First time I went there I
sold him `Treasure Island,' and he's talking about it yet. I
sold him `Robinson Crusoe,' and `Little Women' for his
daughter, and `Huck Finn,' and Grubb's book about `The
Potato.' Last time I was there he wanted some Shakespeare, but
I wouldn't give it to him. I didn't think he was up to it yet."
I began to see something of the little man's idealism in his
work. He was a kind of traveling missionary in his way. A
hefty talker, too. His eyes were twinkling now and I could
see him warming up.
"Lord!" he said, "when you sell a man a book you don't sell
him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue--you sell him
a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at
sea by night--there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real
book I mean. Jiminy! If I were the baker or the butcher or
the broom huckster, people would run to the gate when I came
by--just waiting for my stuff. And here I go loaded with
everlasting salvation--yes, ma'am, salvation for their little,
stunted minds--and it's hard to make 'em see it. That's what
makes it worth while--I'm doing something that nobody else
from Nazareth, Maine, to Walla Walla, Washington, has ever
thought of.
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