 
 than Eliph guessed. He repaired to his room and 
 brushed his whiskers carefully. Never had he ap 
 peared smarter than when he went out of the gateless 
 
258 KILO 
 
 opening in Doc Weaver s fence, and turned his face 
 toward Miss Sally s home. 
 
 His way led him past the mayor s little car, where 
 Stitz was on his platform smoking an evening pipe. 
 The mayor halted him with a motion of his pipe stem. 
 
 " Mister Hewlitt," he said, " you know too that 
 joke, yes? About those lung-testers was not fire- 
 extinguishables? " 
 
 " That s all right," said Eliph , seeking to pass on, 
 " it is all fixed up now. They are fire-extinguishers." 
 
 " Such a fool business on Skinner," said the mayor 
 with enjoyment. "And on Stitz, too. I thinks me 
 I am the boss grafter, and I ain t! " 
 
 He chuckled. 
 
 " No o ! " he said cheerfully. But next times I 
 makes no more such fool mistakes ; I make me a real 
 boss grafter. I am now only a boss-fool, not boss 
 grafter. So says Attorney Toole. Money is grafts, 
 and houses and lots is grafts, and horses is grafts, 
 and buggies, but," and he paused impressively, 
 " apples isn t, and potatoes isn t, and peas isn t, and 
 chickens isn t. Nothing to eat is grafts. If it is to 
 eat it is not grafts. So says Attorney Toole. Things 
 to eat is no more grafts as lung-testers is fire-extin- 
 guishables. So says Toole. So nobody won t prose 
 cute me. I stick me to the mayor business yet a while. 
 
ANOTHER TRIAL 259 
 
 Klops on the head is nothings much ; all big men gets 
 them. So says Attorney Toole." 
 
 Skinner was locking his shop when Eliph passed, 
 and he stopped Eliph too. 
 
 " Works fine," he said. " I tried a tomato canful 
 on a bonfire in the back yard, and it put it out like 
 a wink. That s a great book; I m glad you spoke 
 about it. I wish you d told me about it sooner." 
 
 Miss Sally was not on the porch when Eliph ar 
 rived, for she was still in the kitchen at the supper 
 dishes, but Mrs. Smith and Susan were there, and 
 they greeted him eagerly. The little man smiled as 
 he walked up to them, and waved his hand in the air. 
 
 "You fixed it?" cried Mrs. Smith. "It is all 
 right now? " 
 
 " Fixed from A to Z," said Eliph , as he took a 
 seat on the porch step. " All right from the allegori 
 cal frontispiece in three colors to the back page. 
 Jarby s wins, and error don t. Miss Sally in ? " 
 
 He heard the click of the dishes as Miss Sally laid 
 them one by one on the kitchen table, so he knew well 
 she was in. 
 
 " It might relieve her mind if I told her," he 
 suggested, and Mrs. Smith smiled and said it 
 might. 
 
 " Go right in," she said, and Eliph did. 
 
260 KILO 
 
 He went into the hall and coughed gently behind 
 his hand, and Miss Sally looked up. She wiped her 
 hands hastily on her blue gingham apron, and came 
 into the hall. 
 
 " Jarby s fixed it," he said, and rapidly related 
 what he had done, with illustrations in the way of 
 quotations from the titles and sub-titles of Jarby s. 
 " When you have a moment to spare," he added, " I 
 would like to speak to you. I want to tell you some 
 thing about Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge 
 and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, a 
 copy of which I see lying on your parlor table, form 
 ing an adornment to the home both useful and 
 helpful." 
 
 " Well, I don t want no books," said Miss Sally. 
 " I ve got one copy, and that ought to be enough to 
 adorn any home. And I ve got to get these dishes 
 washed sometime. I ve let the fire go out, and the 
 water will be cold. If there s anything important 
 you want to say about that book, you can go out 
 and wait till I get the dishes done." 
 
 " It s about how to get the best use out of it," 
 said Eliph . " I ll go out and wait. It s something 
 everybody that has a copy ought to know." 
 
 He went out as she said, and found Susan alone 
 on the porch. Mrs. Smith was at the gate, and he 
 
ANOTHER TRIAL 261 
 
 could see her white dress in the evening darkness. 
 Susan sat with a knitted shawl about her shoulders, 
 for the evenings were already growing chill, so long 
 had Eliph s courtship lengthened out. He could not 
 have had a better opportunity to speak to Susan 
 alone, and he warned her of the " piece " T. J. had 
 threatened to publish in the morning, and of the dis 
 grace and sorrow it would bring to Miss Sally. The 
 girl listened eagerly and her indignation grew as he 
 went on, so that he had to veer, and expatiate on the 
 virtues of T. J. and the right of the modern press 
 to meddle in private affairs when it wants to. 
 
