I could qualify as earnest mourner at any
death-bed merrymakin' now, I reckon."
"You need some books to teach you how to live, not how to
die," I said. "How about your wife--wouldn't she enjoy a good
book? How about some fairy tales for the children?"
"Bless me," he said, "I ain't got a wife. I never was a
daring man, and I guess I'll confine my melancholy pleasures
to them funereal orators for some time yet."
"Well, now, hold on a minute!" I exclaimed. "I've got just
the thing for you." I had been looking over the shelves with
some care, and remembered seeing a copy of "Reveries of a
Bachelor." I clambered down, raised the flap of the van (it
gave me quite a thrill to do it myself for the first time),
and hunted out the book. I looked inside the cover and saw
the letters _n m_ in Mifflin's neat hand.
"Here you are," I said. "I'll sell you that for thirty cents."
"Thank you kindly, ma'am," he said courteously. "But honestly
I wouldn't know what to do with it. I am working through a
government report on scabworm and fungus, and I sandwich in a
little of them funereal speeches with it, and honestly that's
about all the readin' I figure on. That an' the Port Vigor _Clarion_.
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