Free Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley

chocolate cake. It was a regular meal. I wondered what Andrew
was eating and whether he had found the nest behind the wood pile
where the red hen always drops her eggs.
    "Well, well," said Mr. Pratt, "tell us about the Perfessor. We was
expectin' him here some time this fall. He generally gets here
around cider time."
    "I guess there isn't so much to tell," I said. "He stopped up at our
place the other day, and said he wanted to sell his outfit. So I
bought him out. He was pining to get back to Brooklyn and write a
book."
    "That book o' his!" said Mrs. Pratt. "He was always talkin' on it,
but I don't believe he ever started it yet."
    "Whereabout do you come from, Miss McGill?" said Pratt. I could see
he was mighty puzzled at a woman driving a vanload of books around
the country, alone.
    "Over toward Redfield," I said.
    "You any kin to that writer that lives up that way?"
    "You mean Andrew McGill?" I said. "He's my brother."
    "Do tell!" exclaimed Mrs. Pratt. "Why the Perfessor thought a
terrible lot of him. He read us all to sleep with one of his books
one night. Said he was the best literature in this State, I do
believe."
    I smiled to myself as I thought of the set-to on the road from
Shelby.
    "Well," said Pratt, "if the Perfessor's got any better friends
than us in these parts, I'm glad to meet 'em. He come here first
time 'bout four years ago. I was up working in the hayfield that
afternoon, and I heard a shout down by the mill pond. I looked over
that way and saw a couple o' kids waving their arms and screamin'.
I ran down the hill and there was the Perfessor just a pullin' my
boy Dick out o' the water. Dick's this one over here."
    Dick, a small boy of thirteen or so, grew red under his freckles.
    "The kids had been foolin' around on a raft there, an' first thing
you know Dick fell in, right into deep water, over by the dam.
Couldn't swim a stroke, neither. And the Perfessor, who jest
happened to be comin' along in that 'bus of his, heard the boys
yell. Didn't he hop out o' the wagon as spry as a chimpanzee, skin
over the fence, an' jump into the pond, swim out there an' tow the
boy in! Yes, ma'am, he saved that boy's life then an' no mistake.
That man can read me to sleep with poetry any night he has a mind
to. He's a plumb fine little firecracker, the Perfessor."
    Farmer Pratt pulled hard on his pipe. Evidently his friendship for
the wandering bookseller was one of the realities of his life.
    "Yes, ma'am," he went on, "that Perfessor has been a good friend to
me, sure enough. We brought him an' the boy back to the house. The
boy had gone down three times an' the Perfessor had to dive to find
him. They were both purty well all in, an' I tell you I was scared.
But we got Dick around somehow—rolled him on a sugar bar'l, an'
poured whiskey in him, an' worked his arms, an' put him in hot
blankets. By and by he come to. An' then I found that the Perfessor,
gettin' over the barb-wire fence so quick (when he lit for the pond)
had torn a hole in his leg you could put four fingers in. There was
his trouser all stiff with blood, an' he not sayin' a thing.
Pluckiest little runt in three States, by Judas! Well, we put
him
to bed, too, and then the Missus keeled over, an' we put
her
to
bed. Three of them, by time the Doc got here. Great old summer
afternoon that was! But bless your heart, we couldn't keep the
Perfessor abed long. Next day he was out lookin' fer his poetry
books, an' first thing you know he had us all rounded up an' was
preachin' good literature at us like any evangelist. I guess we all
fell asleep over his poetry, so then he started on readin' that
'Treasure Island' story to us, wasn't it, Mother? By hickory, we
none of us fell asleep over that. He started the kids readin' so
they been at it ever since, and Dick's top boy at school now.
Teacher says she never saw such a boy for readin'. That's what
Perfessor done for us! Well, tell us 'bout yerself, Miss McGill. Is
there any good books we ought to read? I used to