 "And can t anything be done?" asked Susan. 
 "Why don t somebody do something? I didn t 
 think Thomas was like that." 
 
 "He isn t," admitted Eliph heartily. "But he 
 needs coaxing. If you were to coax him he might 
 see how wrong he is. I shouldn t wonder if he would 
 come up here to-night, looking for me, being inter 
 ested in Jarby s Encyclopedia and anxious to get 
 a copy at the reduced price of two dollars off, 
 offered to the press only. If he does, try to move 
 him." 
 
 " I will," said Susan. " And if he publishes that 
 piece, I ll never speak to him again." 
 
 Eliph was still sitting there when T, J. came, and 
 
262 KILO 
 
 when Susan proposed a walk down to the corner he 
 
 knew that it would be all right with T. J. Jones. A 
 
 light coming suddenly over his shoulder from the 
 
 parlor behind him told him that Miss Sally was ready 
 
 to receive him, and he took his hat and went into the 
 
 house. 
 
 Miss Sally was sitting in the rocker with the cross- 
 stitch cover, and Eliph took a seat at the opposite 
 side of the center-table and lifted the morocco bound 
 copy of Jarby s from its place beside the shell box. 
 The kerosene lamp glowed between them, and he 
 drew closer to the table and laid the book gently on 
 his knees. Miss Sally sat straight upright in her 
 chair and looked at the little book agent. 
 
 " This book," he said, looking up at her with eyes 
 in which kindness and business mingled, " although 
 sold, in this handsome binding, for seven fifty, is 
 worth, to one who understands it, its weight in gold. 
 It holds a help for every hour and a hint for every 
 minute of the day. It furnishes wisdom for a lifetime. 
 I read it and study it ; for every difficulty of my life 
 it furnishes a solution. Corns? It tells how to cure 
 them. Food? It tells how to cook it. Love? It tells 
 how to make it. But," he said, laying his hand af 
 fectionately on the morocco cover, " to be understood 
 it must be read. To read it well is to admire and 
 
ANOTHER TRIAL 263 
 
 cherish it, and yet, only this morning I was about to 
 tear my copy of this priceless volume to pieces and 
 scatter it to the four winds of heaven." 
 
 He paused to let this awful fact sink into Miss 
 Sally s mind. 
 
 " Yes," he continued, " I was about to turn away 
 from the best friend I have in the world and declare 
 to one and all that Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowl 
 edge and Compendium of Literature, Science and 
 Art was a fraud! When I left your home yesterday 
 I was full of anger. I was mad at Jarby s Encyclo 
 pedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, 
 Science and Art. I had trusted to its words and 
 directions, as set forth in, Courtship How to Make 
 Love How to Win the Affections How to Hold 
 Them When Won, and you sent me away. I went 
 away a different man than I had come, and resolved 
 to go away from Kilo, and never to sell another copy 
 of this book. I resolved to take the sale of Hicks 
 Facts for the Million, a book, although greater in 
 cost, containing by actual count sixteen thousand 
 less words than this. 
 
 " I went to my room at Doc Weaver s," he con 
 tinued, " and seized my copy of this work from where 
 it lay on my bureau. I called it names. I told it it 
 was a cheat and a liar. Yes, Miss Sally, I let my 
 
264 KILO 
 
 angry passions rise against this poor, innocent book. 
 I believed it had advised me faLuy. I had trusted to 
 its words and had done as it said to do, and you had 
 sent me away, not in anger, but in sorrow, but just as 
 much away. I picked up the book and opened it, 
 grasping it in two hands to tear it asunder." 
 
 He opened the book and showed her how he had 
 grasped it. 
 
 " I pulled it to tear it in two," he said, raising the 
 book and pulling it in the direction of asunder, " but 
 it would not rip. It was bound too well, the copies 
 bound in cloth at five dollars, one dollar down and 
 one dollar a month until paid, being bound as firmly 
 as the more expensive copies at seven fifty. I pulled 
 harder and the book came level with my nose. I saw 
 it had opened at * Courtship How to Make Love, 
 and I said, c While I am getting my breath to give 
 this book another pull, why not read the lie that is 
 written here once more? It will give me strength to 
 rend it asunder. So I read it." 
 
