Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley Read Free Book Online Page B

friend."
    "Morning to you, ma'am," he said firmly.
    "I'm selling books," I said. "I wonder if there isn't something you
need?"
    "Thanks, lady," he said, "but I bought a mort o' books last year an'
I don't believe I'll ever read 'em this side Jordan. A whole set o'
'Funereal Orations' what an agent left on me at a dollar a month. 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."
    I saw that he really meant it, so I climbed back on the seat. I
would have liked to talk to the woman in the kitchen who was peering
out of the window in amazement, but I decided it would be better to
jog on and not waste time. The farmer and I exchanged friendly
salutes, and Parnassus rumbled on.
    The morning was so lovely that I did not feel talkative, and as the
Professor seemed pensive I said nothing. But as Peg plodded slowly
up a gentle slope he suddenly pulled a book out of his pocket and
began to read aloud. I was watching the river, and did not turn
round, but listened carefully:
    "Rolling cloud, volleying wind, and wheeling sun—the blue
tabernacle of sky, the circle of the seasons, the sparkling
multitude of the stars—all these are surely part of one rhythmic,
mystic whole. Everywhere, as we go about our small business, we
must discern the fingerprints of the gigantic plan, the orderly and
inexorable routine with neither beginning nor end, in which death
is but a preface to another birth, and birth the certain forerunner
of another death. We human beings are as powerless to conceive the
motive or the moral of it all as the dog is powerless to understand
the reasoning in his master's mind. He sees the master's acts,
benevolent or malevolent, and wags his tail. But the master's acts
are always inscrutable to him. And so with us.
    "And therefore, brethren, let us take the road with a light heart.
Let us praise the bronze of the leaves and the crash of the surf
while we have eyes to see and ears to hear. An honest amazement at
the unspeakable beauties of the world is a comely posture for the
scholar. Let us all be scholars under Mother Nature's eye.
    "How do you like that?" he asked.
    "A little heavy, but very good," I said. "There's nothing in it
about the transcendent mystery of baking bread!"
    He looked rather blank.
    "Do you know who wrote it?" he asked.
    I made a valiant effort to summon some of my governessly
recollections of literature.
    "I give it up," I said feebly. "Is it Carlyle?"
    "That is by Andrew McGill," he said. "One of his cosmic passages
which are now beginning to be reprinted in schoolbooks. The blighter
writes well."
    I began to be uneasy lest I should be put through a literary
catechism, so I said nothing, but roused Peg into an amble. To tell
the truth I was more curious to hear the Professor talk about his
own book than about Andrew's. I had always carefully refrained from
reading Andrew's stuff,