A sudden suspicion struck me.

“You’re not another publisher, are you?” I cried.  “What do you want with Andrew?”

“I was wondering whether he wouldn’t buy this outfit,” said the little man, including, with a wave of the hand, both van and white horse.  As he spoke he released a hook somewhere, and raised the whole side of his wagon like a flap.  Some kind of catch clicked, the flap remained up like a roof, displaying nothing but books—­rows and rows of them.  The flank of his van was nothing but a big bookcase.  Shelves stood above shelves, all of them full of books—­both old and new.  As I stood gazing, he pulled out a printed card from somewhere and gave it to me: 

  Roger Mifflin’s
  travelling Parnassus

  Worthy friends, my wain doth hold
  Many a book, both new and old;
  Books, the truest friends of man,
  Fill this rolling caravan. 
  Books to satisfy all uses,
  Golden lyrics of the Muses,
  Books on cookery and farming,
  Novels passionate and charming,
  Every kind for every need
  So that he who buys may read. 
  What librarian can surpass us?

  Mifflin’s travelling Parnassus

  By R. Mifflin, Prop’r.

  Star Job Print, Celeryville, Va.

While I was chuckling over this, he had raised a similar flap on the other side of the Parnassus which revealed still more shelves loaded with books.

I’m afraid I am severely practical by nature.

“Well!” I said, “I should think you would need a pretty stout steed to lug that load along.  It must weigh more than a coal wagon.”

“Oh, Peg can manage it all right,” he said.  “We don’t travel very fast.  But look here, I want to sell out.  Do you suppose your husband would buy the outfit—­Parnassus, Pegasus, and all?  He’s fond of books, isn’t he?

“Hold on a minute!” I said.  “Andrew’s my brother, not my husband, and he’s altogether too fond of books.  Books’ll be the ruin of this farm pretty soon.  He’s mooning about over his books like a sitting hen about half the time, when he ought to be mending harness.  Lord, if he saw this wagonload of yours he’d be unsettled for a week.  I have to stop the postman down the road and take all the publishers’ catalogues out of the mail so that Andrew don’t see ’em.  I’m mighty glad he’s not here just now, I can tell you!”

I’m not literary, as I said before, but I’m human enough to like a good book, and my eye was running along those shelves of his as I spoke.  He certainly had a pretty miscellaneous collection.  I noticed poetry, essays, novels, cook books, juveniles, school books, Bibles, and what not—­all jumbled together.