U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [20]
hungry, but nobody seemed to think of offering him a piece of pie.
-45-"Ah, my dear friends, how can I tel you with what gratitude to the Great Giver a lonely minister of the gospel of light, wandering among the tares and troubles of this world, finds ready listeners. I'm sure that these little books wil be consoling, interesting and inspirational to al that undertake the slight effort of perusal. I feel this so strongly that I always carry a few extra copies with me to dispose of for a moderate sum. It breaks my heart that I can't yet give them away free gratis."
"How much are they?" asked the old woman, a sud-den sharpness coming over her features. The scrawny woman let her arms drop to her side and shook her head.
"Do you remember, Fenian," asked Doc Bingham, leaning genial y back in his chair,
"what the cost price of these little booklets was?" Fainy was sore. He didn't answer.
"Come here, Fenian," said Doc Bingham in honied tones, "al ow me to remind you of the words of the immortal bard:
Lowliness is your ambition's ladder
Whereto the climber upward turns his face
But when he once attains the topmost round
He then unto the ladder turns his back
"You must be hungry. You can eat my pie."
"I reckon we can find the boy a piece of pie," said the old woman.
"Ain't they ten cents?" said Fainy, coming forward.
"Oh, if they're only ten cents I think I'd like one," said the old woman quickly. The scrawny woman started to say something, but it was too late.
The pie had hardly disappeared into Fainy's gul et and the bright dime out of the old The pie had hardly disappeared into Fainy's gul et and the bright dime out of the old tobaccobox in the cup-board into Doc Bingham's vest pocket when there was a sound of clinking harness and the glint of a buggylamp through the rainy dark outside the window. The old
woman got to her feet and looked nervously at the door,
-46-which immediately opened. A heavyset giayhaired man. with a smal goatee sprouting out of a round red face came in, shaking the rain off the flaps of his coat. After him came a skinny lad about Fainy's age.
"How do you do, sir; how do you do, son?" boomed Doc Bingham through the last of his pie and coffee.
"They asked if they could put their horse in the barn until it should stop rainin'. It's al right, ain't it, James?" asked the old woman nervously. "I reckon so," said the older man, sitting down heavily in the free chair. The old woman had hidden the pamphlet in the drawer of the
kitchen table. "Travelin' in books, I gather." He stared hard at the open package of pamphlets. "Wel , we don't need any of that trash here, but you're welcome to stay the night in the barn. This is no night to throw a human being out inter." So they unhitched the horse and made beds for them-selves in the hay over the cowstable. Before they left the house the older man made them give up their matches.
"Where there's matches there's danger of fire," he said. Doc Bingham's face was black as thunder as he wrapped himself in a horseblanket, muttering about "indignity to a wearer of the cloth." Fainy was excited and happy. He lay on his back listening to the beat of the rain on the roof and its gurgle in the gutters, and the muffled stirring and chomping of the cattle and horse, under them; his nose was ful of the smel of the hay and the warm
meadowsweetness of the cows. He wasn't sleepy. He
wished he had someone his own age to talk to. Anyway, it was a job and he was on the road.
He had barely got to sleep when a light woke him.
The boy he'd seen in the kitchen was standing over him with a lantern. His shadow hovered over them enormous against the rafters.
"Say, I wanner buy a book."
"What kind of a book?"
Fainy yawned and sat up.
-47-"You know . . . one o' them books about chorus girls an' white slaves an' stuff like that."
"How much do you want to pay, son? " came Doc Bingham's voice from under the horseblanket. "We have a number of very interesting books stating the facts of life frankly and freely, describing the