 He looked at Miss Sally and saw that she was show 
 ing no signs of being bored. 
 
 " I held the book like this," he said, showing how 
 he held it, " and read. All that it said to do I had 
 done and my anger grew stronger, But I turned the 
 page ! I saw there words I had not seen before ; words 
 
ANOTHER TRIAL 
 
 that told me I had tried to tear my best friend to 
 pieces. I sank into a chair trembling like a leaf. I 
 felt like a man jerked back from the edge of Niagara 
 Falls, a full description and picture of that wonder 
 of nature being given in this book among other nat 
 ural masterpieces. I weakly lifted the book back 
 again and read those golden words." 
 
 "What was it?" asked Miss Sally, leaning for 
 ward. 
 
 " Courtship How to Make Love How to Win 
 the Affections How to Hold Them When Won. " 
 said Eliph , turning to the proper page. " And the 
 words I read were these : The lover should not be 
 utterly cast down if he be refused upon first appeal 
 ing for the dear one s hand. A first refusal often 
 means little or nothing. A lady frequently uses this 
 means to test the reality of the passion the lover has 
 professed, and in such a case a refusal is often a 
 most hopeful sign. Unless the refusal has been ac 
 companied by very evident signs of dislike, the lover 
 should try again. If at the third trial the fair one 
 still denies his suit, he had better seek elsewhere for 
 happiness, but until the third test he should not be 
 discouraged. The first refusal may be but the proof 
 of a finer mind than common in the lady. " 
 
 Eliph removed his spectacles and laid them care- 
 
266 KILO 
 
 fully in the pages of the book, which he closed and 
 placed gently on the center-table. 
 
 " Having read that," he said, " I saw that I had 
 done this work a wrong. I had read it hastily and 
 had missed the most important words. I felt the joy 
 of life returning to me. I remembered that you were 
 a lady of finer mind than common, and I understood 
 why you had refused me. I resolved to stay in Kilo 
 and justify Jarby s Encyclopedia of Knowledge and 
 Compendium of Literature, Science and Art by 
 giving it another trial. And now," he said, placing 
 his hand on the book where it lay on the table and 
 leaning forward to gaze more closely into Miss Sally s 
 face, while she faced him with quickened pulse, and a 
 blush, " now, I want to ask you again, will you put 
 
 your name down for a copy of this work " He 
 
 stopped, appalled at what he had said, and stared at 
 Miss Sally for one moment foolishly, while over her 
 face spread not a frown of anger or contempt, but a 
 pleasant smile of friendly amusement. 
 
 " Not the book," he said, " but me." 
 
 Miss Sally looked at the eager eyes that were not 
 only serious, but sincere and kind. 
 
 "Well, Mister Hewlitt," she said, "I guess I ll 
 have to marry someone some time so I might as well 
 marry you as anybody. But I don t think pa will 
 
ANOTHER TRIAL 267 
 
 ever give consent to havin a book agent in the family. 
 He hates book agents worse than I used to." 
 
 "You don t any more," said Eliph , putting his 
 hand very far across the table. 
 
 " Well, no, I don t," said Miss Sally graciously, 
 " not all of em." 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 PAP BRIGGS HEN FOOD 
 
 THE doubt that Miss Sally had expressed regard 
 ing Pap Briggs acceptance of Eliph Hewlitt as a 
 son-in-law was mild as compared with the fact. When 
 the old man returned the next day from his farm at 
 Clarence and learned from Miss Sally that she had 
 promised to marry the book agent he was furiously 
 angry. For two whole days he refused to wear his 
 store teeth at all, and when he recovered from his first 
 height of anger it was to settle down into a hard and 
 fast negative. He went about town telling anyone 
 that would listen to him that there ought to be licenses 
 against book agents, and once having made up his 
 mind that Miss Sally should not marry Eliph as 
 long as he remained alive to prevent it, not even the 
 friendly approaches of the book agent could move 
 him from his stubborn resolution. Miss Sally would 
 not think of marrying while her father was in such 
 a state of opposition, and indeed, Eliph did not urge 
 it. He had no desire to defy his father-in-law, and he 
 unwillingly but kindly agreed to wait. 
 
 268 
 
PAP BRIGGS HEN FOOD 269 
 
 In this way the autumn faded Into winter. Mrs. 
 Tarbro-Smith returned to New York with a note-book 
 full of dialect and a head full of local color and 
 types, and if she took Susan with her it was only be 
 cause she agreed to bring her back in June, when T. 
 J. Jones was to marry her. Miss Sally lived on with 
 her father, attending to his wants, which were few 
 and simple. An egg for breakfast, and enough to 
 bacco to burn all day were his chief earthly desires, 
 eggs because he could eat them in comfort, and to 
 bacco because he liked it. 
 
