He was soaked and shivering when he went into the house himself, carrying a package of books under his arm. Doc Bingham was sitting large as life in a rocking chair in front of the kitchen stove. Beside him on the wellscrubbed deal table was a piece of pie and a cup of coffee. The kitchen had a warm cosy smell of apples and bacon grease and lamps. The old woman was leaning over the kitchen table listening intently to what Doc Bingham was saying. Another woman, a big scrawny woman with her scant sandy hair done up in a screw on top of her head, stood in the background with her red-knuckled hands on her hips. A black and white cat, back arched and tail in the air, was rubbing against Doc Bingham’s legs.
“Ah, Fenian, just in time,” he began in a voice that purred like the cat, “I was just telling… relating to your kind hostesses the contents of our very interesting and educational library, the prime of the world’s devotional and inspirational literature. They have been so kind to us during our little misfortune with the weather that I thought it would be only fair to let them see a few of our titles.”
The big woman was twisting her apron. “I like a mite o’ readin’ fine,” she said, shyly, “but I don’t git much chanct for it, not till wintertime.”
Benignly smiling, Doc Bingham untied the string and pulled the package open on his knees. A booklet dropped to the floor. Fainy saw that it was The Queen of the White Slaves. A shade of sourness went over Doc Bingham’s face. He put his foot on the dropped book. “These are Gospel Talks, my boy,” he said. “I wanted Doctor Spikenard’s Short Sermons for All Occasions.” He handed the halfopen package to Fainy, who snatched it to him. Then he stooped and picked the book up from under his foot with a slow sweeping gesture of the hand and slipped it in his pocket. “I suppose I’ll have to go find them myself,” he went on in his purringest voice. When the kitchen door closed behind them he snarled in Fainy’s ear, “Under the seat, you little rat… If you play a trick like that again I’ll break every goddam bone in your body.” And he brought his knee up so hard into the seat of Fainy’s pants that his teeth clacked together and he shot out into the rain towards the barn. “Honest, I didn’t do it on purpose,” Fainy whined. But Doc Bingham was already back in the house and his voice was burbling comfortably out into the rainy dusk with the first streak of lamplight.
This time Fainy was careful to open the package before he brought it in. Doc Bingham took the books out of his hand without looking at him and Fainy went round behind the stovepipe. He stood there in the soggy steam of his clothes listening to Doc Bingham boom. He was hungry, but nobody seemed to think of offering him a piece of pie.
“Ah, my dear friends, how can I tell 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 will be consoling, interesting and inspirational to all 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 sudden 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 genially 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, “allow 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 gullet and the bright dime out of the old tobaccobox in the cupboard 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, which immediately opened. A heavyset grayhaired man with a small 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 all 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. “Well, 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 themselves 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 full of the smell 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.
“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 deplorable licentiousness of life in the big cities, ranging from a dollar to five dollars. The Complete Sexology of Dr. Burnside, is six fifty.”
“I couldn’t go higher’n a dollar… Say, you won’t tell the ole man on me?” the young man said, turning from one to another. “Seth Hardwick, he lives down the road, he went into Saginaw onct an’ got a book from a man at the hotel. Gosh, it was a pippin.” He tittered uneasily.
“Fenian, go down and get him The Queen of the White Slaves for a dollar,” said Doc Bingham, and settled back to sleep.