 When Miss Sally had moved to town there was one 
 thing she had said her father shouldn t do, after 
 living all his life on a farm, and that was, have store 
 eggs for his breakfast. 
 
 " Hens is trouble enough, Lord knows," said Miss 
 Sally, " an dirty, if they can t be kep in their place ; 
 but there s some comfort in their cluckin round, and 
 I guess I ll have plenty of time, and to spare, to tend 
 to em ; so, Pap, you won t have to eat no stale eggs 
 for breakfast, if I kin help it. They ain t nothin I 
 hate to think on like boughten eggs. Nobody knows 
 how old they are, nor who s been a-handlin them; 
 and eat boughten eggs you shan t do, sure s my 
 name s Briggs ! " 
 
 So Sally brought half a dozen hens and a gallant 
 
270 KILO 
 
 rooster to town with her, and supervised the erection 
 
 of a cozy coop and hen-yard, and Pap had the 
 
 comfort of knowing his eggs were fresh. But 
 
 fresh or not, it made no difference to him so long 
 
 as he had one each morning, and it was fairly 
 
 edible. 
 
 " These teeth o mine," he told Billings, the gro 
 cer, " cost twelve dollars down to Franklin, by the 
 best dentist there; but, law sakes! a feller can t eat 
 hard stuff with any comfort with em for fear of 
 breakin em every minute. They ain t nothin but 
 chiney, an you know how chiney s the breakiest thing 
 man ever made. That s why I say, 6 Give me eggs for 
 breakfast, Sally, and eggs I will have." 
 
 The six hens did their duty nobly during the sum 
 mer and autumn and a part of the winter, and Pap 
 had his egg unfailingly; but in December the long 
 cold spell came, and the six hens struck. It was the 
 longest and coldest spell ever known in Kilo, and it 
 hung on and hung on until the entire hen population 
 of Eastern Iowa became disgusted and went on a 
 strike. Eggs went up in price until even packed eggs 
 of the previous summer sold for twenty-seven and 
 thirty cents a dozen, and angel-cake became an im 
 possible dainty. 
 
 The second morning that Pap Briggs ate his egg- 
 
PAP BEIGGS HEN FOOD 271 
 less breakfast he suggested that perhaps Sally might 
 buy a few eggs at the grocery. 
 
 " Pap Briggs," she exclaimed reproachfully, " the 
 idee of you sayin sich a thing! As if I would cook 
 packed eggs ! No ; we ll wait, and mebby the hens will 
 begin layin again in a day or two." 
 
 But they did not, and the days became a week, and 
 two weeks, and still no eggs rewarded her daily search. 
 Pap knew better than to repeat his suggestion of 
 buying eggs, for Sally Briggs said a thing only 
 when she meant it, and to mention it again would only 
 exasperate her. 
 
 " Our hens don t lay a blame egg," Pap told Bill 
 ings complainingly, " and Sally won t buy eggs, and 
 I can t eat nothin but eggs for breakfast, so I reckon 
 I ll jist have to naturally starve to death." 
 
 "Why don t you try some of our hen-food? * 
 asked Billings, taking up a package and reading 
 from the label. " * Guaranteed to make hens lay in 
 all kinds of weather, the coldest as well as the warm 
 est. That s just what you want, Pap." 
 
 " Well," said Pap, " I been keepin hens off and 
 on for nigh forty year, and / ain t ever seen any o 
 the stuff that was ary good ; but I got to have eggs 
 or bust, so I ll take a can o that stuff. But I ain t no 
 hopes of it, Billings, I ain t no hopes." 
 
272 KILO 
 
 His pessimism was well founded. The cold spell 
 was too much even for the best hen-food to conquer. 
 No eggs rewarded him. 
 
 One evening he was sitting in Billings , smoking his 
 pipe and thinking. He had been thinking for some 
 time, and at length a sparkle came into his eyes, and 
 he knocked the ashes from his pipe and arose. 
 
 " Billings," he said, " mix me up about a nickel s 
 wuth o corn-meal, and a nickel s wuth o flour, 
 and " he hesitated a moment and then chuckled 
 " and a nickel s wuth o wash-blue." 
 
 " For heaven s sake, Pap," said Billings, " have 
 ye gone plumb crazy ? " 
 
 " No, I ain t," said Pap. " I ain t lost all my brains 
 yit, nor I ain t gone plumb crazy yit, neither. That s 
 a hen food I invented." 
 
 " Hen-food ! " exclaimed Billings. " You don t low 
 that will make hens lay, do you, Pap ? " 
 
 " I ain t advisin no one to use it that don t want 
 to," said Pap, " but I bet you I m a-goin to feed 
 that to my hens " ; and he chuckled again. 
 
 " Pap," said Billings, " you re up to some be-devil- 
 ment, sure ! What is it ? " 
 
 " You jist keep your hand on your watch till you 
 find out," answered Pap, and he took his package and 
 went home. 
 
PAP BRIGGS HEN FOOD 273 
 
 " Sally," he said when he entered the house, " I got 
 some hen-food now that s bound to make them hens 
 lay, sure." 
 
 She took the package and opened it. 
 
 " For law s sake, Pap," she said, " what kind o 
 hen-food is this? It s blue! " 
 
 " Yes," said Pap, looking at it closely, " it is blue, 
 ain t it? It s a mixture of my own. I ain t been 
 raisin hens off an on fer forty year for nothin . 
 You got to study the hen, Sally, and think about 
 her. Why don t a hen lay in cold weather? Cause 
 the weather makes the hen cold. This will make her 
 warm. You jist try it. Give em a spoonful apiece, 
 an I reckon they ll lay. It don t look like much, 
 but I bet you anything it ll make them hens lay." 
 
 " I don t believe it," she snapped, " and I ll hold 
 you to that bet, sure s my name s Briggs." But the 
 next day she gave them the allotted portion. 
 
 That evening when Pap Briggs knocked the ashes 
 from his pipe and rose from his seat in Billings store, 
 he said, " Billings, have you got some mainly fresh 
 e gg s e gg s y u kin recommend? " 
 
 " Yes, I have," said Billings, with a grin. " So 
 your hen-food don t work, Pap ? " 
 
 Pap chuckled. 
 
 " It s a-workin," he said, " and you can give me 
 
274 K I L O 
 
 a dozen o them eggs. And, say, you needn t tell 
 
 Sally." 
 
 Billings laughed. " I m on," he said. 
 
 Pap put the bag of eggs back of the cracker-box, 
 and put three of them in his pocket. 
 
 When he reached home he quietly slipped around 
 the house and deposited the three eggs in three nests, 
 and went in. 
 
 The next morning Sally greeted him with a smile. 
 " Eggs this mornin , Pap," she said. " That hen-food 
 did work like a charm. I got three eggs." 
 
 Pap ate without comment until he had finished the 
 second egg. He felt that he could eat a dozen, after 
 his long fast. 
 
 " It do seem good to have eggs agin," he said. 
 
 That evening, and the next evening he deposited 
 three eggs as before. On the third morning Sally said : 
 " It s queer about them hens, Pap ; they lay, but they 
 don t cluck like a hen generally does when she lays 
 an egg." 
 
 Pap hesitated for a moment. 
 
 " It s sich cold weather," he said, " I reckon that s 
 why." 
 
 About a week later Sally said : " I do declare to 
 gracious, Pap, them hens do puzzle me." 
 
 Pap moved uneasily in his seat. 
 
PAP BRIGGS HEN FOOD 275 
 
 " They do puzzle me ! " repeated Sally. " Here 
 they are layin right along as reg lar as summer-time, 
 and never cluckin or lettin on a bit, and the queerest 
 thing is they jist lay three eggs every day. It don t 
 seem natural ! " 
 
 That night Pap put four eggs in the nests. The 
 next night he put in five, and the next night three, 
 and the danger into which his wiles had fallen was 
 averted. 
 
 One morning Sally startled him by saying : " Pap, 
 I can t make them hens out. Here they are a-layin 
 right along, and all at once they quit layin decent 
 sized eggs like they ought, and begin layin little 
 mean things no bigger than banty eggs." 
 
 Pap scratched his head. 
 
 " You must allow, Sally," he said, " that it s quite 
 a strain on a hen to keep a-layin right along through 
 such weather as this, and I m only thankful they lay 
 any. Mebby if you give them a leetle more o that 
 hen-food they ll do better." 
 
 " I believe it," said Sally. " Why, it s wonderful, 
 Pap. I shouldn t be a bit surprised to find em layin 
 duck eggs if I jist give em enough o that stuff." 
 
 Pap looked closely at her face, but it was innocent 
 of guile. She suspected nothing. 
 
 The next day the eggs were of the proper size. 
 
276 KILO 
 
 " It s a real blessin to have hens a-layin ," she said 
 one day. " I took half a dozen over to the minister s 
 wife this mornin , and she was so pleased! She said 
 it was sich a blessin to have fresh eggs again. She 
 was gittin so sick o them she s been buyin at Bil 
 lings . She was downright thankful." 
 
 About a week later she said : 
 
 " Them hens of ourn do beat all creation. I run 
 out o that hen-food a week ago, and I hain t give 
 them a mite since, and they keep on a-layin jist the 
 same. I can t make head nor tail of them. Pap." 
 
 Pap squirmed in his chair. 
 
 " Pshaw, now, Sally," he said, " you d ought to 
 have let me know you was out. You oughtn t to do 
 that. Feed em plenty of it. They deserve it. If you 
 stop feedin them they ll stop layin pretty soon. The 
 effect of that hen-food don t last more n two weeks. 
 No," he said thoughtfully, " ten days is the longest 
 I ever knowed it to last on em." 
 
 If Pap Briggs enjoyed his eggs for breakfast he 
 en j oyed as fully the many laughs he had with Billings 
 over the scheme, and Billings found it hard to keep 
 his promised secrecy. It would be such a good story 
 to tell. But Pap exhorted him daily, and he did not 
 let the secret out. 
 
 One Sunday morning Pap came down to his break- 
 
PAP BRIGGS HEN FOOD 277 
 fast and took his seat. Sally brought his coffee and 
 bacon. Then she brought him a plate of moistened 
 toast. 
 
 " You ve forgot the eggs, Sally," said Pap ad- 
 monishingly. 
 
 " They ain t none this morning," said Sally briefly. 
 
 Pap looked up and saw that her mouth was set very 
 firmly. 
 
 " No eggs ? " he asked tremulously. 
 
 " No," she said decidedly, " no eggs ! I kin believe 
 that hens lay eggs and don t cluck, and I kin believe 
 that hens lay eggs all winter, and I kin believe that 
 Plymouth Rock hens lay Leghorn eggs and Shanghai 
 eggs and Banty eggs, Pap, but when hens begin 
 layin spoiled eggs I ain t no more faith in hens." 
 
 Pap laid down his knife and fork. 
 
 " Spoiled eggs ! " he ej aculated. 
 
 " Yes, spoiled eggs," she declared. " You and Bil 
 lings ought to be more careful." 
 
 Pap turned his bacon over and eyed it critically. 
 Then he frowned at it. Then he chuckled. 
 
 " You needn t laugh," said Miss Sally severely. 
 " You don t get no more eggs until the hens begin 
 layin regular. You can eat moistened toast. You 
 ain t fair to me, pa. You set up to say who I shall 
 marry, when I m old enough to know for myself, and 
 
278 KILO 
 
 then you go and cheat me about eggs. Mebby I ain t 
 old enough to know who to marry, but I m old enough 
 to run this house for you, and you don t get no more 
 eggs. No more eggs until spring, or until I can 
 marry who I want to." 
 
 Pap looked at the mushy piece of toast and grinned 
 sheepishly. 
 
 " You d be worse off n ever, Sally," he said 
 meekly, " if so be you married a man thet felt he 
 had to hev eggs every morning. They d be two of 
 us then." 
 
 " Well, I d just have to buy eggs then," she said, 
 " if that come to pass. I couldn t expect these few 
 hens to lay enough eggs in winter for two men. If I 
 had to buy eggs for a husband, I d buy them." 
 
 The old man ate his toast slowly and without relish. 
 
 " Sally," he said that afternoon, " I guess mebby 
 you d better git married. I m gittin old. You d 
 better marry that book agent whilst you ve got a 
 chance." 
 
 It was Pap Briggs who urged an early date, after 
 that, and who was most joyous at the wedding. 
 
 " Pap," asked Sally one morning soon after she 
 and Eliph were married, while the three were sitting 
 at breakfast, " what ever made you swing round so 
 
PAP BRIGGS HEN FOOD 279 
 
 sudden and want me to marry Eliph , after objectin 
 so long? " 
 
 Her father looked at Eliph slyly and chuckled. 
 
 " Eggs," he said. " I fooled you that time, Sally. 
 I knowed when I said to go ahead that Eliph had to 
 have eggs for breakfast. Doc Weaver told me so." 
 
 THE END 
 
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